Prepared remarks
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the second quarter 2026 E.W. Scripps Company Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press *11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Carolyn Pione Micheli, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Didi. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for a discussion of The E.W. Scripps Company's financial results and business strategies. You can visit scripps.com for more information and a link to the replay of this call. A reminder that our conference call and webcast include forward-looking statements based on management's current outlook and actual results may differ materially. Factors that may cause them to differ are outlined in our SEC filings. We do not intend to update any forward-looking statements we make today. Included on this call will be a discussion of certain non-GAAP financial measures that are provided as supplements to assist management and the public in their analysis and valuation of the company. These metrics are not formulated in accordance with GAAP and are not meant to replace GAAP financial measures and may differ from other companies' uses or formulations. Reconciliations of these measures are included in our earnings release. We will hear this morning from Scripps' President and CEO, Adam Symson, and Chief Financial Officer, Jason Combs. With that, here's Adam.
Thanks, Carolyn. Good morning, everybody. Before Jason reviews our financial results, I would like to make a few brief comments on yesterday's vote at the FCC to lift the broadcast ownership cap. We are very pleased that the commission has made the decision in the direction of further leveling the playing field in the media business by finally addressing some of the arcane rules that have significantly impaired the broadcast industry. These regulations once served an important purpose, but they were put in place well before the digital revolution, well before consumers had the kind of choices they do today. Over the last 20 years, these regulations have put us at an unfair disadvantage to the nationally scaled big tech companies and streaming platforms that vie for audience and advertiser attention. I am pleased that yesterday's actions should support our ability to pursue business models that will allow Scripps and broadcasters like us to maintain our commitment to the communities we serve, both as a result of M&A and through Scripps' transformation, which I will discuss further in a few moments. First, here's Jason.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. This morning, we are looking forward to discussing highlights from the second quarter that demonstrate our commitment to transforming Scripps' operations and creating new value in our current businesses through sports, through TV station M&A, and through our network and distributor relationships. I will discuss the financial details of these business highlights, and then Adam will provide more color on our strategic progress. This morning, we also plan to share some new third quarter and full year guidance that will help you quantify where we will soon realize these benefits. We continue to move forward on our company transformation plan, which includes both expense reduction and revenue growth components. As we have said previously, we are targeting $125 to $150 million in incremental enterprise EBITDA by 2028, and we now expect to have executed on $100 million in annual run-rate savings by the end of this year. That is up 33% from the guidance we gave you on our first quarter earnings call. During the second quarter, we made further gains in our Scripps Sports strategy, signing our first NBA agreement with the Detroit Pistons for our local media division, and another marquee national women's sports agreement with the Women's Volleyball World Cup tournament in 2027 on ION. These agreements join a robust portfolio of local and national sports that are adding material value to our core advertising revenue, our Scripps Networks revenue, and our traction in the national advertising upfront this summer. On the M&A front, we have executed a number of accretive localization transactions, including acquiring a second Big 4 station to create a duopoly in Lexington, Kentucky. We completed a station swap with Gray Television across five midsized and small markets that expand our presence in the Mountain West. And just a reminder that we completed the sales of stations in Fort Myers, Florida, and Indianapolis in the spring, putting that cash towards debt pay down. One more highlight I want to mention from the second quarter: We completed the last of three major distribution agreements covering the majority of our pay TV subscriber households renewing this year. As you know, both Comcast and DIRECTV temporarily dropped Scripps stations, which affected our distribution and core advertising revenue for the second quarter, but we held firm with them in order to attain our fair share of the value our programming provides to them. We are pleased with the outcome of those negotiations. With those highlights in mind, let's now turn to a review of our financial results for second quarter 2026 and guidance for the back half of this year. I will present our second quarter Local Media division results on the same-station, adjusted combined basis, removing the Q2 2025 results of the two stations that we have now sold, and reflecting our addition of the Lexington ABC affiliate. During the second quarter, our Local Media division revenue was $317 million, down 1% from the second quarter of 2025. Core advertising decreased 4.8%, tied to factors including broader economic uncertainty, political crowd out, and the impact of our carriage disputes. Local Media political advertising revenue was $28 million, a