Q1 2025 Sinclair Inc Earnings Call
Speaker Change: Good day everyone and welcome to the Sinclair Inc. 1st quarter 2025 earnings conference call.
Speaker Change: At this time, all participants have been pleased on a listen-only mode, and we will open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation.
Speaker Change: It is not my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Chris King, Vice President and Investor Relations and Claire Inc. Sir the floor's yours.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining Sinclair's first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today are Chris Ripley, our President and CEO , Lucy Rutishauser, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Rob Weisbord, our COO and President of Local Media.
Speaker Change: 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.
Speaker Change: Certain matters discussed on this call may include forward-looking statements regarding, among other things, future operating results.
Speaker Change: Such statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainty. Actual results in the future could differ from those described in the forelooking statements as a result of various important factors.
Speaker Change: 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.
Speaker Change: Included on the call will be discussion of non-GAAP financial measures specifically adjusted EBITOP. These measures are not formulated in an accordance with GAP, are not meant to replace GAP measurements and may differ from other companies' uses or formulations.
Speaker Change: Further discussions and reconciliations of the company's non-GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP financial measures can be found on our website. Let me now turn the call over to Chris Ripley.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us.
Chris Ripley: Begin slide three, we're off to a solid start to the year despite the macroeconomic uncertainty all around us.
Chris Ripley: Our Total Media Revenue was in line with our expectations. Once again, we reported what we believe will be among the strongest core advertising performances among our broadcast peers in the first quarter.
Chris Ripley: Total advertising revenues were within our guidance range, excluding the impact in the quarter from an acquisition by Compulse.
Chris Ripley: Distribution Revenants increased by 50 million year of a year and while subscriber turn moderated slightly, the improvements have not yet caught up with our guide, which led to distribution revenues coming in 2 million below our guidance.
Chris Ripley: Media expenses were better than expected, driving adjusted EBDA comfortably above the high end of our guidance range.
Chris Ripley: Turning to slide four, our ventures portfolio continues to transform away from our minority investment holdings as we look to position the portfolio for more majority-owned assets over time.
Chris Ripley: Ventures benefited from 10 million of cash distributions and invested 38 million in the quarter, including a approximately 30 million for an acquisition by Compulse.
Ventures Cash Balance was 354 million at quarter-end
Chris Ripley: After completing our comprehensive refinancing of STG in February , we continue to carefully examine potential uses of Ventures Cash, which may include potential share repurchases or other shareholder friendly activity.
Chris Ripley: On slide five, I wanted to highlight a key announcement we made last week regarding the higher of Jeff Blackburn as Chairman and CEO of Tennis Channel.
Chris Ripley: Jeff comes to us after a storied 20-plus year career at Amazon, where he was the prime architect of the company's expansion in his streaming of sports while also developing and building prime video, prime studios, Amazon music, Amazon's advertising and marketplace divisions.
Chris Ripley: He will lead tennis channel strategy to expand its digital and streaming footprint and deepen audience engagement in order to position tennis channel for its next phase of transformative growth and long term value creation.
Chris Ripley: As the light latest example of such growth, just this morning we announced the formation of a new business unit to operate a groundbreaking partnership with the ATP, WTA, and participating US tournaments to create a unified opportunity to purchase a single comprehensive sponsorship package that covers the entire country.
Chris Ripley: This morning, Verizon was announced as the first sponsor sale with category exclusivity in the 5G wireless space.
Chris Ripley: We are excited to have attracted a media executive of Jeff Statcher, and we view the tennis enterprise sponsorship announcement as an example of the growth and long-term valuation that were committed to delivering in the quarters and years to come.
Chris Ripley: With that said, let me now turn over to Rob to continue the discussion about our broadcast business.
Rob Weisbord: Thanks, Chris, and good afternoon, everyone. Turning to slide six, as Chris mentioned earlier, we expect our core advertising results to once again be leader in the industry, despite the uncertainty and volatility that is impacting major categories across the nation.
Rob Weisbord: This would continue recent trends, which have seen this beading our publicly traded broadcasting years in year-over-year core growth rates in four of the past six quarters.
Rob Weisbord: through the end of 2024. During the first quarter, core advertising revenues were within our guidance range of down low single digits year over year. Having said that, the macroeconomic and tariff-related uncertainty is creating hesitation by certain top categories.
