Sinclair Reports Q1 2026 Results: Full Earnings Call Transcript

On Thursday, Sinclair (NASDAQ:SBGI) discussed first-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below. Benzinga APIs provide real-time access to earnings call transcripts and financial data. Visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/ to learn more. Access the full call at https://www.webcaster5.com/Webcast/Page/2063/53843 Summary Sinclair Inc reported a strong financial performance for Q1 2026, with total revenue up 4% year over year to $807 million and adjusted EBITDA increasing by 13% to $126 million. The company is focused on deleveraging, having retired $165 million in term loans at a discount, resulting in a $12 million annual cash interest expense saving. Sinclair Inc reaffirmed its full-year 2026 guidance, citing strong expectations for political advertising and major sports events, including the FIFA World Cup, which is expected to drive significant viewership and revenue. Strategic initiatives include closing on partner station buy-ins and completing accretive duopoly transactions, with an ongoing focus on optimizing the broadcast portfolio. Operational highlights include substantial growth in core advertising and the success of Tennis Channel, which recorded its most-viewed month ever in March 2026. Management discussed the broader industry issues such as the FCC's inquiry into the sports media marketplace and potential regulatory impacts on live sports broadcasting. Sinclair Inc is preparing for a potential spin-off of its Ventures division, though it prefers to align this with a broadcast business combination. The company is actively exploring the use of AI for both cost reduction and revenue enhancement, with AI tools being rolled out across the workforce. Full Transcript OPERATOR Good day everyone and welcome to the Sinclair first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are placed on a listen only mode and we will open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to hand the floor over to your host, Chris King, Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, the floor is yours. And ladies and gentlemen, please remain on the line while we reconnect the speaker to the conference room. Thank you. Chris King (Vice President of Investor Relations) Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining Sinclair's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today are Chris Ripley, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Narender Sahai, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Rob Weisford, our COO and President of Local Media. Before we begin, I want to remind everyone that slides for today's earnings call are available on our website, sbgi.net on the events and presentations page of the Investor Relations portion of the site. A webcast replay will remain available on our website until our next quarterly earnings release. Certain matters discussed on this call may include forward looking statements regarding, among other things, future operating results. Such statements are subject to several risks and uncertainties. Actual results in the future could differ from those described in the forward looking statements because of various important factors. Such factors have been set forth in the Company's most recent reports as filed with the SEC and included in our first quarter earnings release. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward looking statements. Included on the call will be a discussion of non GAAP financial measures, specifically adjusted ebitda. This measure is not formulated in accordance with GAAP and is not meant to replace GAAP measurements and may differ from other companies uses or formulations. Further discussions and reconciliations of the company's non GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP financial measures can be found on our website. Please note that unless otherwise noted, all year over year comparisons throughout today's call are presented on an as reported basis. Let me now turn the call over to Chris Ripley. Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) Thank you Chris and good afternoon everyone. Let me begin on slide 3. We delivered a strong first quarter with results that reflect the consistency of the broadcast business and the growth potential of Tennis Channel for the quarter Total revenue of 807 million was up 4% year over year, while adjusted EBITDA of 126 million grew by 13%. Distribution revenue increased by 2% year over year as modestly improved subscriber trends continued and we're starting to see the benefit of our partner station buy ins. Net retrans revenue was also up year over year. In addition, we continue to see growth in our core advertising business. Core advertising grew 4% year over year in the first quarter, a result we were pleased with given our underexposure to NBC, which delivered an exceptionally strong quarter due to its affiliates to its affiliates on the back of the Super Bowl, Winter Olympics and NBA. Looking ahead, Fox, our largest affiliation, will carry a record schedule of World cup soccer matches on the broadcast network in June and July, ahead of the political ramp in the fourth quarter. Turning to execution across our broader strategic priorities, we have built real momentum. We've now closed on a substantial majority of our JSA and LMA partner station buy ins with only a small number remaining and we expect the full 30 million in annualized synergies in 2026. We also recently completed two accretive duopoly transactions in Providence and Tulsa. With several smaller portfolio optimization discussions underway, our strategic review of the broadcast business remains active. As previously discussed, our ideal path forward is a broadcast combination concurrent with a venture separation. We remain Scripps' largest shareholder and our perspective on the strategic logic of the combination is unchanged from what we shared previously within Ventures. The portfolio generated 12 million of cash distributions during the quarter, ending with $451 million of cash. That liquidity provides flexibility as we advance our venture separation planning. As a result of our first quarter results and current forecast, we are reaffirming our full year 2026 guidance. And finally, we continue to work to strengthen our balance sheet. Earlier this month, we retired approximately $165 million in term loans at a discount through an unmodified reverse Dutch auction. As a result, we will save approximately $12 million in annual cash interest expense. As evidenced by this transaction, deleveraging remains a top priority. We ended the quarter with total debt of $4.4 billion and total liquidity of approximately $1.5 billion, including total cash of $844 million. We are pleased with our first quarter financial and operational results. Our team is executing with discipline across multiple priorities and we are well positioned for the remainder of 2026. The industry continues to await several important decisions that are now in front of the Federal Communications Commission, while the recent California litigation involving the NEXSTAR TEGNA transaction took up much of the broadcast regulatory headlines over the past few weeks and has introduced some near term uncertainty on timing. We believe the broader environment remains constructive for local broadcasters, and we continue to feel optimistic about the direction of significant issues. Both the FCC and the Department of Justice approved the nexstar acquisition of Tegna with no material conditions, and we remain pleased with the overall deregulatory tone from Washington. I won't rehash most of those other issues which we discussed on our fourth