record for a second quarter for us in what is expected to be a record spending cycle for the midterm election. Local Media distribution revenue declined 13% to $161 million. The service blackout periods during the contract negotiations with Comcast and DIRECTV accounted for the decline. Expenses for the division were down 3% year over year, driven by lower network affiliation fees and lower employee costs. Local Media segment profit was $56 million, compared to $51 million in the year-ago quarter. For the third quarter, on an adjusted combined or same-station basis, we expect Local Media division revenue to be up about 20%. We expect core advertising to be down low double digits, in line with the core revenue decline in the third quarter of the 2022 midterms. We expect our political advertising revenue for the full year to reach a range of $225 million to $250 million. We are carefully watching spending for a number of federal races that will determine where we land, and Adam will give more color on that in a moment. For comparison, in the 2022 midterm, we took in $198 million. As I mentioned, Local Media distribution revenue has been impacted by our impasse with Comcast, which ran from March 31 to May 5, and with DIRECTV, which lasted from May 31 to July 10. Based on those events, we now expect full-year gross distribution revenue to be down in the low single-digit percent range, but net distribution revenue to be up in the mid-to-high single digits. We expect third quarter Local Media expenses to be down low single digits in comparison to Q3 of 2025. Now let's review the Scripps Networks division second quarter results and third quarter guidance. Once again, I will be presenting the results on an adjusted combined basis, in this case adjusting for the impact of the Court TV sale. In the second quarter, Scripps Networks revenue was $172 million, down 13% from Q2 of 2025. The decline was driven by linear TV viewing trends and changes in Nielsen's measurement methodology. Nielsen has told us they are developing some forthcoming adjustments to their methodology that will better reflect our true audience size. As you know, this is a bit of a black box for those of us in the industry. Nevertheless, we are aggressively pursuing strategies to improve the network's revenue and overall operating results. Our network's results also were impacted by a softer direct advertising market, which is susceptible to consumer spending trends. Connected TV revenue continues to be a strong growth driver for us, up 28% over the same quarter last year. The division's second quarter expenses were $146 million, up 3.7%. Scripps Networks' Q2 segment profit was $26 million compared to $57 million in the year-ago quarter. For the third quarter, we expect Scripps Networks division revenue to be down in the mid-teens percent range as we work through the impact of the Nielsen measurement changes and continuing soft direct advertising market conditions driven by the macroeconomic environment. We expect Scripps Networks expenses to be up in the low single digits. For the segment labeled Other, in the second quarter, we reported a loss of $4.5 million. Shared services and corporate expenses were $27.5 million, due to higher medical claims and increased insurance premiums. For the third quarter, we expect that line to be about $25 million. Two updates to our full-year guidance: We now expect to receive a net tax refund of approximately $5 million and we have brought down our forecast for CapEx to a range of $50 million to $60 million. As I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, we now expect our company transformation plan activities to produce an annualized run-rate of $100 million by year end. You can see the benefits of this work begin to roll through into our third quarter guidance and that benefit will grow as we move into the fourth quarter. Let me size that up for you with a comparison for each division of third quarter and fourth quarter expense guides. In the Local Media division, backing out the impact of new sports-related costs, we expect expenses to move from a low single-digit decline in Q3 to a mid-to-high single-digit decline in Q4. In the Networks division, we expect expenses to move from up low single digits in Q3 to down low-to-mid single digits in Q4. For the second quarter, the company is reporting a loss of $12.68 per share. Due to the current outlook for national linear advertising revenue driven by economic and secular pressures, we reported a $1.1 billion noncash goodwill and other intangibles asset impairment charge for the Scripps Networks business. The quarter also included $36 million in restructuring costs coming out of our company transformation plan and a $9 million gain from our swaps with Gray Television. These three items together increased the loss attributable to shareholders by $11.83 per share. In addition, the preferred stock dividend has a negative impact on earnings per share even when we do not pay it. This quarter, it reduced EPS by $0.18. We ended the quarter with $13 million in cash and nothing drawn on our revolving credit facility. Net debt was $2.2 billion as defined in our credit agreement. Following the successful refinancing of our 2026, 2027, and 2028 debt last year, we achieved another major milestone in the second quarter by extending our corporate revolving line of credit through July 2029. We secured commitments for a total credit capacity of $200 million. With this extension finalized, the company has no near-term debt deadlines. Net leverage at the end of the quarter was 4.9x as compared to 4.4x at the end of Q1 when calculated on the same basis according to the terms of our credit agreement, which includes certain pro forma adjustments related to our transformation efforts. And now here's Adam.