Rob Weisbord: On a positive note, we are now less than eight months away from another political season kicking off. On
Rob Weisbord: As an early preview on what we expect in 2026, we currently have 23 set of races in 25 who win the tutorial races in our footprint.
Rob Weisbord: We believe that at least six of these Senate races will be highly competitive and more than half the gubernatorial races will have competitive primaries.
Rob Weisbord: In addition, more than 30 house races have already been targeted by the National Republican and Democratic parties as potential flips.
Rob Weisbord: We expect intense battles across the country as the House, Senate, Umenitorial elections are all close to being evenly split between the two parties. And so we expect taking control of the driver of mid-term elections dollars.
Rob Weisbord: Prouching our distribution revenues on Friday, our net retransmission revenues grew by mid-single digits year over year in the quarter, and we continue to expect a two-year mid-single digit keger through the end of this year.
Rob Weisbord: Notably charted our largest MVPD, reduced video subscriber discounts in the first quarter by 55% year-over-year, highlighting their success in reducing term, including what we have called the Great Rebundling.
The Packages are streaming platforms with legacy linear packages.
Rob Weisbord: We believe charter success and reducing current industries, how creative solutions, including this type of funneling of the streaming platforms with legacy linear packages.
Rob Weisbord: Can we do some reverses for our return materially over time?
Rob Weisbord: From a new perspective, during the quarter we extended our YouTube TV distribution agreement.
Rob Weisbord: As a reminder, we do not have any outstanding traditional linear distribution or big-form network affiliation agreements offering you before late 2026.
Rob Weisbord: I also want to point out that our Portland Troublets has coverageed in this path in the A-Bregal season. Double it to average audience size on our stations in the Pacific Northwest versus the prior seasons coverage on a regional sports network.
Rob Weisbord: Once again, highlighting the importance of Weisbord and the benefits of the wide distribution of broadcast TV.
Rob Weisbord: The latest addition to our Amp Media Sports Podcast lineup, the FFR, starring women's soccer stars Cindy Leroux and Ali Riley, two of the key members of Angel City Football Club, once last week.
Rob Weisbord: The weekly podcast will focus on the authentic behind-the-scenes discussions that have helped growth of social media identities into some of the largest and woman sports media landscape.
Rob Weisbord: We also launched a women's basketball podcast shortly featuring WNBA stars Candace Falker and Alia Boston. These launches reflect our continued commitment to elevating women's sports and amplifying their voice of its top athletes.
Rob Weisbord: Thank you for additional announcements regarding the ongoing expansion of our social media and podcast platforms.
Speaker Change: I also wanted to briefly mention our very successful upfront presentation last week in New York, where we showcased our news and sports brains and demonstrated how advertisers can activate and amplify their brains as our partner.
Speaker Change: I wanted to thank all our podcasts out, including Coach Urban Meyer.
Mark Deer in the second, Rob Stone.
Speaker Change: Martina Navratilova, Sydney DeRue, London Donovan, Matt Liner, and Jerry Farrah. For being at our upright and helping us demonstrate what a powerful partner we can be for our advertisers.
Speaker Change: We look forward to sharing updates with you in coming quarters. Now let me turn it back over to Chris to provide a couple of the industry updates.
Thanks Rob.
Speaker Change: Turning to Slide 9. We, along with the NAV and the entire industry, are hopeful.
Speaker Change: that the many of the woefully outdated FCCF regulations that have hampered growth in the broadcast industry over the recent decades will be revisited if not eliminated in the coming months.
Speaker Change: And we remain hopeful that most of the outdated ownership rules impacting the sector will be modified to allow sensible M&A and portfolio rationalization.
Speaker Change: In addition, the industry will be lobbying for other issues impacting the sector, particularly the rules that prohibit broadcasters from negotiating directly with virtual MVPDs, as well as the rules that will allow the industry to rapidly sunset ATSC 1.0 networks.
Speaker Change: which will help accelerate wide adoption of next-gen broadcast products and services.
Speaker Change: As an example of what may come last week, FCC Commissioner Simonton and his chief of staff authored an op-ed suggesting that the FCC should take action to cap network programming fees at 30% of retransmission fees.
