Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, there will be time for questions. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to our host, Carolyn Micheli. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Don. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for a discussion of The E.W. Scripps Company's financial results and business strategies. You can visit scripps.com for more information and a link to the replay of this call. A reminder that our conference call and webcast include forward-looking statements and actual results may differ. Factors that may cause them to differ are outlined in our SEC filings. We do not intend to update any forward-looking statements we make today. Included on this call will be a discussion of certain non-GAAP financial measures that are provided as supplements to assist management and the public in their analysis and valuation of the company. These metrics are not formulated in accordance with GAAP and are not meant to replace GAAP financial measures and may differ from other companies' uses or formulations. Included in our earnings release are the reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the GAAP measures reported in our financial statements. We'll hear this morning from Scripps' President and CEO, Adam Symson; Chief Financial Officer, Jason Combs; and Scripps' Chief Operating Officer, Lisa Knutson. Here's Adam.

Good morning, everybody. We're pleased today to be reporting third quarter financial results across the company that met or exceeded expectations. Our local ad sales teams executed at a high level despite a soft advertising marketplace. On the network side, Connected TV revenue growth continues to be a bright spot, while the direct response and general market sales teams held their own. In addition, careful expense management supported by the continued pursuit of a more efficient cost structure led to a stronger-than-expected segment profit number. Alongside the rest of the advertising industry, we do face further macroeconomic headwinds as we wind down this year. As you know, the national advertising upfront season was weak across the industry. But as we head into the fourth quarter, we have seen some green shoots in the scatter market. Local Media core advertising is coming into the quarter strong with our four top categories up year-over-year. Jason and Lisa will give more color on the full advertising environment in just a moment. Despite the macroeconomic conditions that we are all contending with, I really like the Scripps set up for free cash flow growth over the year ahead and here's why. Number one, we have a robust new run rate for local media distribution dollars; number two, our local core and distribution revenue and national advertising revenue will benefit from continued disciplined expansion into sports rights, fueling organic growth; three, we are educating audiences about the appeal of free TV and making it easier than ever for people to watch it and for us to profit from it; fourth, we project double-digit growth in our networks connected TV advertising revenue; and fifth, we will benefit from the high-margin political ad revenue that broadcasters get as the primary beneficiaries of political ad spending, projected now…

Good morning, everyone. For the third quarter, we reported financial results that all met or exceeded the expectations we set in August, with another significant beat on company segment profit as we had in Q2. Our segment profit over performance was driven by stronger-than-expected advertising revenue from Local Media core and in the Scripps Networks segment, as well as continued expense management. For the third quarter Scripps Networks revenue was $215 million exceeding our guidance because of better-than-expected connected TV and direct response revenue. Networks connected TV revenue was up 75% from Q3 of 2022, if you back out the impact of our low-margin programmatic product which we began to sunset in Q2. Scripps Networks segment expenses were $166 million up only about 1% from the prior year quarter. Segment profit in Networks was about $50 million. In our Local Media division, total revenue was down 7%, from the prior year quarter, mainly due to the absence of the election year political advertising revenue. Local core advertising revenue was down about 3% from the prior year period. Local Media Distribution revenue was up 20% to $198 million fueled by renewals in our cable and satellite agreements. We have now completed the renewals for all 75% of the subscriber houses that were up this year and we are very pleased with the results. Local Media expenses were flat to the prior year quarter. Local Media segment profit was $75 million. In the segment labeled, Other we reported a third quarter loss of $6.3 million. Shared services and corporate expenses were $21 million. The loss attributable to shareholders of Scripps was $16 million or $0.19 per share. Restructuring costs for the quarter accounted for $0.04 of the per share loss. We announced in January, a company-wide reorganization and the restructuring costs are…

Thanks, Jason and good morning, ,everyone. I'd like to start this morning with some color on how fourth quarter is shaping up. Then I'll give an update on our ongoing restructuring work. In Local Media, core advertising categories we're seeing positive trends coming out of October. Services was up 9%. Auto was up 10%. And if Q4 ends in positive territory it would be the sixth consecutive quarter of auto growth. Home Improvement, our third largest category in Q4, so far was up 13% in October and retail was up 2%. We're also seeing good news in political advertising. The third quarter revenue of $9 million was higher than in Q3 of the past two off-cycle election years. We now expect to reach at least $30 million in political ad revenue this year. We're also optimistic about the large projected spending levels for next year's presidential election since local broadcasters continue to capture the lion's share of those dollars. Turning to the Networks division. Our third quarter Connected TV and direct response revenue bolstered our results enough to beat guidance by two percentage points. Ion, Ion Mystery, Bounce, and Core TV in particular outperformed our growth expectations in CTV. For the networks fourth quarter we began to see the impact of the weak industry-wide upfront season. We are far from alone among the national networks and seeing declines in upfront revenue this year. The overall volume of dollars whole ecosystem is estimated to be down about 10%. Two areas of growth for Scripps in the upfronts were Bounce whose upfront dollars rose 6% and CPMs nearly 50%. And Connected TV revenue for our portfolio of networks was up nearly 60% year-over-year. Connected TV continues to be a big growth area for us outside the upfront as well. In the third…

