Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SBGI) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript May 8, 2024

Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.43, expectations were $-0.54. Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Good afternoon everyone and welcome to Sinclair's First Quarter 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode and the floor will be open for questions after the presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Chris King, VP of Investor Relations. Chris you may begin.

Chris King: Thank you. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining Sinclair's First Quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today are, Chris Ripley, our President and Chief Executive Officer; Lucy Rutishause, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Rob Weisbord, our Chief Operating Officer and President of Local Media. Before we begin, I want to remind everyone that the slides and supplemental information for today's earnings call are available on our website, sbgi.net on the investor information page and on the earnings webcast page. Certain matters discussed on this call may include forward-looking statements regarding among other things future operating results. Such statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties.

Actual results in the future could differ from those described in the forward-looking statements as a result 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. The company uses its website as a key source of company information, which can be accessed at www.sbgi.net. In accordance with Regulation FD, this call is being made available to the public. A webcast replay will be available on our website and will remain available until our next quarterly earnings release. Included on the call will be a discussion of non-GAAP financial measures, specifically adjusted EBITDA, This measure is not regulated 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.

Finally we note that the presentation of certain information in our first quarter investor presentation may have changed from prior quarterly investor presentations. We also expect that the presentation of certain information in our second quarter earnings release conference call and investor presentation will differ from our first quarter presentation due to an ongoing routine common process with the Securities and Exchange Commission that we believe other publicly traded broadcasters are currently engaged in as well. Let me now turn the call over to Chris Ripley.

Chris Ripley: Good afternoon everyone, and thank you for joining us. I'll start on Slide 4 by introducing an overview of our first quarter financial results. As you can see, Sinclair delivered strong solid first quarter results that meant that met our guidance expectations in our Local Media segment, while Tennis Channel exceeded expectations for adjusted EBITDA. Within local media, our distribution revenue came in slightly above the top end of our guidance range, while advertising revenue was slightly below the low end of our range. As a result, we were comfortably within the consolidated guidance ranges for total revenues and adjusted EBITDA. Turning to slide 5. I wanted to highlight our strong commitment to our stakeholders through our return of cash.

Since the beginning of 2024, we have paid approximately $16 million to shareholders through our regular quarterly dividend which has a dividend yield of 7% as of March 31, while also purchasing $27 million of debt in January for approximately $25 million in cash. Since the beginning of 2023, we bought back approximately $91 million in face value of our debt and retired another $35 million through amortization related payments. In early 2023, we also repurchased nearly 9 million shares of our Class A. common stock in addition to the $81 million in dividend payments to our shareholders since the beginning of 2023. Our commitment to maximizing value for all of our stakeholders remains a top priority for the Company. Turning to Slide 6. We remain committed to the transformation of our traditional local media business.

We believe Sinclair as well as the broader industry has multiple growth drivers. First, excluding the impact of the 2020 Georgia runoff, we expect to see record-breaking political advertising revenues in 2024, which equate to more than $350 million. We continue to see strong political advertising demand and we expect the strong growth of issue orientated political advertising and what appears to be several closed Senate and House races in our footprint to accelerate this growth significantly as we get closer to this year's general election. Given the lack of hypercompetitive primaries, we do expect political advertising spend to be more heavily weighted to the third and fourth quarters, as we anticipate most of the spend at the presidential level will be focused on general election.

Rob will cover this more in more detail shortly. Second, our focus on high demand and differentiated local news and sports content continues to drive strong and loyal viewership, with over 44% of your impressions across our station portfolio, driven by non network content. In addition, with nearly all of our big four traditional subscribers renewing throughout 2024, we expect a mid single-digit net retrans two year CAGR from 2023 to 2025. We have already renewed 42% of our big four traditional network subscribers as of the beginning of May with the remaining renewals coming up throughout the remainder of the year. NextGen broadcasting is becoming a reality as well. We now have 3.0 coverage in over half of our 86 markets and over 75% of the US.

In addition at the NAB conference last month in Las Vegas, we launched broadband wireless our NextGen data casting platform with our first go-to market data casting market partner Edgio. Turning to slide 7. For years the broadcast industry often led by Sinclair has spoken about NextGen broadcast opportunities that will represent a key change for the traditional broadcast industry. I'm very pleased to announce at the time for NextGen data distribution opportunity is now. Broadcast data distribution has many benefits such as a more efficient distribution of mass consumption data, improved customer experience with lower latency and higher quality, and lower cost for data delivery. Broadband will use the industry's 3.0 spectrum for data distribution to deliver a suite of data solutions to the market.