Speaker Change: The Peace highlights this proposal as a way to protect local broadcasters and local journalism from big tech and big media. The implementation of such a proposal would allow for the strengthening of local broadcasters and local news throughout the country.
Speaker Change: We look forward to continuing to work with Chairman Carr and the rest of the SEC on a very welcomed and long overdue deregatory approach to the broadcast industry to help level the playing field.
Speaker Change: Lastly, I want to do extend my deep appreciation and best wishes to Lucy, who announced her upcoming retirement several weeks ago.
Speaker Change: While Lucy is staying on through the transition of the new CFO , her over 26 years at Sinclair will be coming to an end within the next several months.
Speaker Change: Lucy has more than 8 years of experience in the CFO chair and reputation and expertise has benefited Sinclair greatly over the years.
Speaker Change: Lucy recently led our almost 4 billion comprehensive refinancing and has helped guide the company through tremendous growth of our portfolio of stations, diversification of our assets, many capital markets transactions and many other initiatives, as well as a great recession the pandemic and other challenges.
Speaker Change: Her numerous awards and recognitions from across the industry are a testimony to her leadership, dedication, and knowledge of both Sinclair and the wider broadcast industry.
Speaker Change: Even though we expect her to remain with us in a senior advisory role, there is no question that we will greatly miss her guidance, strategic and fiscal contributions, mentorship and work ethic. On behalf of the company, thank you for everything, Lucy.
Speaker Change: Now, perhaps for the final time, let me turn it over to Lucy for a discussion, our financial results in more detail. Lucy?
Speaker Change: Thank you, Chris, for the very kind words and good afternoon everyone.
Speaker Change: I'm pleased to say that I depart with Sinclair in a financially strong and healthy position. I'm pleased to grow in what should be a transformative next few years with deregulation and next end broadcast.
Speaker Change: Turning to slide ten, following our recent refinancing, we have significantly extended the debt maturity profile of the company with the current weighted average maturity of more than six years.
Speaker Change: As March 31st, our first out First Lean Net Leverage was 1.8 times with total First Lean Net Leverage at 4.2 times and total net leverage at 5.8 times as defined in our new STG credit agreement.
Speaker Change: Our balance sheet is now not only the industry's longest in terms of maturity profile, but more importantly positions us well to participate in what we hope will be a period of renewed M&A activity within the sector.
Speaker Change: In addition to the comprehensive refinancing, we also repurchased approximately 66 million and face value of STG's 2027 notes for 62 million in early April .
On slide 11, we highlight our first quarter statement results.
Speaker Change: Despite the negative economic headlines and general levels of uncertainty throughout the economy,
Speaker Change: We delivered in line media revenues in our local media segment with core advertising down 4.5% year over year and distribution revenues to
Speaker Change: Our political revenue outperformance in the quarter was largely driven by a Wisconsin Supreme Court race that garnered national attention in what could be an early indicator of what's to come in next year's midterm elections.
Speaker Change: Adjusted heaps up at the high end of our Bad Ends range by approximately $9 million for local media driven by favorable S-GNA and promotional expenses on a continued cost savings focus.
Speaker Change: Tennis Channel had another strong quarter with revenues and adjusted EBITDA, goes in line with our guidance ranges, as total revenues grew by 9% from year-to-year-go levels.
Speaker Change: Slide 12 reviews our consolidated media revenue, which was within our guidance range, as inline core and higher political advertising, were offset by slightly lower than expected distribution
Speaker Change: Media revenues fell by approximately 22 million year-over-year driven by lower political advertising revenues in this non-election year, and the absence of material diamond sports management fees.
Speaker Change: which were offset by higher distribution revenue of 15 million year-over-year on the recent renewals.
Speaker Change: Turning to slide 13, our consolidated adjusted EBITDA exceeded our guidance range primarily on a continued focus on managing expenses which were lower than forecast due to several S-GNA line items.
Speaker Change: As compared to last year, adjusted EBITDA, declined by 27 million, driven by lower core political and management fee revenues, and slightly higher media expenses on network programming fees, production costs, and annual compensation increases.
On slide 14, we introduced our second quarter, 2025 guidance.
Speaker Change: Please note that our guidance includes the recent acquisition by Compulse, which is included in other in our segment reporting.
Speaker Change: We expect 2nd quarter media revenues to be lower year-over-year on a consolidated basis. Do you primarily to significantly lower political revenues in a non-election year?
