E.W. SCRIPPS Co Q3 FY25 Results

“We are pleased today to report a third consecutive quarter of meeting or exceeding Wall Street expectations on nearly every reporting line. In addition, we completed a significant refinancing and brought down our leverage ratio from the start of the year. Since early August, we have announced the sale of two stations at valuations well above the industry average, contributing to improving the health of our balance sheet and the durability of our Local Media portfolio and further de-levering. “Expense discipline is an important part of our success story. In the third quarter alone, we reduced expenses by more than 4% in Local Media and 7.5% in Scripps Networks. Employee costs came down in both divisions. In Local Media, we held network compensation flat over last Q3, and in Networks, we’re seeing the ongoing effect of reductions in our Scripps News operations last fall. As a result of our initiatives, our Networks margins have exceeded our original guidance of 400-600 basis-point improvement for three straight quarters. “All of these financial milestones should serve as clear evidence that our short-term performance improvement and near-term growth strategies we have been executing, many of them unique among local broadcast groups, are working: launching sports partnerships and programming for business growth; optimizing the performance of our portfolio at premium seller multiples; improving our networks margins; and embracing artificial intelligence and other technologies to create efficiencies across the enterprise. These strategies will help Scripps thrive, driving business growth by creating connection through our local news and network programming in our geographic and audience communities from coast to coast.”