The platform centralizes data distribution management across multiple stations and markets allocate spectrum assets without disruption to the existing broadcast services and collect insights on executed data deliveries. Another business use case focuses on automotive connectivity services which would allow the distribution of data to vehicles to include over the air software updates, live broadcasts and alerts, high-fidelity audio and other features. In addition, working in partnership with Edgio, we have launched a new content distribution service using streaming video offload allowing a customer to seamlessly switch between over-the-air and over-the-top sources to offload bandwidth-intensive traffic from traditional broadband networks. Broadband will also be able to deliver precise navigation, which is able to achieve up to three centimeters CPS accuracy by augmenting GPS data with real-time, kinematic positioning error correction feeds.

In addition the broadcast positioning system or BPS is not satellite based which can offer crucial redundancies should anything happen to the existing GPS infrastructure that almost every industry relies on heavily today. We could not be more excited regarding the near term and long term business opportunities for NextGen broadcast and broadband. And we're focused on remaining an industry leader in this exciting new technology. Turning to slide 8. Last week we paid the remaining $445 million to Diamond Sports Group per the settlement with Diamond that we previously announced in January. STG contributed $347 million to the gross settlement figure while ventures contributed an additional $98 million, in addition to the $50 million ventures paid in March.

These allocations were made following discussions between the two independent Board of Directors of STG and ventures after considering several different financial metrics including revenue, assets, income EBITDA and free cash flow for the two units among other considerations. Notably, our net settlement cost estimate remains $250 million to $325 million which reflects income tax benefits the increase in the MSA fees and other considerations. Of the net cost estimate, we expect SBG.'s portion of the total to be approximately 55% to 60%. Now let me turn it over to Rob to discuss our local media strategy.

Rob Weisbord: Thanks, Chris. Turning to slide 9, I wanted to begin by touching on the broad advertising environment, which came in slightly below our expectations for core advertising in the first quarter. Pro forma core advertising was down 2.1% on a reported consolidated basis. However, the quarter was impacted by less premium sports exposure compared to a year ago period due to the Super Bowl being broadcast on CBS this year versus Fox last year as well as the plan for being based on cable this year in addition to a $6 million decline in the sports betting category. Often those revenue streams in both years core revenue would have been up low single-digits year-over-year. We do expect core advertising revenue growth to increase year-over-year in the second quarter with growth expected in the 2% to 6% range over last year's second quarter.

No other categories. Services continued to be a top performer up year over year in the quarter driven by home repair and home building categories. Legal and pharmaceutical categories also showed nice growth year over year. However as noted earlier, exports fell betting fell materially year-over-year. Automotive and medical were the largest drivers of our slight miss versus our guidance for core advertising revenue. Auto continues to see modest pressure as manufacturers and dealers see fewer sales primarily by the higher interest rates. As we begin the second quarter, retail services and entertainment pacings are strong while medical and pharmaceutical pacings are slightly softer than April last year. Also of note sports betting which was down almost 60% year-over-year in first quarter is pacing up almost 30% in the second quarter.

On slide 10, I wanted to provide a quick update on political ad spending, as the political season is well underway and expected to be a record year. We booked $24 million in political advertising in the first quarter of 2024 within our guidance range. We saw strong fundraising trends we continue to anticipate political revenues to be back-end loaded this year, based on both independent third-party research and our internal data. Notably as of May 1st, we have pre-bought over $77 million in political advertising for the second half of the year through Election Day. This compares to $21 million as of the same days in 2020 and $28 million in 2022. Our proprietary pricing tool will help us to price properly versus demand throughout the political season to maximize revenue.

Looking at the individual races, 23 the 34 US Senate races, this fall being Sinclair markets, we forecast 10 of the states will have competitive races as opposed to eight in 2020. We have seven states in our footprint with the governor races. And we believe we have 24 competitive House races in our footprint this fall as opposed to 18 in 2020. This is in addition to the 10 battleground states for the Presidency within our footprint. We continue to see strong activity from pack and super pack fund raises and heavy spending is forecasted to continue for issues based advertise. These developments lead us to continue to expect political advertising revenues above $350 million in 2024. Now turning to slide 11, we have reached retrans agreements with 42% of our traditional Big-4 subscribers for new multi-year distribution agreements so far this year, nearly all of the remaining traditional Big-4 network subscribers on agreements that expire between now and the end of 2024.