[Operator Instructions] And first we're going to the line for Dan Kurnos, Benchmark. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks. Good morning. And you talked you guys talked all through the accolades but Adam no one brought up your own industry accolades so kudos to you for being named B&C broadcaster of the year. Just a couple. I think I really want to dive into the sports angle and really appreciate the incremental data you've given us around local. And I really want to spend some time maybe Adam just parsing out kind of the local versus the national strategy. Obviously, a lot -- let's just start on the local side a lot is really dependent clearly on what happens with some of the existing contracts. And it sounds like early maybe next year, February time frame, we might run out of extensions for Diamond. But just in general the opportunity that you're seeing out there, whether you have specific markets you target pace. Anything you can give us on just how you're thinking about the local opportunity? And then I'll follow up with a national question after that.

Thanks, Dan, and thanks for the kind words. Look I think you should absolutely assume that we'll continue to execute this strategy where we see opportunities for our local brands to align with local sports. We're, obviously, dedicated to approaching each of the deals with discipline. And I would say, we've developed a real reputation that's appreciated among the owners and the leagues for partnership and shared risk and shared reward that frankly really feels good to them especially after the trauma that they're coming off of with the chaotic illusion of the RSN business. There are definitely markets where we see significant opportunity, markets where we think we can do what we've done in Las Vegas. In other, words flip an ION station to a local independent without negatively impacting the ION reach, because we move the programming stream to different spectrum. And then with sports as the anchor tenant of the programming of that independent station, really disrupting that local marketplace and significantly taking local advertising share and increasing our take of local retrans in that market. And so that's why I referenced earlier from a local perspective with every new rights deal that we signed, we would expect to see core revenue growth and the opportunity for continued expansion for revenue for distribution even between contracts. So I think that's an important thing to point out. Typically you would only see us expand retrans revenue based on step-ups or based on new contracts. And in this situation, we have the opportunity to increase our retrans revenue every time we signed a new local sports deal. And so the opportunity there to dramatically impact, I think core revenue growth is sizable. On the national level, the revenue growth we're seeing is just as important. But given the exposure of a single national deal, which is essentially like one night over 15 weeks it's obviously not going to show up as impactful to the overall revenue growth of the Scripps networks. But that said, we really think it's about the opportunity to leverage the national rights as a way to solidify linear viewing, grow diversify the audience and more broadly raise the rates of ION. So we talked about the fact that 30% audience growth for the WMBA in my prepared remarks came from ION's rights. For us the season also represented good diversification and expansion opportunity. The season drew in two million new viewers to ION a significant expansion of the audience. And as I said in my remarks 65% of the revenue we generated during that season was from new description advertisers. So we would expect to look again with discipline for additional rights opportunities on the national side as well consistent with the brand we're building for ION, and we hope to have more to say about that in the near future.

Got it. That's super helpful. And then just on the CTV stuff. I mean, at least I really appreciate the incremental color. Maybe you can just give us some more granularity on just how you plan on achieving the let's call it, 30% ex-fund setting growth next year and just what some of the drivers are there. I don't know if that's encompassing some of the aforementioned sports rights expectations or if that's just simply figuring out the right way to go to market with expanded products and better lineup that you guys have?

All of the above Dan. You just covered it. We're seeing both, organic growth in our CTV revenue in 2024. We expect to see it -- and we also as I mentioned in my prepared remarks had laid in a nice foundation from an upfront perspective in CTV, I think with growth of 60% year-over-year in terms of what we laid in. We also are benefiting continued launching of new fast channels. I think we mentioned maybe even last quarter that we were launching two new FAST networks, Laff More, which now completes our ability to have each of our networks with the exception of DeFi carried on FAST. So Laff More is now available on FAST. And we took our IP that we own related to Core TV and created a whole new SaaS channel called Core TV Legendary Trials and we're really utilizing that asset of IP that we've owned for quite some time and creating value there. So we've launched those two here in the last quarter we'll continue to see some launches over this quarter and into next year. And then we are also launching on some large platforms in that guide includes in the early part of 2024.