Speaker Change: The absence of material diamond management fees as well as some continued softness and core advertising categories.
Speaker Change: We anticipate local media for advertising revenue to be lower by approximately 2% at the midpoint of our guidance range, while distribution revenues are expected to be 1% higher year-ever-year as we begin to cycle through some of the larger distribution renewals from a year ago.
Speaker Change: Our Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be within a range of 91 to 107 million.
Speaker Change: Turning to slide 15, we present our full-year guidance, however we have removed the media expense line item.
Speaker Change: We believe the current macroeconomic and tariff-related uncertainty is causing our advertisers in several key categories to have significantly reduced visibility and is therefore driving a wide range of potential outcomes in the second half of the year.
Speaker Change: In fact, several of those advertisers have pulled their own financial guidance.
Speaker Change: With the reduced visibility on core revenues in the back half of the year, it's difficult to provide a range for the media expenses given the direct cost associated with those revenues such as commissions, bonuses, etc.
Speaker Change: However, you do have Q1 Actuals and Q2 Guidance to inform your four-year media expense estimates based on your advertising revenue assumptions in the back half of the year.
Speaker Change: We will note that consistent with our beat on media expenses in the first quarter, we would expect those expense trends, pre-acquisition, to continue under an assumption of consistent revenue expectations for the remainder of the year.
Speaker Change: In the four-year guidance provided, net interest expense includes the non-recurring 68 million and fees and expenses related to the refinancing that were expense in the first quarter.
Speaker Change: Notably, for the year, we are now forecasting much lower cash tax payments of $121 million at the midpoint of our guidance.
Speaker Change: which is $95 million lower than our guidance provided last quarter. Driving the reduction is a revised estimate of the taxes on the diamond exit gain which declined from an estimated $170 million to $83 million.
Speaker Change: The $87 million estimated reduction is largely due to having more current information regarding the utilization of certain tax attributes.
of the 83 million Diamond Exegained Taxes.
Speaker Change: Local media is estimated to fund 58 million and ventures to fund 25 million.
Chris: I will now turn it back to Chris for some closing remarks before we open the call to Q&A.
Chris: Thanks, Lucy. Turning to slide 16 to wrap up the quarter with our key takeaways. Sinclair delivered solid financial results in a challenging environment. Adjusted EBITDA exceeded the high end of our range guidance.
Chris: Core advertising trends continue to be among the best in the industry despite the macroeconomic uncertainties and lack of visibility.
Subscribe or turn, continues to moderate.
Chris: Regulatory Optimism remains buoyant with expectations for loosened M&A restrictions and next-gen spectrum relief among other potentially favorable changes that could lead to a strengthening of local journalism.
Chris: The balance sheet is strong with the comprehensive refinancing completed during the first quarter, our weighted average maturity of more than six years out, our nearest maturity, meaning food maturity, not until December of 2029 and 66 million of debt repurchased at a discount.
Chris: Finally, liquidity got a further boost from a significantly lower cash tax payment estimate for the full year related to the diamond chapter 11 emergence.
Speaker Change: In summary, we could not be more optimistic about the future for the industry, and Sinclair's continued position as an industry leader. Thank you very much for joining us today, and your interest in Sinclair. Rob Lucy and I will now take your questions.
Speaker Change: 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.
Speaker Change: Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone. Your first question is coming from Dan Kurnos from Benchmark. Your line is live.
Great. Thanks. Good afternoon.
Speaker Change: Chris, let me just echo sentiments, Lucy, we go back a long, long way. A certain one-handed catch at Brewer Stadium while holding a beverage I might add, will never be forgotten.
Speaker Change: So I do certainly wish you nothing but the best. I just wanted to start with that. Thank you, Dan.
Speaker Change: Chris, obviously, the Simmington op-ed piece has gotten a lot of attention. There's a lot of debate as to whether or not the SEC can cap retrans rates.
Speaker Change: I reverse rates, I should be clear. Can you please address that and whether or not you think they can do something like that, although obviously if they were even just to allow you to negotiate directly with the virtual that would change the net trajectory pretty significantly. Thank you very much.
Derrick.
Speaker Change: So, the FCC does have the ability to regulate the relationship between networks and affiliates that is a part of their charter, so...