quarter call in February, but one development is worth noting. In late February, the FCC launched an inquiry into the Sports Media Marketplace examining how streaming exclusives affect consumers, broadcasters and free over the air access. Turning to Slide 5 since the launch of the FCC inquiry on February 25, well over 10,000 comments have been submitted on the FCC's sports media marketplace inquiry, making it one of the most commented on inquiries in commission history. As every television viewer and sports fan knows all too well, the fragmentation of live sports programming is causing increasing customer frustration with both higher costs and confusion around where the games are televised. With 96 of the top 100 most watched telecasts last year being live sports broadcasts, including record ratings across almost every major sport, this has become an increasingly important topic for both consumers and regulators. Broadcast delivers what no other platform can the widest reach and the lowest cost to the consumer. The numbers make the point. The NFL Thanksgiving game on February drew 57.2 million viewers, the most watched regular season NFL game ever on Fox. The Amazon NFL game the very next day drew only 16.3 million. Same league same week, roughly three and a half times the audience on broadcast. Meanwhile, last year NFL games aired on 10 different services, which according to some estimates could cost a consumer over $1,500 to watch all of the games, even though the large majority of those games aired free over the air on broadcast networks. Live sports is the cornerstone of the broadcast ecosystem. It drives mass audiences and it underwrites the financial model that sustains local television stations and the local journalism they produce. The migration of major sporting events behind streaming paywalls is not just bad for consumers, it risks eroding one of the last shared viewing experiences we all have, and it pressures the very business model that funds local news and community programming. Maintaining broad and free access to live sports should remain a top priority for policymakers as they continue to examine this issue that has clearly struck a nerve with viewers and policymakers across the country. With that, let me turn the call over to Rob to discuss operational highlights in the quarter. Rob Weisford (Chief Operating Officer and President of Local Media) Thank you Chris and Good afternoon everyone. Let me walk through our operational performance and how we're positioned heading into the remainder of 2026. Starting on slide 6, we delivered solid growth in core advertising with first quarter core revenue up 4% year over year driven by the strength in digital and our acquisition of Digital Remedy. Advertisers continue to prioritize platforms that provide scale, interactivity and live engagement, and broadcast consistently delivers on all three. Notably, our NBC affiliates delivered very strong results benefiting from the convergence of major live sporting events. The super bowl was the second most watched telecast of all time in the U.S. the Winter Olympics were the most watched Winter Olympic Games in 12 years on broadcast television, and the NBA continues to deliver solid ratings for the network. While we are underweight NBC, we are overweight Fox, which is our largest network affiliation, and we are already seeing strong demand for the FIFA World cup soccer tournament of Fox. This June and July, notably, 70 of the 104 total matches will air live on the linear Fox broadcast stations, with 40 matches scheduled for prime time. This is exactly the kind of appointment viewing broadcast is built for, delivering mass audience with unmatched reach across the country, our core advertising continues to benefit from Digital Remedy, our programmatic digital advertising platform. As ad dollars increasingly shift across linear connected TV and digital, Digital Remedy allows us to capture demand across all those channels rather than being limited to linear that matters in the political cycle too. Beyond linear, we continue to see engagement growth across podcasts and social platforms. Recent activations like the Tailgate Tour and the Block demonstrate our ability to engage audience beyond traditional broadcast while creating meaningful opportunities for our advertising partners. Our next activation will be at the World cup, hosted by unfiltered soccer stars Landon Donovan and Tim Howard, two of the most capped players in the US national team history. In summary, Sinclair continues to execute well on its core broadcast business. Broadcast's differentiated role is strengthened in a year like this political and Sports Savvy 2026 with both ratings and subscriber trends showing positive momentum. Turning to Slide seven, Tennis Channel continued the momentum around live sports and delivered an exceptional quarter and a historic month of March. March 2026 was Tennis Channel's most watched month ever, led by the Indian Wells and Miami Open tournaments attracting record audiences. Miami Open Women's final between Sabalanca and Goff was the most watched women's match in Tennis Channel history, breaking a viewership record set just two weeks earlier at the Indian Wells women's final. In fact, four of the top five most watched matches of all time for Tennis Channel occurred in March as Tennis Channel household viewership increased by 19% year over year in the quarter. In addition, Tennis Channel has hit record D2C subscriber numbers in recent weeks, driven in large part through its recent launch with Amazon prime video. Tennis Channel 2, the network's fast channel, which launched on Peacock in January, will continue to feature Women's Day every Tuesday, a programming day exclusively dedicated to women's tennis, reinforcing our leadership in women's sports programs. While we remain disciplined on expenses, we are also making thoughtful high return investments to support the long term growth of the franchise, extending our content rights portfolio, scaling our direct to consumer platform and building out Tennis Channel 2 as well as our digital platforms. Tennis Channel is a differentiated premium sports asset and we are vesting behind it accordingly. We are fully bullish on the network. Lastly, we continue to build out Amazing America 250 From Neighborhood to Nation, a multi platform celebration of US history, culture, innovation and community spirit. Programming will expand as we approach the 250th anniversary of our nation's founding on July 4th. Let me now turn the call over to Dorinda to discuss the first quarter financial results in more detail. Dorinda Thank you Rob and good afternoon everyone. Turning to Slide 8, I'm pleased with our first quarter results that reflect strong execution across the business. At the total company level, revenue was $807 million, up 4% year over year. Distribution revenue of $458 million grew 2% supported by lower subscriber churn across key MVPDs and incremental benefit from our partner station buy ins, both of which also contributed to growth in net retransmission revenue. Core Advertising revenue of $305 million also grew 4% reflecting the contribution from Digital Remedy acquisition that closed in March of last year and continued strength in live sports including the Winter Olympics and NFL playoffs. Adjusted EBITDA was $126 million, up 13% year over year. The increase reflects both revenue strength and operating leverage, with operating expenses absorbing the cost base from the Digital Remedy acquisition. While core operating costs remained well controlled in the local media segment, total revenue of $701 million benefited from the same distribution and advertising trends. Distribution revenue of $402 million and core advertising revenue of $261 million both showed modest growth year over year. Segment adjusted EBITDA of $117 million reflects lower programming and production costs, lower network compensation related to prior year station sales, and disciplined SG&A expenses. Within the Tennis segment, Total revenue of $70 million was also up year over year. Adjusted EBITDA of $20 million was below last year's first quarter reflecting an increase in sales and programming expenses as we continue to invest behind the network's growth that Rob referenced earlier. Capital expenditures on a consolidated basis are $15 million. Overall. The quarter reflects broad based execution, improving subscriber trends and solid advertising demand across the company. Turning to slide 9 I'd like to provide an update on Sinclair Ventures consistent with the strategy we previously outlined. Ventures continues to shift from passive minority investments towards majority controlled operating businesses with a focus on durable, non discretionary and recurring revenue streams that convert strongly to free cash flow. Ventures generated $12 million in cash distributions during the quarter primarily from the secondary market monetization of one on one minority investment following the $104 million for the full year 2025. These distributions demonstrate our ability to monetize investments while preserving upside in the broader portfolio. We also remain selective on new capital deployment with incremental investments of $6 million in the quarter. Ventures entered the quarter with $451 million in cash and cash equivalents. That liquidity provides meaningful optionality as we advance separation planning and continue to evaluate capital allocation opportunities. Overall, as we advance our work towards a potential separation, Ventures continues to generate meaningful cash while repositioning the portfolio toward greater operational control and long term value creation. Turning to slide 10 as Chris referenced earlier, in early April we settled an unmodified reverse Dutch auction for our term loans retiring $165 million in par value at a discount. The delevering transaction is expected to reduce our annual cash interest expense by approximately $12 million including borrowings under the AR facility. Total Sinclair Television Group or STG debt was $4.4 billion. Our nearest material maturity excluding the AR facility continues to be in December of 2029 at quarter end as defined in our credit agreement, stg net first out first lien leverage was 1.5 times, net first lien leverage was 3.8 times and net leverage was 5.1 times. Net leverage fell by 2/10 of a turn sequentially and these figures do not yet reflect the April term loan retirements that I referenced earlier. We ended the quarter with $844 million in consolidated cash including $392 million at STG and $451 million at ventures including revolver availability. Total liquidity was approximately $1.5 billion. Before turning the call back to Chris, let me briefly frame our first quarter results and outlook in the context of the broader operating environment. When we introduced 2026 full year financial Guidance in February we planned for stable core advertising trends supported by a sports heavy broadcast calendar while remaining appropriately cautious given macro headwinds in certain categories. Since then, given the conflict in the Middle east, the external environment has evolved, consumer sentiment has moved meaningfully lower, inflation expectations have ticked higher, and advertiser visibility in select areas is somewhat more measured than a quarter ago. At the same time, the drivers underpinning our full year outlook remain firmly intact. A record midterm political cycle with competitive races across several of our key markets, the FIFA Soccer World cup anchoring a sports heavy broadcast calendar in the second and third quarters and steady distribution supported by moderating subscriber churn, and expected benefit from our partner station buy ins that are now substantially complete. Based on that balance, we are reaffirming our 2026 full year guidance today. Let me now turn the call back over to Chris for closing comments. Before we open the call to questions Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) as we wrap up on Slide 11, let me briefly summarize our quarter. First, we continued to execute and build momentum on our core broadcast business. We delivered strong results across the board that translated into meaningful cash generation with stable core advertising trends, audience strength anchored by live sports and improving subscriber churn across key MVPD partners Live sports continues to drive the kind of appointment viewing audiences that no other platform can match. Both the FCC and DOJ are now examining facets of the live sports broadcasting marketplace and we believe they are asking the right questions. Tennis Channel further reinforced this dynamic during the quarter, delivering four of the top five most watched matches in network history. Alongside record growth in our direct to consumer product. We also continued to advance our deleveraging priorities with STG net leverage improving in the quarter by 2.10of a turn sequentially to 5.1 times. We also allocated capital to retire 165 million in par value of our term loans at a discount. Looking ahead, we reaffirmed our 2026 guidance anchored by a resilient revenue mix, strong midterm political revenue expectations, a sports heavy broadcast calendar headlined by the World cup, and continued cost discipline with that operator. We are ready to open the line for questions. OPERATOR Certainly everyone at this time will be conducting a question and answer session. If you have any questions or comments, please press Star one on your phone at this time. We do ask that while posing your question, please pick up your handset if you're listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. And once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press Star one on your phone. Your first question is coming from Steven Cahel from Wells Fargo, your line is live. Steven Cahel (Equity Analyst) Thank you, Chris. It seems like with nexstar Tegna a big win for the broadcast. I think far more expanded definition of come into the 21st century.. On the other side, we're seeing Nexstar and Tegna tied up in some legal issues. So what do you feel like you glean from watching them go through these processes as you think about potential for M and A for Sinclair and just a related one on this topic, you mentioned that you're still Scripps is number one shareholder. My sense is that there's not a lot. Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) We lost you there, Steve. On not a lot of are you still there. Hey, while we wait for. Yes, we can hear you now. Sorry, let me try that again. So in the Nexstar is the DOJ's much more expansive view of the TV ad market. But now Nexstar is going through an interesting legal process. So what do you think watching them go through this merger that informs your thinking on potential mergers and acquisitions? And then you mentioned you're the number one shareholder of Scripps. Do you think there's a path there to continue to engage in the future? Okay, I think I've got your questions, Steve. So the first one, as it relates to what's going on with nexstar Tegna, I think the what you first said, I think is very important. We have seen an approval of that transaction from both the FCC and the doj, with no conditions and no divestitures required from the doj. So that is a huge change in the way the DOJ has historically looked at our market, which was defined as just competition amongst local broadcasters. And they have finally come up to date with the realities of the current marketplace, which is that we compete across many different mediums, including cable and connected TVs. So that's a huge win and it's been a long time in coming. And it will be tremendously helpful to the industry going forward in pursuing a much needed consolidation. As I've talked about before, we firmly believe under this rule set, which is now essentially been verified at both the FCC and the doj with a new large precedence, we're going to head towards a marketplace where you've got two large groups that the industry consolidates up to, which still will be relatively small in the TMT landscape, but will be much better competitors within that broader landscape as they improve on efficiencies and gain more access to better talent and open up new business opportunities. So that's very exciting. Now, obviously you noted the downside here is some of the Issues coming up at the state level and specifically in California for next Artegna. We do think that the case brought against that deal is very flimsy in terms of the merits. And we believe that now that we've seen the playbook, any future transactions, we can significantly mitigate a similar playbook in future transactions. And I think just there's a lot of unique features in the Nexar Tegna deal. Like it was essentially a number one and number two coming together, which certainly wouldn't be what you would expect and, you know, sort of mathematically can happen in the next combination. And there was a bunch of optics around the deal which didn't look great, which were very unique to this situation. So we, of course, didn't want to see that happen and would have rather, you know, Nexar just proceed forward on a clean basis. But we have a lot of faith that they'll play through this. We don't think the merits transaction are sort of merit of the lawsuit is really there. And we do think future large transactions will learn a lot from this process and be able to significantly mitigate the risk. And then as it relates to Scripps, the industrial logic is still there. Our position on the deal is still the same. As I mentioned in my remarks, we would be happy to pick up discussions again around such a transaction, but we are not standing still. We are looking at multiple other opportunities to achieve similar levels of benefits and synergies. So we'll keep moving and if something were to materialize in Scripps, great. But if not, we're moving forward. Steven Cahel (Equity Analyst) Thank you. OPERATOR Thank you. Your next question is coming from Aaron Watts from Deutsche Bank. Your line is live. Aaron Watts (Equity Analyst) Hi, guys. Thanks for having me on. Just a couple questions. One, follow up on the line you were just addressing. Given the noise or pushback that's being generated with getting the nexstar transaction across the finish line, do you still expect the FCC to press ahead with trying to officially change or abolish the national ownership cap so that future deals don't have to rely on waivers? Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) Well, I do think that will happen. Of course, we, you know, that's up to the fcc. And certainly as an industry, you know, we have been lobbying for that. So it is something that I do expect will happen in the future so that you don't have to rely on waivers. Aaron Watts (Equity Analyst) I wanted to ask for a bit more detail around local media core advertising. Your rate of growth slowed down sequentially from 4Q into 1Q. I'm guessing Olympics played a key role there. But can you Talk about other puts and takes and then how is QQ core tracking relative to what you saw in first quarter? Has the war had any discernible impact yet on your bookings, particularly in the auto vertical? Rob Weisford (Chief Operating Officer and President of Local Media) Yeah, it definitely was sports related in the fourth quarter, Aaron. And so being underweight on NBC and based on our NBC performance, we know the market still was delivering on the core advertising. Fortunately or unfortunately, a lot of the weight moved to NBC. And that's why as we head into World cup and how we're overweighted on Fox, we're bullish on the end of second quarter going into third quarter by carrying 70 games on the Fox network. We're still comfortable with our guidance that we've given for the year on core. We will remain watching these headwinds. As mentioned in the scripts, that consumer confidence is starting to wane. The gas prices are increasing and so the cost of goods being shipped most likely will be going up and we'll see that domino effect. But we remain confident in our annual guidance that we will still achieve that guidance. Dorinda And Aaron, just to add on to. Aaron, just to add on to what Rob just mentioned, also remember that these are as reported numbers and we did have station divestitures to ring Khan and Yakima Spokane, which you know, impacted, impacted the reporter number on four. So I keep that in mind. Aaron Watts (Equity Analyst) Okay. But overall it sounds like your full year view on core hasn't changed despite kind of these moving parts that you've outlined. Rob Weisford (Chief Operating Officer and President of Local Media) Yeah, we're still comfortable with the full year view and as Chris mentioned and I mentioned, we're coming off of record or very high growth in live sports and live sports between all our platforms drive significant revenue. So we're still comfortable with the annual outlook. Aaron Watts (Equity Analyst) Okay, if I could squeeze one last one in. I appreciate the time just around political. Sounds like still a lot of optimism on that front for the year. CTV was the big mover in terms of share in 2024, expected to grow further this year. Where do you think the share shift will come from going forward? Do you expect that broadcast to can maintain its share? And can you also discuss the campaign finance limit case that's currently being debated in court? Help us understand how the potential outcomes could impact your political ad revenues, particularly related to lowest unit rate or cost, if not for this midterm cycle, then potentially as we think ahead to 28. And thank you again. Rob Weisford (Chief Operating Officer and President of Local Media) Yeah. And I'll take the first part. We're comfortable. We think the shift to ctv, which is a natural shift, is coming from search and social and going into CTV, we have some TVB research showcases on an 18 plus demo, which is the voting demo that if you extrapolate Amazon and Prime, which don't take political ads as well as YouTube, which is short video that broadcast delivers 78% of the commercial inventory. And just recently as we were talking earlier, I indicated that the faucets have now opened on broadcast political spend. We've seen significant buys from the GOP and the Dem PACs in North Carolina just started to have their expenditures. They have a billion dollar estimated political funds. So we think we're situated in the markets where there are highly competitive races to capture that those dollars. Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) And Aaron, in terms of your question around some of the back and forth on lowest unit rate cost, you've got this court matter. There's also a petition for reconsideration by the TBB around the recent FCC interpretation. And look, I think that all is important to some extent. You know, I think there, there is a real case to question whether something like a lowest unit rate should, you know, is even constitutional. But that will all take some time to play out. But I think what you should know is that we're not particularly concerned about that affecting the outcomes that we expect for the year. And that really plays into the dynamics of what goes on on political ad spend. Number one, as I like to always say that politicians don't return money to their donors once the elections are over. And so there's a real incentive to get advertisement on the air in the right places where it can impact voting leading up to the elections. And that is unequivocally on broadcast television and more specifically on our stations, which are in a lot of the battleground states and have a very large independent voter viewership that has a high propensity to vote. So our local news audience is highly coveted when it comes to political advertising. And political advertisers tend, as things heat up, they tend to move into inventory categories which have more protection in terms of their ability to be preempted. And those categories come with higher prices and those don't tend to be where your general advertisers play. So we think that in terms of the yield component of this and the total demand, these things matter around the edges, but they will not have a meaningful impact on the outcomes. Appreciate all that. OPERATOR Thanks, Russ. Thank you. Your next question is coming from Craig Hubber from Hubber Research. Your line is live. Craig Hubber (Equity Analyst) Great, thank you. My first question is you mentioned a few times that you're seeing modestly improving subscriber trends. Can you maybe quantify that. I mean on a same station basis are you down say roughly 4% year over year on your subscribers? Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) So our overall subscriber churn in Q1 was mid single digits and that did have a very modest overall improvement. But more importantly on the traditional MVPD side we did see over 100 basis point improvement in churn there sequentially and that is one of our biggest contributors. So it is improving and being driven by some of the larger mepd's like Charter leading the way with its streaming bundling strategy. We think we've talked a lot about it in the past. It's a great strategy. It's working. You can see that their numbers publicly, we are increasingly seeing it in what they report to us and Comcast it has also been doing better as well. And really they are the two bellwethers of the space. Craig Hubber (Equity Analyst) Great, thank you for that. My next question if I could, can you maybe touch on what your outlook is for your net re trans this year? Or if you want to do it on a two year basis, can you share that with us? Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) So we do expect net retrans to grow over the long term. We haven't given any more specific guidance on net retrans. We do feel what the trends that we're seeing as we talked about earlier on subscribers seeing modest improvement there on our network affiliation costs which we're about to have a big year on the balance of power. We've talked about this in the past and we feel like this trend is solid and intact with the balance of power has been swinging back towards the affiliates as the networks have played catch up on retrans. And the dollars there are very, very significant to the networks really irreplaceable. And now you're seeing all the networks stream all of their content. Even Fox now streams its content. And so really it's just a simple equation when you think about they're monetizing their content on both broadcast and streaming, but the cost is almost exclusively born by broadcast. So just as there's a rebalancing that's happening within pay TV where broadcast audience well exceeds its share of the pay TV pie and you know, our growth in grocery trends is being driven by that rebalancing, well, the cost of our network affiliations is also imbalanced and the streaming components of our streaming divisions of the networks need to be paying a lot more the cost of the programming relative to the network divisions. And that rebalancing I think is going to be tremendously helpful in reducing the cost of our network relationships going forward. Craig Hubber (Equity Analyst) Sorry. And to be clear on that point, I think you said earlier your network comp expense was down. I assume that was on an apples to apples basis. Same station basis. It was down in the quarter, year over year. Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) I did not say specifically. We don't disclose network comps specifically. And what I was saying is generally the balance of what is paid for for the content between the streaming divisions and network divisions at the networks, you know, the payment balance needs to be skewed much more towards streaming than the networks in terms of equitably sharing between those two. Craig Hubber (Equity Analyst) Okay, very good. So in other words, over time you think it will evolve that direction favorably to your cost basis? I think what you're saying over time. Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) Yes, that's right. Craig Hubber (Equity Analyst) Great, thank you. Thank you. OPERATOR Thank you. Your next question is coming from Ben Soft from Deutsche Bank. Your line is live. Ben Soft (Equity Analyst) Good afternoon. Thanks for the question. I had a couple. But first I wanted to ask a follow up. You made a comment that you might have some strategies to mitigate potential challenges in future transactions. Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) I was hoping you could unpack that a little bit. Well, look, I think, Yeah, I can't get into specifics in terms of how a transaction would play out and what specifically we would do, but just the setup alone I think would be different. Here you had a number one and number two essentially coming together. You had a transaction that got closed almost immediately after the approvals. Certain optics wouldn't be the same, just naturally. And I think being the first large transaction where a new market definition has been defined by the doj, but yet not having anything on paper about that, I think is something that could be addressed more proactively. Ben Soft (Equity Analyst) And if there are divestitures from other deals, what's your appetite for buying station assets? Do you think you'd be allowed to create duopolies? And how should we think about potential Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) synergies in those types of deals? Sure. So we're very interested in double ups anywhere we can add stations within a market. That's where we get the biggest efficiency gains. Also, you know, it really does improve the news product that we supply to the marketplace. It both expands the number of stories that we cover, differentiates the products being offered to the marketplace. So in the areas where we can have multiple affiliates in a market, those are the ones that are going to be most interesting to us, where we can have an accretive transaction and also be deleveraging as well. Ben Soft (Equity Analyst) And my last question is just on atsc. What are your latest thoughts there on the business opportunity and can you remind us where we are on the path to commercializing it? Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) Thank you. So we have been making good progress on ATSC 3.0 with the founding of Edgebeam. It is off and running. The team is assembled, There is significant work being done up in Boston where they're based. They're having a lot of traction around digital signage. The EGPS product is up and running in several markets and automotive is another area that we're very bullish on. But it'll be a little longer term and I would put streaming offload as well in that same bucket. Bps, which is outside of Edge Beam, but it's a sort of industry wide effort led by the nab, has a lot of traction. There is a, a pilot going on right now in the energy sector which we're expecting a readout from shortly. But we already know the answer and that BPS is the only practical solution to a backup to gps. You know, a lot of the experts have already weighed in, including government agencies, that if we want a credible backup that can be rolled out on a timely basis that is not space based and not vulnerable to jamming and disruption from our enemies, it needs to be BPs. And so that's a very unique opportunity for the entire industry. Powered by 3.0 and contributes to, vitally contributes to American safety and security. So, you know, I'm as more bullish than I've ever been on the opportunities around 3.0. Of course it improves picture quality, consumer experience, interactivity, etc. And there'll be more content, better content put out to our audiences. But the real incremental revenue opportunities are going to be around data casting and other use cases and that will be dramatically enhanced through the sunset of 1.0, which will unlock a lot more capacity to do these use cases and is in front of the FCC as we speak. Thanks. OPERATOR Thank you. Your next question is coming from Dan Kurnos from Stonex. Your line is live. Dan Kurnos (Equity Analyst) Thanks. Afternoon Chris. I'm sure you're super excited to answer another M and A question, but I just want to be crystal clear. Obviously some timing. You know, we have to kind of see how nexstar plays out. I mean, do you think with that court case ongoing and sort of the concentration ramifications, market definition ramifications, and your previous answer, do you believe that you could put up a transaction or someone you could find a willing participant in this environment at this time and given your current stance on your preference to spin ventures in conjunction with M and A, does That mean that you're sort of willing to bide your time until you find the right transaction and this cleans up and you find the path forward. We're not saying it won't happen, but it may just take longer than we anticipate. Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) So, Dan, I think it's fair to say that the nexstar Tegna transaction and what's going on at the state level is not ideal in terms of creating a good environment for ma. It certainly calls. Makes. Creates questions in people's minds, including your own, or you wouldn't be asking the question. And so certainly players within the industry are not immune to that. But I do think as they dig in and as we have, they will get more and more comfortable that this can be mitigated. And we have confidence that this deal should not hold up progress on ma and we think we'll be able to play through that. As it relates to the venture separation, there's a lot of work that goes into a spin and so we're doing that work now. We're working on the carve out audits. We are proceeding on getting ready. So, you know, we're not just letting time sort of waste away here. But at the same time, as we've said pretty consistently, the ideal outcome is a separation of ventures alongside a broadcast combination. And so there isn't a rush to separate ventures. But we are going to make sure that we've got everything ready to go to do that. Dan Kurnos (Equity Analyst) Okay, that makes sense. And then as we think about tennis, you guys spent a good amount of time talking about it today and sort of the strength that it has. I know, Chris, in the past you've talked about like, hey, you know, anything could be core. Not core, you know, you're having, it's having seems like it's having a moment. Are you guys leaning more into tennis? How are you thinking about it? Sort of as a long term asset within the portfolio, especially in the consideration of, you know, if you were to do transformational M and A on the local side. Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) Yeah, we are leaning into Tennis Channel. So that is. You're very right in thinking that about a year ago we hired Jeff Blackburn, who is a legend in the streaming industry, who had an amazing career at Amazon and he's doing wonderful things at Tennis Channel. And the ratings this last quarter up about 20%. Subs up over 30%. The product's getting better the moment, as you pointed out, there's sort of a tennis momentum and interest in tennis is at an all time high and continues to grow. And so There's a lot to like about what's going on at tennis. So we are investing in the product, we're upgrading the rights, we're upgrading the programming and we're upgrading the direct to consumer experience. And a lot of that investment has been over the last year and it really hasn't even come to light yet. But over the course of this year, you're going to see more and more upgrades to the product, to the experience. And so when we hired Jeff, that was a commitment to invest in Tennis Channel. And and so I think it's going to be an amazing asset. It already is incredible. But as it translates its business more and more onto the streaming side, where it already has all the rights it needs, it's going to be a really interesting asset. Rob Weisford (Chief Operating Officer and President of Local Media) We believe that over time that the Asset right now 20% of the audience is through digital and the goal for Jeff and his team is to get to 50%. And so we're making this crossroads. And what helps those crossroads are we were asked the question a little over a year ago, what about with Federer's retirement, Federer's retirement and now we have the next generation rivalry with Sinner and Alcaraz. And even though Alcarez is out short term, that rivalry isn't going anywhere. And now in the women this year the rivalry has evolved between Morbakan and Sabalenka, which will cause even further Tune in. And as you see in the 1000s that took place out at Indian Wells, the BMP Fariba in Miami Open and was followed in Monte Carlo with bracket ratings. So when we increase this tech next generation and America has the next star on the horizon with Iva Yokovic, it bodes well for the sport and for the network. Dan Kurnos (Equity Analyst) Rob, can I stick with you for a second? Just talk a little more. World Cup, Is there any way to kind of think about the incremental that we should expect from World cup number one? Number two, given how much Olympics sort of suck the oxygen out of the room in Q1, could we see that kind of event, especially in what is a particularly lackluster viewing time for television since we're in between seasons. And you also mentioned in your prepared remarks just around the digital acquisitions, adding you talked a little bit about getting prepared for cross sell with your digital assets, especially when you have this marquee event coming up. So maybe you could focus, flesh out your thoughts there just so we can get a little bit more sense on how you're going into this or game planning for it. Rob Weisford (Chief Operating Officer and President of Local Media) We're super bullish and We've had a large advertising query already in the early phase of the selling and 40 games are in prime time. And as you indicated, it's normally a weaker viewing as we head into the summer months and with it most of the games on the finals happening here in the States, we're totally bullish. And what's great is we're set up cross platform, as you indicated, and we have Landon Donovan and Tim Howard who played the most men's caps. And at the end of June, we are launching a female soccer team with Julie Ertz and Kaylee Watts, which has got great because it also leads into the NFL season. And Julie's married to Zach Ertz and Kele is married to J.J. watt. So they have a very competitive household that will play out on audio as well as soccer. And as the Men's World cup, we're going to get a female perspective and then that bodes well leading into 2027 and the women's World Cup. So the way we've set this up to be able to take advantage with our stars on the audio side, because you're going to see Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady doing an activation at the NBA draft, is we have natural tie ins between our audio and our broadcast. And then the third element is activations at these events. So it is a 360 offer to our advertising clients. And that's why we're seeing this early inquiry from the advertisers. Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) Maybe I'll just add to that. So undoubtedly there's a great synergy between what we're doing on audio and video, as Rob mentioned. But this is the. We haven't had a World cup, you know, in this time zone for quite some time. And obviously being partially in the US this is a bigger World cup than we've seen. So the comps, that's certainly different. We are going to do way better than we did, say four years ago. I don't think it'll be as big as the Olympics, unfortunately. I wish it was. But in terms of total impact. But it's definitely going to be a nice incremental pickup for us. Dan Kurnos (Equity Analyst) Okay. And if I could just tie this all together, I guess, and maybe bring the render into it too. Just as I look at your year right now, you guys are pacing towards the high end of your prior revenue guide and towards the lower end of the imputed expense guide, especially based off of Q1. Now, obviously we have, you know, political, and there's a lot of uncertainty out there. So I just want to be clear on what you guys are saying, it sounds like you guys are just being cautious given the macro. You're not seeing necessarily seeing anything yet. But, you know, in all other circumstances, it feels like you guys would be potentially raising guidance at this point. But you just want to see how things play out given clearly the uncertainty out there, which I think is logical. Dorinda Yeah, Dan, thanks. Thanks for the question. Nice question to set me up here, but, you know, I think you captured the puts and takes there properly. Look, if I look at core, as I mentioned, there are headwinds that have picked up from what we anticipated when we issued the guide. And the visibility is a little bit less than what we had before. But nothing that changes our view that will be outside the ranges we gave you on the distribution side, clearly pleased with all the things the traditional MVPDs are doing with their packaging. You know, we are clearly seeing those results translate into our numbers now. So we are monitoring that trend going forward. But nothing, you know, there, you know, a few months does not create a long term trend. So obviously we want to make sure that we see that consistently, you know, repeat itself before we say, okay, we have seen enough and now is the time to, you know, update our guidance and look on the cost side of the equation. I mean, you know us very well. You know, expense management and expense control, you know, is built into our DNA. You know, it's an ongoing process and we continue to, you know, look at any and all efficiency measures, but we are also investing in the right assets. You know, we talked about, you know, Tennis Channel, you know, we are, you know, putting energy behind it. We think it's a great differentiated asset and we are going to continue to do that where it makes sense for us. So if you take all of those things together, you know, sitting here today too early in the year, you know, same with political. There's no reason to say, you know, let's go ahead and change the ranges. Obviously, you know, we'll continue to monitor it and, you know, if there's a good reason to change them, we'll come back and tell you next quarter. Dan Kurnos (Equity Analyst) Awesome. Thank you guys for bearing with me. Appreciate all the color. OPERATOR Thanks, Dan. Thank you. David Hamburger (Equity Analyst) Thank you. Your next question is coming from David Hamburger from Morgan Stanley. Your line is live. Thank you. I was wondering, could you just articulate why the separation of Ventures is contingent upon a broadcast station transaction? And have you provided any guidance at all as to how Ventures would be capitalized upon a spinoff or a separation? Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) So Ventures is not contingent, it's just our preference. And I Think at some point in time, if we are unsuccessful getting a combination on Broadcast, we would just move forward with the venture separation with the thinking that Broadcast would then combine at some point on its own. But there is optionality that Ventures gives us. When we think about various combinations, it has a decent amount of cash. It obviously has some other assets as well, which could be more or less attractive to varying partners that we're in discussions with. And so that's really the main reason is that it's having those various levers to ensure that a combination gets done that maximizes the outcome for all shareholders. And then in terms of the capitalization question, Ventures does not have any debt currently. So the four walls of Ventures is already very well defined. It's in our financials. There is no debt on any of the venture wholly owned subsidiaries and it does sit on about 450 million of cash currently. So that is how it would be capitalized. If you just spend Ventures today, that could obviously change a little bit if it's done in conjunction with a combination on Broadcast. David Hamburger (Equity Analyst) And to clarify, you're saying a combination on Broadcast or a combination of Ventures with another company? Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) No, I'm just saying tying back to what I said earlier in that some of the assets at Ventures may play a role in a Broadcast combination, that you can see the mix within Ventures change depending on what happens on the Broadcast side. David Hamburger (Equity Analyst) Okay, how might that change? Have you provided any sort of guidelines or guardrails around how that the complexion of that business might change or. Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) No, but I just went through. There's cash, there's other assets. You know, there are. There are. In its simplest form, if more cash was needed in the combination, we could use some cash from Ventures in order to complete that as an example. But since there is no specific transaction to talk about on Broadcast, I can't give you any guidelines. David Hamburger (Equity Analyst) Sure. And at what point would you potentially make that determination that you would just proceed with a spin in the absence of effectuating a Broadcast deal? Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) Yeah, we are not going to lay out a specific timeline on that at this point, but as I mentioned, we are doing work to get the necessary items in place to do the spin. Like a carve out, for instance. And so that will play into the ultimate timing. David Hamburger (Equity Analyst) I think that just a quick. Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) Oh, sorry, go ahead, David. David Hamburger (Equity Analyst) I was just going to ask a balance sheet question, but I don't know if you had a follow up. Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) Yeah, what I was going to say is, look, if you take a step back and go back to the rationale for Entertaining Adventures separation Ventures has, and you can do the math, close to a billion dollars of assets that we don't feel are fully reflected in our valuation. And so how do we do that? We can provide enhanced disclosures for investors to take a look at it and determine, you know, how they want to value those assets. And if that's not happening, then we look at, you know, would these assets be fairly valued in the hands of other investors? And that was the thinking. We had two separate ventures. Now, as that conversation continues, as Chris outlined, there's some optionality we want to preserve. So we are not under a specific timeline to make that happen. We have started the work on venture separation and we are going to be very thoughtful about it. So we are pursuing broadcast transaction in parallel, and we don't know what the contours of those are going to be sitting here today talking to you about this. So we want to preserve that optionality. And as that picture starts to come into focus, we'll provide you more color on what that separation timeline and what the capitalization, et cetera, would look like. But it's too early for us to give you a firm read on that. David Hamburger (Equity Analyst) Okay, thanks. And just one quick question around the balance sheet. Can you just talk about how you sized the 165 billion a million of loan buyback? You know, why specifically that amount or was there any specific goal you were looking to achieve and how could we think about that going forward? Your appetite to do more of that? Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) Yeah, I think, look, we had cash in STG and we looked at how to deploy that cash. And we have outlined that delevering STG balance sheet is a top priority for us. And this was a right time for us to go out and see if there would be any demand for us to take some of the debt investors, you know, out from our term loans. And we started the process with a certain, you know, number in mind that would be interesting for investors to participate in. And as we went through the process, you know, we looked at how much cash we wanted to deploy at this point, and that's where we drew the line and executed that transaction. Looking ahead, you know, all options for us are on the table. You know, delevering is a top priority. As we generate more cash in a political year, you can expect us to continue to focus on that. No specific timeline to give you here today when the next one is or the one after. But as those opportunities arise, we will obviously look at them and execute. Execute on those. David Hamburger (Equity Analyst) Thank you very much. OPERATOR Thank you. Your next question is coming from Shannon Qui from Barclays. Your line is live. Shannon Qui (Equity Analyst) Hey guys, thanks for taking my question. I know you guys don't have any distribution contracts up for renewal this year, but it seems like some of your peers have been going into blackout and it's becoming more common. And then DTV filed the private lawsuit against nexstar Tegna. So I guess just curious your thoughts. I know you guys have some in 2027, but do you think this is a sign that renewals are becoming more and more contentious going forward? Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) Look, we don't think this is anything new. There are some blackouts currently going on. There was last year and there was the year before that and the year before that. So we've been very fortunate that we really haven't had any meaningful blackout for, you know, many years now. And, you know, we see no reason to necessarily change that. But you know, the reality is the broadcasters comprise about 50% of the viewership on pay TV and only get about 1/3 of the pay TV pie. And the process of. Right. Sizing that to what arguably should be greater than 50%, since we represent the most premium programming on pay TV, is not easy. And that adjustment, that shift of share away from cable channels that increasingly are becoming completely irrelevant towards broadcast is a difficult process. And I don't see the activity that we're currently witnessing as really all that unusual from prior years. And I think the industry will manage through it as it always has. Shannon Qui (Equity Analyst) Great, thank you. And then just I know you guys have done a good job managing costs and are always looking to cut costs. I was wondering if you guys have been using any kind of AI tools in helping managing costs or is there anything in the pipeline that you guys can do that can enhance cost reductions going forward? Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) So, yeah, AI is a big focus for us, as I'm sure every company gets on calls and says. But for us it is a true statement. And we've rolled out AI tools to our entire workforce. So we have both a bottoms up organic strategy that we're bearing that's bearing fruit in terms of people in various areas coming up with ways to use AI tools to improve productivity. We also have a top down strategy, a group dedicated to working on AI that is bringing new tools and workflows to the business. And I think when you consider just from a high level, the media business, beyond our newsrooms and our content creators and our reporters, almost everything else you could see being facilitated or automated by AI because we don't deal in any sort of hard goods or products. It's really just information and Bits going back and forth and you know, largely people in front of computer screens now, the content creators, you know, those, those are the differentiators. Right. But you know, over time you're going to see a lot of the other roles within, you know, certainly in Sinclair and you know, I imagine a lot of other media companies will follow suit and we see a lot of potential for that in terms of creating greater efficiencies but also opening up capacity for new revenue streams as well. Yeah. Dorinda And if I can maybe add on to that a little bit, the application of AI is not just in cost reduction. I think it's fundamentally reimagining and reinventing how we do things structurally. I think that's the way to look at it, for this to be sustainable and that's how we are looking at it. And as Chris also mentioned, there are significant applications of the technology on the revenue growth side of it also. So I would take a very holistic view on it. We have been working with the technology for, you know, several years now. We have iterated on it and we have some interesting, you know, opportunities in the pipeline that we're working with. So rest assured, like Chris mentioned at the start of his answer, this is not just a statement for us, it's actually true. Rob Weisford (Chief Operating Officer and President of Local Media) Yeah. And I'll just end it. Trying to paint a picture of the revenue side is with our podcast, just as one of our content creators, Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter, they have a big following in China and using AI tool sets to be able to convert their English language to Chinese and allow it to be distributed in China. There's just one opportunity that opens up what we're doing on a global basis, not just a United States basis. And that's what excites us about some of this technology. While we can put it in and we'll put it into the operations to make it more efficient, we're going to get greater velocity from these AI tool sets. Shannon Qui (Equity Analyst) Thank you guys. OPERATOR Thank you. We've reached the allotted time for Q and A. I'll now hand the conference back to Chris Ripley for closing remarks. Chris Ripley (President and Chief Executive Officer) Thank you, operator. We want to thank everyone for joining us for our Q1 earnings call. To the extent you have any follow up questions that weren't already answered, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.