We also have only one Big-4 network affiliation that expires before the back half of 2026, providing us with high visibility on our network compensation expenses over the 2024 through 2026 timeframe. When these negotiations scheduled in mind, we continue to expect a mid-single digit two-year CAGR for net retrans from 2023 to 2025. Another positive data point during the quarter comes from our Over-the-Air Broadcast Networks charge comments and TBD which referred to as the Stack. The Stack new high in the quarter in the quarter with primetime viewing up 38% year-over-year reaching 73,000 viewers in the coveted 25 to 54 age group. In fact the three networks combine set 62 all-time high record ratings records during the first quarter. Turning to Slide 12, our News Gathering Operation continues to excel, while highlighting the importance of broadcast news to local communities.

As demonstrated by our coverage in the March 26th collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge here in Baltimore. Our Baltimore and Washington D.C. station dominated the coverage locally with our Baltimore station WBFS providing live coverage of the collapse a full 30 minutes before any other station in the market with line Within 48 hours of the strategy, our two stations combined for 1.6 million page views on their website, over two million YouTube views, more than nine million social impressions and 300,000 engagements, illustrating our focus on connecting with our viewers wherever they may be and how are they wants to view our content. As seen on slide 13, we also continue to build and develop our Audio and Social Division and evolve the art of reporting and storytelling to engage with fans of sports, entertainment, news and true crime.

We have recently signed 3-time National Champion college football coach Urban Meyer and commentator Rob Stone to host a new sports podcast focused on college football on and off season which will launch this fall. Our team is also in active negotiations with multiple top-tier athletes and entertainers as we continue to build out our roster of podcast and audio talent. Look for an announcement in the coming weeks which will detail all we have planned for rollout later this year. So let me turn the call back over to Chris, to provide an update on Tennis Channel as well as our Broader Ventures segment.

Chris Ripley: Thanks Rob. As seen on slide 14, Tennis Channel recorded another strong quarter with $63 million in total revenue which was at the high-end of our guidance and $26 million in adjusted EBITDA after excluding $1 million in growth initiatives net costs which was comfortably above our guidance. We expect continued strong growth metrics from Tennis Channel, as we look forward to our live coverage of Roland-Garros later this month. Moving to slide 15, the average number of households watching Tennis Channel in the first quarter grew by 35% year-over-year, while total viewers grew by 27% and social media impressions grew by 141% year-over-year. Once again, Tennis Channel ratings out growth outpaced all other English-language sports networks in the world.

The TC+ streaming platform increased monthly subscribers by 7% year-over-year, ending the quarter with its highest monthly subscriber total ever. The T2 FAST channel grew by 273% year-over-year, thanks in large part to expanded distribution, and as its exclusive tennis content continues to drive strong growth across multiple delivery platforms. In addition, Tennis Channel will launch a direct-to-consumer offering later this year, which will provide a significant new leg of growth. We also believe Pickleball coverage and PBTV will drive even stronger growth metrics for Tennis Channel in the coming quarters. Also of note, for the first time, Sinclair is participating in the sports upfront next week in New York. In addition, we will be offering opportunities for advertisers to be aggregated in stadium as well as through sponsorships for all US-based tennis tournaments through Tennis Channel.

We remain excited about the many growth opportunities ahead for Tennis Channel. I wanted to provide a brief update on our Ventures portfolio on slide 16. As of March 31, ventures held a cash position of $318 million. Of note, during the quarter, the Company received $49 million in exit distributions and $3 million in capital distributions while making an additional $2 million of capital contributions into the portfolio. As illustrated this quarter, our goal over time is to translate a significant amount of these minority investments into other majority owned investments that we expect to have long-term growth potential and consolidation opportunities as well as provide greater visibility into the performance of ventures assets. We will continue to update our investors on a regular basis as we transform this investment portfolio.

Before I turn the call over to Lucy to discuss the financial results, I wanted to highlight our awards and charitable endeavors on slide 17. Sinclair won 28 different broadcast awards during the quarter, including three national awards and two Regional Emmy Awards. On Earth Day, we released our second annual corporate social responsibility report, which highlights our environmental and social efforts throughout the Company. On the charitable front, we held our second company-wide day of service in April, which saw over 1,300 employees volunteering their time to provide over 3,700 hours of service during that single day. We collected over 1,100 pounds of trash, prepared and served over 3,800 meals impact more than 14,000 baby products and more than 8500 boxes of food.