Got it. Really appreciate that. And just one housekeeping Jason, this may be better off line but I think you have another synergy tranche next year from the spectrum side of the ION acquisition is there any way to size that?

Yeah. We had -- when we initially announced the ION acquisition we talked about sort of that cadence and it was in the $15 million to $20 million range incrementally next year tied to really one big contract that's coming up.

Perfect. All right. Thanks very much and nice results in the quarter guys.

Thanks Dan.

Thank you. And next we go on to the line for Steven Cahall Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Thank you. So Lisa, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about just the Q4 guide for networks. It's a little bit worse than what you did in Q3. Q3 came in a little better than what you had expected. So just trying to understand, if the market has gotten worse you're trying to be a little bit conservative. I know you talked a bit about CTV as well. So just any more color you can provide there. And then more broadly, as more sports come on to the local side how do you see the opportunity for moving more of ION's delivery to like across ad sales platform where you're using both local and ION together in the sales process to maybe deleverage yourself from direct response a little bit overtime? And then Adam, so I know you all are very excited about Tableau. Will you be sending that for sell-side analyst for trial? And then more seriously wondering what kind of marketing dollars you might be looking to put into that to get shelf space or promoted in some of the key retail channels overtime? Because it seems like free TV is compelling but it's also pretty misunderstood or unknown by a lot of the population. Thank you.

Yes, Stephen, I'll start and then turn it over to Adam. So as you know, the fourth quarter is the start of our new upfront season. And as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, really industry-wide the dollars that were written in the up-fronts was down, I think across the board about 10%, if not more depending on sort of the networks. And I mentioned at least a bright spot for us was writing more CTV dollars for the upfront next starting in fourth quarter and next year, and also some of the real price but which was balanced. We're basically starting with a lower volume because of the upfront reset in third quarter. However, we are continuing to see -- we've seen it in second quarter and third quarter scatter revenue really holding its own. We are also seeing and expecting in third -- fourth quarter for our scatter pricing to remain pretty strong in terms of CPMs compared to the what we wrote in the upfront. For instance in third quarter, we saw about a 55% increase over our upfront dollars in terms of CPMs that were in the scatter marketplace. The part of the guide also includes, I would say, the -- typically in fourth quarter you see high dollar advertising on the DR side because of Medicare and those sorts of things which has really in many ways is a little bit softer in fourth quarter. So that's flowing through our guide as well. I think the bright spot continues to be in CTV. We continue to see that growth not just ending Q4 of this year. But as I mentioned in my comments to Dan into 2024. As for your next question selling ION local -- with local that is absolutely something that's in our not only thing that we did this year with a couple of big advertisers wanting both, I think the reach that ION provides across the country reaching 97% of the country and the depth of the markets that we have in local. I think that's a really unique and go-to-market strategy that we are really working with our new Chief Revenue Officer working to put in place for 2024, and beyond because we see that as a huge opportunity for us that maybe others in the marketplace aren't able to quite pull off.

Dan, thanks for the question on Tableau. In the fourth quarter, we'll continue to leverage our own inventory across our local stations, national networks, digital media, alongside targeted paid media on linear TV, connected TV, social and digital platforms and some work we're doing with influencers to sale of Tableau. The balance of the loss in the other segment is this work. We've essentially transitioned from the spend we had dedicated to broadly speaking the growth of the over-the-air marketplace -- to the spend that we are considering consistent with growing the over-the-air marketplace, except now through retail sales and through sales of Tableau. So this is really consistent with what we've talked about before. We expect to continue to track carefully the ARPU Tableau. We're tracking the CAC or the sort of the average customer acquisition costs, and want to manage it effectively so that we are ensuring that we're doing activities here that are adding to the value of the company. And I able to share some of that information to future calls. Look, Tablo is not only consistent with our focus on growth of the over-the-air marketplace. It also is consistent with growth that we expect in the connected TV marketplace. And I would say, for people who don't quite understand how it works, definitely visit tablotv.com and I'm happy to provide sell-siders with the full package antenna plus Tablo if you can't afford the $99.

Thank you. And next we go into the line for Nick Zangler from Stephens. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. I got a few here. First just a high-level one. You kind of touched on it in the call but just wanted to see if you could expand on the commentary regarding your thoughts on Disney+ streaming service accessibility via the charter subscription. Just specifically, do you expect and do you think that we're entering a time where MVPDs and streaming services are going to collectively pivot their model such that it's accessible via a distributor the streaming services that is? And would this be a potential catalyst for stabilization across MVPDs in what seems to be in the face of what is accelerating churn, I guess across distributors in this last quarter?