Thank you, Jason. Good morning, everybody. We are reporting a second quarter during which we significantly advanced Scripps' strategic priorities on every front: live sports, distribution value, top line and net, political advertising, M&A, and operational efficiency through transformation. Our financial performance for the quarter did not meet my expectations. We faced challenges on a number of fronts, including sudden changes to Nielsen's measurement methodology that impacted our networks, continued declines in linear viewing, uncertainty in the economy and the advertising market, and blackouts with legacy pay TV sub providers. The second quarter's results do not reflect the hard work performed by hundreds of our colleagues across the company. They have been creating more efficient ways of working to drive profitable top-line growth that you will begin to see as permanent benefits to our results starting in the third quarter and into next year. I am pleased to share that through this work on our company transformation plan, we have lifted our guidance for the year-end run-rate savings twice, now to $100 million. In a moment, I will discuss more details about our transformation plan, including how we are leveraging AI, automation, and technology to remake the business and better serve our consumers. But first, let me discuss some operational and financial highlights that are setting up the company for growth. Nearly four years ago, we created Scripps Sports to seize the opportunity caused by the implosion of the RSN model and capitalize on the power of our broadcast reach. During the second quarter, we expanded upon our leadership, signing two new teams to multiyear full-season partnerships: our fifth NHL team, the Nashville Predators, and our first NBA team, the Detroit Pistons. As you saw in our financial results last season, these partnerships add material gains to our core advertising revenue and meaningful organic growth in core revenue year after year. You will see that reflected again this year starting in the fourth quarter on top of the benefit of political. When we flip an ION station to an independent carrying local sports, we create a platform for new core revenue and new distribution revenue, creating a local duopoly without having to deploy capital to buy a station. It is a clear example of how we are optimizing our spectrum for its best and most profitable use. We have now converted five ION stations to build local duopolies, and we will continue to look for opportunities to maximize the productivity of our assets. On the national side, we have seized upon the importance of live sports and linear broadcast. Scripps Sports has established ION as the home of women's sports. That leadership is why the Women's Volleyball World Cup announced in July that it would make ION its U.S. home for the tournament leading up to LA 28. The Women's Volleyball World Cup joins the WNBA, the National Women's Soccer League, professional women's hockey, women's college basketball, track, pro cheer, and rodeo on ION. In this toughest television marketplace, live sports is one of the most valuable ways to drive advertiser demand and premium rates. During our national advertising upfront negotiations this summer, sports has helped differentiate Scripps' program offerings and created opportunities to capture advertiser investment across our network's broadcast, connected TV, and broader portfolio. I expect we will continue to see more growth in our sports revenue performance as we turn even more focus to this growing part of our business. With respect to distribution revenue, we are leveraging the power of our network affiliations, news, and premium live sports to maximize our opportunity with the MVPDs. The blackouts are now behind us. I am very pleased with the results of our new distribution agreements. We successfully renewed 70% of our subs with agreements that will contribute to margin expansion and our ability to serve local audiences for years to come. And you can see from our local media programming expense line, we also are bringing down network compensation costs across the board. We are realizing these savings on the expense side while driving new value on the revenue side, allowing us to capture and keep much more of what we deserve for our programming. Second quarter also set a new record for our company political revenue, foreshadowing what we expect in the back half of the year. No other medium delivers a political message as powerfully and reliably as broadcast television, and our multiplatform approach allows candidates and campaigns to reach voters anywhere they watch TV. AdImpact recently raised its estimate for this year's spending to a record $11.6 billion, and they are projecting local television to once again capture nearly half of that, as it has in recent election cycles. As Jason mentioned, Scripps expects a record midterm cycle between $225 and $250 million. We are seeing strong election spending in our markets across Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The recent Supreme Court decision on coordinated candidate and party spending has raised some investor questions. We see this ruling creating significant upside for political volume, encouraging more investment into the political ad ecosystem. The ruling has clearly not dampened our political revenue outlook. We are committed to capitalizing on changes in the federal regulatory environment to create value through our recent M&A activity. We have sold stations for cash, swapped others strategically, and acquired some to create high-margin duopolies. Station M&A will continue to be a meaningful tool to optimize our portfolio, enabling our public service mission. And while I am bullish on the future of M&A for our industry and recognize the opportunity for financial engineering, it will not be the only arrow in our quiver. That is why Scripps, through our company transformation plan, is proactively making fundamental changes to the way we produce our most important and costliest product: local news. Our strategy will address a few simple truths. First, our audiences expect us to deliver the news when and where they want it. To meet that expectation, we are rolling out 27 local news streams to distribute stories as they happen to social, digital, and streaming platforms. Second, consumers expect us to report on the full texture of life in their communities down to the neighborhood, so we are doubling down on our commitment to having more reporters covering geographic beats. And third, making these changes requires an entirely different approach to resource allocation, so we are leaning into AI, automation, technology, and the centralization of some roles. This revolution—and that is really what it is, a revolution—in the way local news is created and distributed has been developed and built by members of Scripps' news and technology teams, who have been working together for the last year because they believe our mission is too important and the role we play in our community is too critical for us not to evolve to meet the moment. This work makes Scripps' Local Media a technology-forward, AI-powered broadcast journalism company dedicated to serving our communities with the same high-quality, fact-based reporting for which they have relied on us for nearly 150 years. Let me be clear: we are making use of technology to improve our operating model and better serve our audiences. We are not wavering from our commitment to quality journalism. Because we are adopting more efficient ways of working across the entire enterprise, our transformation work has resulted in a reduction in our workforce. This week, we notified 268 employees that their jobs would be eliminated. Since the beginning of the year, we have eliminated 432 employee positions and 126 open positions—12% of our total. The coming quarters will see additional savings. Parting ways with colleagues is a painful process, full of difficult decisions, but we make them knowing they are financially necessary to fulfill our commitments to our communities, our nation, and our shareholders. Just as we have been making significant changes in our Local Media business, so are we applying our transformation lens to the Scripps Networks business. We realize the headwinds there require us to rethink our strategies, and that is one of the reasons why I have asked Dean Littleton to oversee the networks business as well as Local Media in his new role as President of Media. We believe the networks business can benefit from his holistic view of our opportunity, his industry expertise, and his growth mindset. I am energized knowing that hundreds of Scripps colleagues are invested in our transformation plan, so invested in the company's future that they have been willing to set aside conventions about how things have always been done in order to invent what is next. At a time when many in our industry respond to economic pressure with cuts alone, Scripps is differentiating itself with a goal to build a better product under a more sustainable model for serving our audiences and advertisers. Our work is what separates cost reduction from transformation. One protects an ineffective status quo; the other builds something new and powerful with tremendous value to the enterprise. This is about positioning Scripps for durable growth and creating meaningful shareholder value. I'm going to close where I started and quote Chairman Carr's remarks yesterday because between the regulatory changes and our own transformation, this is exactly how I feel. He said, "We should learn from our mistakes with the local newspaper industry, and we should not let the same thing happen to the local broadcast TV industry. Trusted sources of local reporting broadcast over the public airwaves are worth protecting and worth fighting for." Operator, we are now ready for questions.
Questions and answers
Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press *11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press *11 again. And our first question comes from Daniel Louis Kurnos of StoneX. Your line is open.
Great. Thanks. Good morning. Appreciate all the additional color, guys, and sort of the progress on the transformation plan. I have two housekeeping-ish questions and then two kind of larger questions. The first housekeeping question is, Jason, I just want to double-click on—did you say Core was pacing down low doubles in Q3?
Yeah. Low doubles in Q3. You know, driven by the political crowd that you would expect. It is pretty—it's right in line with what we saw in core in Q3 of 2022.
But I would also point—surprising, I guess—but go ahead, Adam, if you're going to say something.
No. I would also point ahead to that because the onset of the NBA and NHL seasons will just start in the third quarter and then really come into their own in the fourth quarter, when we will expect to see significant outperformance above political.
Yeah. No, that makes sense. I mean, Q4 a little bit better, I think, than Q3 on that. And that is something I do want to get into in a second, but I just want to make sure I get this right, Jason, because I'm just trying to sort of back into the up 20% and your retrans guide seems pretty clear now given the noise is behind you, so it kind of implies political in the mid-seventies in Q3. Is that the right figure?
Based on the full-year guide we gave and the core guide we gave in Q3, I can see where you would end up in that range.
Okay. And then, just the other piece of that is I appreciate the color in the release on the impact of Comcast and DIRECTV. Is there a way directionally— I do not expect a specific number—but is there a way to directionally think about net retrans in 2027 now? Because obviously, we started it, I think, mid-teens net retrans growth this year. And obviously, the blackouts clearly impact but you will get the full benefit of that next year. And I do not think you have any major network renewals and your programming costs are coming down anyway. So any way to think about next year, the trajectory for net?