Speaker Change: You know, it could also open up bigger opportunities for us in terms of filling in day parts that maybe the networks don't want to service anymore, which would also up tail with the FCC's objectives. So, like overall,
Speaker Change: Support for the broadcast industry that we believe is well overdue and you know the the right answer for the industry. I think we'll end up being a combination of things [inaudible]
Speaker Change: You know, some of which will be, you know, losing up ownership rules, sunsetting 1.0, but, you know, other ideas that are coming to the surface here. And, you know, we're just thrilled that the FCC is, you know, stepping into, to help the level of the playing field. [inaudible]
Speaker Change: God, it's super helpful. And then, you know, kind of the other obvious question, you know, given sort of the uncertainties out there, you pulled your media expense line item, we got the two cute guys, maybe just tell us what you're seeing out there conversations with advertisers and how do you guys feel about how core might shape up for the year understanding you have some really easy comps on the back after the year. [inaudible]
Speaker Change: Yes, as we look at the year goes on, we still expect our quarter for over year over year.
Speaker Change: I'll caveat that by saying that our visibility is greatly reduced.
Speaker Change: Over what it was, 68 weeks ago. We've seen large companies in several of our key advertising categories.
Speaker Change: Such as Ford, pull up, pull their own financial guidance for the year, given the uncertainty around what the broader economic and terror policies are.
Speaker Change: Those companies are concerned about what the supply chains as well as consumer confidence of demand.
Speaker Change: So while we expected to grow year over year, it captured that work cautiously optimistic with limited visibility as time has gone on.
Speaker Change: Got it, super helpful, thank you, and I'll see you at Best of luck.
Thank you, Dan.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Your next question is coming from Aaron Watts from Deutsche Bank. Your line is live.
Aaron Watts: Hey, everyone. Thanks for having me on, Lucy. I want to thank you for everything over the many years, including putting up with all my questions and all our conferences you took time to participate in. We'll miss you at those and on these calls, but I am glad that you'll still be with the company in your new role. So that's the luck with that.
Appreciate it. Thank you.
Of course, a follow-up on core advertising.
Speaker Change: And maybe the auto category specifically, how did that trend in first quarter, and how is it looking in two queue? Are you seeing any bump on kind of beat the tariff ads, get a car before the price increases? And do you see this bump if it is happening as sustainable at all?
Speaker Change: Up to the state we haven't seen that bump, we would just notify though that these bond will be going on as aggressive.
Speaker Change: Bad campaign, what's interesting is the trends are moving away from outright buys to leases and so leases
Speaker Change: Ltd. trend up, so we're bullish on the financial segment wrapped around the automotive and again they're going to have to clear out the 25s in the back half of the year to make room for the 26s in the back half of the year to make room for the 25s in the back half of the year
Speaker Change: But again, what's some of the visibility not there? How much of the foreign?
Speaker Change: Manufacturers, OEMs, how much is going to come into the country still remains not visible to us. So I think we're competitive on the domestic side and the foreign side is still to be seen.
Speaker Change: Okay. And in terms of what you see from some of your bigger markets, first maybe more of your smaller markets,
Speaker Change: National versus Local. Are you seeing a widespread kind of a difference in an advertiser sentiment based on that? I mean, we've been hearing that national is a bit weaker than local. Are you seeing that play out?
Speaker Change: Again, I think we approach the business in a unique way. Our Monica is one partner in the possibilities. And we just ran a draft with our audio talent from Green Bay and activated a couple of our major advertisers.
Speaker Change: So, as we look at it, we don't really look at trying to do just straight ads, but...
Speaker Change: This term is often dots world, it really is cross platforming and the activation and amplifying of our partners which were seen in our upfront.
So, we have a long-term...
Speaker Change: Partnerships that have been strong and staying with us because of that activation so we're not really seeing much difference between local and nationalists or our pace and it has been you just with how we both share the local clients and the national clients.
Speaker Change: Okay, that's helpful, thanks. Lucy, maybe I could aim one your way. You noted that 66 million a bond repurchases in April .
Speaker Change: Can you just remind us the capital allocation priorities for the television groups specifically? Should we expect continued debt pay down going forward in particular as we roll into as we roll into next year when the political dollars Chris highlighted start to roll in?