Yes. Nick, I mean I think you're exactly right. Ultimately, first of all the price of all of the streaming services alone and a la carte has gone up so much that we've essentially built a new more expensive bundle. So the pay TV ecosystem will absolutely benefit from bundling in SVOD services with the pay TV subscription. So we think that the resolution of the Charter, Disney blackout validates the future of the retrans ecosystem, right? So their agreement showed us first of all that broadcast station content was still the most watched and most valuable content for distributors. And the power of the linear cable platform was obviously clearly visible in Disney's willingness to bundle in Disney+, which we believe will slow cord cutting and provide that stabilization you referenced. One thing I also want to add in the fact that Charter was able to usually drop Disney's viewed cable nets, freeze up ad dollars -- sorry, freeze up dollars in general to be redirected to the more valuable programming like we've for a long time been calling for a rationalization of the cable lineup. And we think Charter came out with a clear and compelling case for value and bundling it together is going to make the pay TV ecosystem better for the consumer and we'll hold it together benefiting broadcasters. So given the results of the negotiation, I think broadcasters benefit.

Very helpful. And then, just a question on the network side, just expanding on the previous one. Just regard -- with regards to the upfront weakness that you talked about definitely hearing that across the board. But I'm wondering if this is just a reflection of advertisers looking for more flexibility. And effectively, they're unwilling to commit to that upfront as they have been in years past. And therefore, you have less visibility, which is leading to your guide. And so my question is, given that are you guiding because of the less visibility that you have there? And then if the scatter market demand materializes, that would be the catalyst to fill it and then potentially generate upside versus what you're guiding for that line item? And then just thinking about 2024, and how we should think about networks for 2024, what would you think on modeling out the potential continuation of this trend that you're guiding right now? Just thoughts on how we should think about modeling out 2024, given how you're thinking about fourth quarter? Thanks.

Yes I think you're absolutely, right. The less visibility phenomenon has really probably for the last several quarters been an issue and probably led to a bit more conservatism in our guide for Q2 and Q3. I would say that certainly, that lack of visibility continues their writing dollars later in the – and certainly the upfront – the weaker upfront industry-wide weaker upfront does in some ways give you an opportunity to write more in scatter. As I said, we see pretty big premiums from a CPM perspective in scatter versus our upfront dollars that are committed. And so if advertisers want that flexibility, they're going to pay for that flexibility with higher rates from a scatter perspective, which we're happy to do. So I think with the guide – our guide being down in the 10% range if you back out what we've talked about in terms of our the sunsetting of our lower-margin CTV product, we would be close to the 8% range. So I think we're watching the marketplace carefully. We're being very diligent in writing the highest CPM that we can, whether that's in scatter or DR, if certain categories get hot.

And Nick I think in regards to your 2024 question, it's Jason. I think because of that uncertainty that Lisa referenced, it's really too early for us to really comment on 2024. Certainly, when we get to the February call, I think we'll be in a much better position to give you some insight into how we see the year shaping out.

Great. Thanks very much. Much appreciate it.

Thank you. And next we go on to the line for Michael Kupinski NOBLE Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thank you and thank you for taking the questions. Nice quarter. Adam, thanks for providing more color on your right strategy. I think it's amazing that the few that you already have so far as having such a meaningful impact on the total company revenues. A question on that. If you can provide what are your margin assumptions as you enter these sports rights arrangements? Are they different from the local strategy versus your national platforms? And I kind of think that this would be helpful for investors to understand that because many broadcasters have historically viewed sports rights in some instances as a loss leader to drive advertising and ratings. And I think it would be helpful just to kind of lay out your strategy for getting into sports rights.

Hey, Mike, this is Jason. I'll start and then Adam can add on. I would say, when we look at the sports right opportunities, we're not giving any specific on individual deal margins. What I can tell you for is that when we model these out we model them out to be positive year one and to create incremental value and cash flow for the company. There is a different calculation that goes into a local deal versus a national deal because the local deal we're essentially starting from scratch and adding this on top versus on the national side we're replacing something that already makes good money over on ION. And so the math works a little different. You have a higher hurdle rate you need to clear on the national side, but all the deals that we've modeled out thus far we've modeled out to be profit positive year.