Certainly, we are going to get a year-over-year benefit from the impact of the blackout. We are not going to give any guidance now. We do have about 20% of our subs resetting in 2028—not next year, but in 2028—and then obviously, we will have the full-year impact of the step-ups we have this year. And so I do think both gross and net will be a good story for us next year, but I do not think we are going to get any more specific than that right now.
And, Daniel, just to reiterate what you said, we have locked in all of our affiliation agreements so that we have that expense visibility into the foreseeable future.
Okay. Perfect. And then the two big things that I wanted to hit: first, on Nielsen. Can you talk about any progress that you have made on sort of the big panel stuff? I mean, you can see the numbers—they are ridiculous. I do not know why they would be burying their heads in the sand. So any progress on that front? And then subsequently, it sounds like there may be some benefit on the local side from Nielsen. How are you guys thinking about the broader impact from any Nielsen changes in the coming quarters?
Yeah. So it is the same changes that you are talking about that are meant to rebalance things and more accurately measure our networks business and that we are told will improve or benefit local broadcast. The same round of changes, so to speak. Right now, just for investors' reference, I would say our performance softness, I attribute about 50% of that to the sudden change in Nielsen. We have been in conversations with the very highest levels at Nielsen on the process that they are working on to correct this for this fall. But as you know, I am leery to sort of take anything to the bank. None of the upside of a fix is baked into our guide. And so I'm just a little gun-shy of assuming anything until things go into production. We were on track in the first quarter and really seeing everything as it should have been until Nielsen made that sudden and sort of inexplicable update to its measurement methodology that punished the broadcast networks and benefited cable. By the way, it is also underrepresenting multicultural audiences—something else they say they are going to address. And all of this has been negatively impacting both streaming and broadcast, which is not at all a reflection of what we know is actually happening in the video ecosystem as it relates to consumer habits and cord-cutting. So I expect changes to begin sometime in September, but I am unclear on what the benefit will be. And so we are just taking a more sober approach and would hope to recognize upside.
No, that is very helpful, Adam, and I think that is probably prudent given that it is Nielsen. And then the last thing I want to ask you is just big picture on the transformation plan. Appreciate the color on the 27 news streams. Clearly, you have got the momentum on the local side. You have got indies. You have got ION switching to indies. The growth on local actually kind of puts now—and local is obviously twice as big as networks. The color that you just gave on Nielsen was super helpful. Is there anything else that we can think about outside of maybe CTV on the network side that can help just kind of get the rest of the balance of the equation? Even modest growth in local could probably offset declines in network and produce a net positive. Anything we should be thinking about?
Yeah. I think, first of all, you should recall that we have been very proactive in managing the P&L and managing the networks for growth. As a result, last year we beat our expectation on improving the margin for networks, and we are very dedicated to getting back to that place. We are focused on continuing to expand in sports and to drive revenue growth and profit. We want to address some of the opportunities with our programming and distribution strategies and continue to expand fast. This is also one of the reasons I recently made a leadership change at the networks. We now have brought the operation together under Dean Littleton's leadership. We are looking at the portfolio as the largest portfolio of broadcast stations and how we use that spectrum for its best and highest use through both network television and local. Dean will, I think, be optimizing the business from that perspective. He has done a great job leading and transforming the local business and its cost structure, and I think he is going to bring the same opportunity to the network side and get it quickly back on track. There is no question in my mind that the story of the networks and our cumulative collection of the largest nationwide broadcast platform is not complete yet, and we will continue to look at ways to use this platform to drive greater shareholder value.
Got it. Really appreciate all the color, guys. Thanks so much.
And it seems like you've got a little bit of something cooking. Thanks, Daniel.
Thank you. And our next question comes from Craig Huber of Huber Research Partners. Your line is open.
Great. Thank you. I guess sorry for the directness of this question, but given all the changes you guys are making here and given what has happened outside of your control here, does any of this make the family any more likely or less likely to sell the company? I mean, obviously, you had a bid not too long ago for the whole company and so forth. You guys turned it down. I understand why. But does any of the changes you guys have put in place here make you feel like you really do not need to go down that road or you can just—you will get through all this successfully?