Lucy: Yeah, so as we've been saying for a couple quarters now, Aaron, and especially with the RIFI, our focus is on the leveraging the local media group.
Speaker Change: and this is one indication buying the debt in at a discount where we can start to drive that
Speaker Change: Okay, perfect. Thank you for the time and Lucy Vesola.
Speaker Change: Thank you, your next question is coming from Steven Cahall from Wells Fargo, your line is live.
Stephen Cahal: Thank you. Chris, I was wondering if you could talk a little more about the specifics of how you see deregulation unfolding.
Stephen Cahal: I think when the Republicans have majority of commissioners, then maybe they'll move to notice up proposed rulemaking so I was wondering.
Stephen Cahal: if you think that's the next step where then the industry will begin to have substantive conversations and-
Speaker Change: Whether you participate as a buyer or a sellout, you always at process needs to clear any court challenges that it could face before you'd be willing to sort of sign and be willing to transact. Just trying to get an understanding of like how fast this can happen or if there's a number of steps in the process that we'll need to wait for before you'd be comfortable transacting if we do get. [inaudible] I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry
Pretty significant deregulation like we expect.
Sure, so look on that front.
Speaker Change: I think there's a number of current data points in terms of just the rules changing. One is that the confirmation of the third Republican Commissioner Olivia Trusty is moving forward well. I think our expectation is that she could be in place by Memorial Day. [inaudible]
Speaker Change: And after that, I do expect that a rulemaking will start to proceed. I used a Commissioner Car making news today.
calling the in-market ownership rules outdated and antiquated.
Speaker Change: And so, you know, there's definitely this groundswell is there and I expect that...
Speaker Change: Action will be taken once the third Republican Commissioner.
Speaker Change: is put in place and that's looking like it's going to move forward fairly quickly.
Speaker Change: That said, in terms of M&A in the meantime, just the rules that we have on the books today which include things like the UHF discount, which include ownership of two big fours.
Speaker Change: Subject to a big four waiver, but it's the rules that they exist today do actually afford most players including Sinclair a significant amount of flexibility.
Framin A, so I think that...
Speaker Change: At least from our perspective, you're going to see more activity from us.
Speaker Change: You've already seen some, right? We announced a sale of five markets, a station swap.
But you're going to start seeing more.
Speaker Change: You know, in the weeks to come, we will start filing for some of the JSA buy-ins that I've been talking about.
Speaker Change: Before and that's a very accretive trade that should add tens of millions of dollars to our bottom line with very little cash out the door.
Speaker Change: I think station swaps are going to happen in the meantime while we wait for some of these rules to change and even large-scale M&A or mergers.
Speaker Change: are on the to do list, I think for many broadcasters and I don't think many, depending on the situation, I just, you don't necessarily have to wait for the rules to change.
Got it. Thank you. And then just unadvertising.
Speaker Change: Should we assume with the change to the expense guide in the back half the year that? David Weisbord, David Weisbord, David Weisbord,
Speaker Change: Your visibility is also a little lower as you look out, waiter in Q2, obviously April Film, Rapier, but maybe you can just speak to where the visibility starts to decline.
Before we head off, volatility. Thank you.
Speaker Change: So, I'll let others chime in, but in terms of our visibility [inaudible]
Speaker Change: It's really about four to six weeks out, so what data we have on Q3 and Q4 really doesn't really tell us much at this point.
Speaker Change: And about 20% of our total expense load is very relies to revenue. And so that's sort of the window as to why, you know, talk them off with your guidance didn't make sense at this time.
Speaker Change: And what all that is, the visibility is 46 weeks, but as we go into...
Speaker Change: Middle of 3rd quarter, 4th quarter, with the Return of College football, NFL coming up for record, championship games, Superbowls, sports on broadcast, 15 record highs.
Speaker Change: and the advertisers have noticed it. So even with the economic times, uncertainty is what we know is certain that there is.
Speaker Change: A demand for top eight-tier sports, and we're set up perfectly in the third and fourth quarter of the capitalize on the eight-tier sports that will be returning to the networks.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Your next question is coming from Benjamin Soff from Deutsche Bank. Your line is lies.
Speaker Change: Good afternoon. Thanks for the question. I was curious if you could talk a little bit more about the compost steel, any additional color on that asset, and how it's impacting numbers.