I want to take this opportunity to thank our employees for another successful day of service. In addition, I'm proud to announce that Sinclair donated $50,000 to the Maryland Tough Baltimore Strong Key Bridge fund, which will go towards helping our fellow amount of Marylanders that have experienced an economic hardship following the collapse of the Key Bridge here in Baltimore. Our Sinclair Cares also completed a partnership with Reading Is Fundamental, which was a month-long campaign during national reading months in March. Now, let me turn the call over to Lucy to provide additional details on our financial results in the quarter.

Lucy Rutishauser: Thank you, Chris, and good afternoon, everyone. Beginning on slide 18, on a consolidated basis, we delivered media revenues during the first quarter that met our guidance range as distribution revenues exceeded our guidance, political revenues came in near the upper end of our guidance range and core advertising was slightly below guidance due to the reasons Rob mentioned earlier. As compared to last year, consolidated media revenues increased to $792 million during the quarter, primarily on the higher political revenues and an increase in distribution revenue. On slide 19, consolidated adjusted EBITDA was also within our guidance range with media expenses favorable to guidance as a result of sales promotion and G&A expenses coming in better than anticipated and corporate overhead higher due to primarily stock-based compensation and group insurance.

As compared to last year, on a pro forma basis consolidated adjusted EBITDA in the quarter increased by 10%, driven by the increase in higher media revenues and lower corporate overhead. Media expenses were up year-over-year largely driven by annual compensation increases and network programming fees. Slide 20 walks through our balance sheet metrics with the next meaningful maturity more than two years away. Sinclair Television Group's first lien net leverage was 4.3 times and total net leverage 5.3 times at the end of the quarter on a trailing eight quarter basis. Interest coverage was 2.9 times as of March 31. As previously announced, we repurchased $27 million in face value of debt for approximately $25 million in cash in January. Our consolidated cash position was $655 million at quarter end with $337 million at SBG and $318 million at Ventures.

Including our undrawn revolving commitments, total liquidity was more than $1.3 billion. There were 66 million total shares outstanding at quarter end. Slide 21 introduces our second quarter guidance, which caused for total media revenues in the $813 million to $832 million range, up 7% to 9% year-over-year in the quarter. The growth is driven primarily by political, which we expect to be in the $29 million to $35 million range as well as 4% increase in distribution revenues. Core advertising, as Rob mentioned, is expected to grow 2% to 6%, given continued strength in the services, retail and entertainment categories. We expect adjusted EBITDA in the quarter to be in the range of $132 million to $155 million, up from the pro forma $110 million of adjusted EBITDA in the year ago period.

That's due to higher media revenues being modestly offset by higher production costs, network programming fees, sales cost on the higher revenue and Tennis Channel growth initiatives. Turning to slide 22. We conclude our 2024 full year guidance for certain expenses. The notable changes are an increase to interest expense on fewer Fed rate cuts expected this year, an acceleration of Q2 2025 cash taxes into Q4 of 2024 lower CapEx, lower media expenses and an additional $10 million in Ventures distributions received in the first quarter. With that, I'd like to turn the call back over to Chris for some closing comments.

Chris Ripley: Thank you, Lucy. Turning to our key takeaways on slide 23. Sinclair delivered solid first quarter results, meeting guidance expectations in our Local Media segment and exceeding adjusted EBITDA expectations at Tennis Channel. Core advertising trends remain solid in most categories with our effective yield management and sales training processes, driving industry-leading core growth over the past several quarters. We anticipate second quarter year-over-year growth of between 2% and 6% in core advertising. We have significant retransmission agreements renewing this year, of which we've already renewed 42% of the traditional big four subscribers. With only one network affiliation agreement remaining to be renewed, we have good rate visibility into the next couple of years, leading us to forecast a mid-single-digit two-year CAGR in net retransmission from 2023 to 2025.

We announced the launch of Broadspan, our NextGen data solutions brand that will deliver a unified suite of products to the marketplace and also announced our first NextGen partner, Edgio. In summary, Sinclair is in a strong position for both the short and long term. Our strategic focus aligns with the anticipation of record-breaking political election year, contributing to robust growth in adjusted EBITDA throughout 2024. We could not be more excited about the future in front of Sinclair. Lucy, Rob and I will now open the call to questions. Thank you for joining us today.

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