Well, first of all, it is important to note, Craig, that I do not speak for our controlling shareholder, but I can reiterate what I have said many times before and what you have seen over the long history of the company: the family has always acted in the best interest of all shareholders and is committed to doing what is best for the company to create the greatest shareholder value. Now I will speak for myself and maybe management's perspective. You know, we believe greater scale nationally and greater depth in market are helpful for our assets to perform their very best for shareholders and continue in service to the communities where we operate from a journalism, local programming, and local sports perspective. So I expect we will continue to do everything in our power to take advantage of this moment. I expect the greatest opportunities will be ahead for us, whether that is continuing to transform the business or identifying opportunities for us to engage in swaps, select divestitures, or acquisitions to improve our portfolio.
Okay. Appreciate that. My second question: the Nielsen change—did I hear you right saying you thought roughly 50% of the pressure on revenue on the Scripps Networks came from that? Can you talk about that a little bit more, please?
Yeah. That is correct. I mean, there has been no softness in the demand for our product, but overnight at the end of February the inventory—the supply—actually changed as a result of a methodology change, especially when we think about the demand for our premium sports products. Our sales team is doing a terrific job of monetizing what we have, but Nielsen changed the picture on the amount of audience we serve overnight, negatively impacting about 50% of the revenue. It has been a significant blow. They tell us they are fixing that this fall, but like I said, I have been reticent to adjust up our forecast, and I am sharing this in the interest of transparency. That is upside to our plan. The Nielsen challenges have impacted the general market side of the business. The other piece of the equation is the direct-response piece, which is heavily driven by consumer sentiment. And right now, with the current state of inflation and interest rates, that is negatively impacting that sentiment and therefore direct demand. Direct response is often a leading indicator and one that can turn quickly. We saw a material drop in our direct response revenue during the government shutdown in Q4 of last year, and when the shutdown ended, we saw a quick snapback as consumer sentiment improved.
I appreciate that. Further on the Nielsen side, just talk a little bit further about changes there on the local TV side of the business and stuff.
What would you expect on the local side? On the local side, sure—
On the local side, first of all, a lot of the changes they make that impact the makeup of the audience will benefit local. The changes they made back in February began to underrepresent the multicultural audience. Beginning to reintegrate multicultural audiences back into the sample or to better statistically measure them should theoretically improve both network and local television. At the same time, we understand they are going to be moving to a different way of measuring local broadcast after all these years. The measurement will give credit to local broadcasters for a cumulative minute of viewing rather than what historically was a longer period, and that too should better reflect the way people's viewing habits have actually evolved and improve what you see on the local front. I also want to correct something I said earlier: when I was asked about distribution, I said we had 20% renewing next year. I was getting my years mixed up. That is actually in 2028. Next year is only 5%. So for the transcript, I wanted that updated.
Great. Appreciate that. Sorry, if I could ask a little bit further on this Nielsen thing: is it possible that you could share with us quantify for us the impact to the viewership as they count it, as they calculate it?
As they have shared with me, they have shared estimates with me; I do not feel comfortable sharing them with the market or the street because today they are measuring a non-production environment, and when they move to production it will become live, and that is when we will see it. So again, we've given a guide based on what we believe we see using today's methodology. When the methodology changes again, there is a good chance that there could be upside to it, but we do not control Nielsen's currency or the methodology, and so I am reticent to share anything that I do not have any influence over.
Yeah. I can certainly sense the frustration there. It has been a nightmare for your industry for decades with Nielsen. I will say this sympathetically: just to shake my head, to say the least. One last question, please. The cash cost to get to this new $100 million annual run rate of cost savings—I think you said by the end of this year—are you willing to talk about that publicly?
How much—I will—yeah. So we have talked about that previously. We had guided to $40 million to $50 million in cash restructuring costs tied to the transformation plan. This quarter you saw a very large restructuring number come through; a good portion of that was noncash. Of the $36 million in restructuring that flowed through this quarter, about $12 million of that is actually cash restructuring this quarter. About $9 million is accrued and will be paid in subsequent quarters, and the balance of it, roughly $15 million, would be noncash items. So we still believe the $40 million to $50 million in cash restructuring is the estimate for the transformation.
That is still good even though you moved up the cost savings number?
Well, we did not move up our total number; we just pulled forward the timing to achieve it sooner. We still—the net number is still $125 to $150 million. We just think we will have executed on more of that by the end of this year than we originally anticipated.
Okay. Understood. Thank you a lot, guys.
Yep.