Speaker Change: And then for Lucy and other really strong quarter on the expense side, can you talk about where you were able to capture those savings and how much runway is left to continue taking costs out of the business.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: We're all of our department heads are engaged in looking for ways to work smarter.
Speaker Change: Be more efficient and really question, you know, the spending and so I'd like to take credit for it but I really have to give credit to the entire organization on that.
Speaker Change: and so really in first quarter that is coming across a multitude of departments of departments.
Speaker Change: I wish I could just point to one of them as being the main driver, but it really is coming across on an enterprise basis. Now what I would say is are there more expenses? Did if we needed to, that we could take out of the business?
Again, if we needed to. [inaudible]
Speaker Change: The answer is yes, but right now there is not a need to go down to the bear minimum.
Speaker Change: So we continue to spend where we see growth in the business and be smarter about the places where it's not growing or we really don't need to put investment behind it.
as I stated in prior earnings.
Speaker Change: Results is mature to the point where it really is a best-in-class platform. It's delivering double-digit growth for us every quarter year of a year. It's got healthy margins.
Speaker Change: And we really are looking to scale it in a big way. So...
Speaker Change: This acquisition on a performance basis ends up being a very attractive multiple.
for us because of the synergies. [inaudible]
Speaker Change: and it significantly increases the amount of revenue that we're putting on to the convulse platform. So it's very accretive
Moove in an area that is consolidating.
and this will, you know, increase.
The Financial Size and Significance of Compulse for...
for the Ventures portfolio going forward.
Speaker Change: Digital content folks that we would support them and the demand showcases why we will support that growth for compulse because it's justified by its growth and by where you are at Tsar.
I'd appreciate the color. Thank you
Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Once again, everyone, if you have any questions or comments, please press star then one on your phone. Your next question is coming from David Hamburger from Morgan's family. Your line is live.
Speaker Change: Thank you very much. Again, I would like to echo the sentiment. We see you've always been very helpful answering questions and otherwise and wish you the best in your new endeavor.
Of course I have his number.
Speaker Change: Last quarter, you had disclosed that you had renewed your three trans agreements representing 80% of the traditional big four. You had one negotiation that was active at the time.
Speaker Change: I assume based on the disclosures now wanted to confirm one that you've renegotiated that.
Speaker Change: Agreements, seeing that you now mention you have nothing until the end of 2026 as well you had mentioned on the Ernie's call. [inaudible]
Speaker Change: that the guidance you gave for the first quarter reflected accruals based on the current state of negotiations with that counter party.
Speaker Change: I'm just curious, how did that end up, you know, shake out based on, you know, what you were crewing the results and did that at all impact the distribution revenues in the first quarter?
Speaker Change: So the short answer to that is no, it did not impact the Q1 results, we ended up.
Speaker Change: There is an agreement in principle with that MVPD and we ended up right at where we were, where we were occurring at.
Speaker Change: Okay, and just generally speaking about the slower than expected improvement in Kurn, I mean you did highlight and we've all seen the charter numbers, it does appear still to be somewhat mixed.
Speaker Change: When you look across the PTV universe, you know, what are you expecting now as you looked out the second quarter guidance can you provide any?
Speaker Change: additional thoughts or color on kind of your expectations for subscriber churn and I think in the past you've actually disclosed you know that it's been pretty consistently in mid single digits is that still the case.
Speaker Change: Yes, that is still the case in our forecast, does assume mid-single digit percent.
Speaker Change: And, you know, into your point, you know, we were a little bit more optimistic.
Speaker Change: And, you know, how quickly the sub-charm would moderate, but it's just slightly off. And I do want to remind you that, you know, on a year-over-year basis, putting aside...
Speaker Change: You know, the forecast on a year-over-year basis, you know, we grew distribution revenues significantly.
I also would like to add-
David, that we- [inaudible]
Speaker Change: We have everything that we've seen so far, and the growth in gross retrans, and our renewals on the reverse side. We are reiterating our two-year Kager from 23 to 25 of mid-single digits.
Thank you so much.
Speaker Change: Thank you. That concludes our Q and A session. I'll now hand the conference back to Chris Ripley, President and CEO for closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Speaker Change: Thank you all for joining our call today and supporting Sinclair to extend you have any questions or comments. Please reach out to us.