Yes, Mike let me just be really clear. With our strategy sports is not a loss leader. We don't think there's a reason for sports to be a loss leader at this time especially for a platform like ours with such significant reach in this fragmented marketplace. We think that the owners have recognized the value of the reach and we think that the leagues are seeking partners that can provide that kind of reach. So in no scenario would we do a deal in which we would say that sports over the life of a contract is a loss leader for us these deals have to stand on their own.

Thanks for the color. I think it's important that that's stressed out there. I appreciate that. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thanks, Mike.

Thank you. And our last question we'll go to the line for Craig Huber, Huber Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you. Good morning. I thought it was interesting you guys obviously talked about a 4% lift to core advertising for your TV stations in the fourth quarter. I just want to make sure you're pretty happy with the profitability that you get off those two NHL deals you have here it's all incremental. And I'm bringing that up because you're talking about costs in the fourth quarter for TV up mid-single digits. So maybe Jason maybe just walk me through why is cost in TV stations going to be up mid-single digits in the fourth quarter year-over-year.

Yes. So there are a handful of things going there. And two of my reference in the script one being some of the costs for some of our front-line reporters and some compensation adjustments we did there earlier in the year and seeing that impact year-over-year. We also do have the costs starting to roll in for sport. I would say is my comment earlier where we model these profit positive for the season -- season one there is some timing through out there. So when you're launching a new sports franchise there's a lot of marketing initially to help viewers in that audience find where the product is and so customer acquisition early on. So we are not looking at sports what is it happening in Q4. We're looking across season one. So from Q4 through Q1 of next year these are profitable enterprises. And I would also reference in the case of the Coyote specifically we announced that deal eight days before we launched it. And so from a sales perspective that's one where the revenue is going to be more back-end loaded as we work to go ahead and really get out in the local marketplace in Arizona and sell that franchise. So there is some timing there. And there are just some other costs too in the fourth quarter outside of sports and the quarter item I mentioned that just are up a bit in Q4 as well. So it's not just one thing it's not just sports it's a variety of things. And so I wouldn't take that -- I wouldn't take what you're seeing in Q4 as a trend.

Okay. I mean, obviously, the extra 4% lift on the core advertising side as you call it another $6 million to $7 million of added revenue. Your costs though up mid-single digits take the midpoint of that 5% sort of $14 million extra cost. You're saying it's a lot more than just sports cost that's bumping that up even though the year ago we did have some political related costs in assuming.

Right. There really would be -- I mean political is high margin almost no cost. And so there wouldn't really be any material political costs in the fourth quarter last year. So it's other items I mentioned.

Okay. Appreciate that. Adam on the ATSC 3.0 side of things, can you maybe just update us on what percent of the households in your markets of that signal? And where do you think it will be at the end of say next year please?

What percent of the market?

You're -- sorry of your markets the household, what percent of ATSC 3.0 signal being broadcast to them? And where do you think that percentage will be end of next year? What's your goal there please?

Craig, I can get that to you later this afternoon. It's not necessarily a Scripps goal. It's ultimately done market by market with the rest industry because the station doesn't flip to 3.0 on its own, but we can get you an up-to-date version of what the industry's transition looks like thus far and about where we think it's going by next year.

Okay. And then a nitpick question. How much was auto up in the quarter here that we just finished. I know you said 10% up, I think for October, but that's similar -- last quarter.

Yes. Actually auto was up 14% in Q3 which was really strong. And as I said, we're seeing some continued increases in -- certainly in October. So we expect really end the year in upward territory.

It was 18% of our core in the quarter which is probably the high percent, it's been in quite some time.

And I guess my last question on TV stations in the third quarter, can you just break out national core advertising trend there versus the local? I mean how much worse was national? 3Q…

The local national breakdown in -- I would say -- I would say in 3Q, there was not a material difference between the year-over-year change in local and national. Certainly, there had been earlier in the year. But in 3Q, I would say, they were roughly in line with each other in terms of the year-over-year decline.

Okay. Great. Last question, please. Retrans. I do have more -- retrans subs, you've been saying in recent quarters down mid-single digits year-over-year. What was it in the third quarter please?

It continues to be down in that mid-single-digit range on a trailing 12-month basis.

Is it -- is it the high end? I mean, is it changing much variability there? That's obviously been a concern of investors.

I would say -- we did not see a material change in it from what we communicated last quarter this quarter now.

Okay. Great. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. And there are no more questions in queue. You may continue.

Thank you very much, Don. Thanks everyone for joining us today.

And that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation and for using AT&T Conference and service. You may now disconnect.