Thanks, Craig. Thank you. And as a reminder, if you have a question, please press *11. And our next question comes from Steven Cahall of Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
Thank you. Jason, just wanted to talk through a little bit how we think about $100 million run rate for 2027. Is it kind of as simple as just thinking about consolidated costs being down about that much year on year in 2027 versus 2026? I know there is probably a little bit of underlying cost growth like sports rights, so I just wanted to start to think about 2027. And then you have done a lot of work on margin improvement at Networks. You have got this new headwind from Nielsen measurement. I think you are given some of the good margin that you expanded last year back. I was just wondering if you could specifically talk about your expectations for network margins for this year and next year through the transformation.
Yeah. So first on your question about the $100 million and how it applies to 2027: it would not be a full $100 million adjustment to your current view of 2027 because some of that is being realized in-year, and that was one of the reasons why we gave not just a Q3 expense guide but also a Q4 expense guide. You are certainly in Local Media starting to see some of that transformation benefit flow through in the third quarter. Adam talked about some of the headcount reductions that have happened recently, and then the guidance we gave for fourth quarter expense trends would indicate we are starting to realize even more of the benefit this year. So your year-over-year view of 2026 to 2027 would have some of that built into your 2026 run rate, but there would be a large incremental piece from the Q4 activities in getting the full-year benefit of that. In terms of network margins, as Adam alluded to before, we continue to believe that this business should be closer to a 30% margin. We saw some significant headwinds in 2024, and we set a very aggressive plan to grow margins by 400 to 600 basis points. We actually ended up north of 600 basis points last year. We now have some new challenges, and we intend to chart the path forward to see a similar rebound to what we saw previously.
Great. And then, I wanted to ask you about spectrum a little bit. I think Scripps significantly over-indexed on spectrum due to ION. I think that was part of the original thinking when you purchased it. It is a topic I have written about recently. And if I have learned one thing, it is that the broad industry has no consensus on how it should be used, how to create value, whether to lease it or another auction or the next-gen business model. I am wondering how you think about the best way to monetize your spectrum, whether it is more station conversion with local sports or something that is a little more wholesale since you do have so much spectrum?
Yeah. Thanks for the question, Steven. There is no question in my mind that we are sitting on a gold mine of spectrum—one that actually has proven to be increasing in value over time. And there is also no question that none of that value is reflected in our stock price. As you described, Scripps is one of the largest holders of broadcast spectrum; it was one of the reasons why we found the ION acquisition so interesting. We are always looking at what the best and highest uses of our spectrum are and we will continue to do so. As you described, one of the reasons why we have turned ION stations into sports duopolies is to maximize that value.
Yeah. Steven, we are getting some background noise. You might want to mute.
I'm on mute.
That is okay. I mean, as I said, we are always looking for the best and highest use of our spectrum. Whether that is turning stations that are ION stations into local stations in order to create high-margin duopolies, we will continue to look for the greatest opportunities. When there is an opportunity to monetize our spectrum, either through an incentive auction—as Chairman Carr referenced yesterday, possibly as early as 2028—or otherwise, I am absolutely sure we will take full advantage to benefit our shareholders, our employees, and the company's ability to continue to serve its mission.
Great. And then lastly, do you feel like there is an M&A shot clock with this administration? Or do you think after the changes that the FCC enacted yesterday, there is going to be a lot of opportunity that runs even past 2028?
Well, I do not think there is a shot clock per se, but I do think there is potentially a balance that has to be struck right now between the opportunity to take advantage of the changes in the regulatory environment and some uncertainty that we see being held up in courts. It is important to note that we have already been active in the M&A marketplace from the outset to improve the performance of the portfolio and the balance sheet. Every deal we have announced has either put cash in our pockets or increased segment profit to benefit the company and investors; some are doing both. I am referencing the divestitures of stations in Fort Myers and Indianapolis, which went for premium seller multiples; the Gray swap; the sale of Court TV; and the acquisition we announced of more than 12 stations that will be accretive and that will fold into our networks portfolio and add to segment profit margins and our spectrum holdings. I definitely do not think we are finished with this work. I do think there are continued opportunities for swaps ahead, with the opportunity for us to get deeper in the markets where we operate and to improve our operating performance and margin expansion. As I said earlier, I am also a believer that national scale is beneficial; it is helpful. I do not think it is the only thing necessary for this industry, and that is why we are also aggressively pursuing a transformation plan. At the end of the day, consolidation is going to be helpful, but for us to continue to be able to serve our mission we have to do things that address our consumers. Buying more TV stations in a market does not get anybody more to watch the 5 and 11:00 news. Transforming so that we serve audiences across multiple platforms and deliver our journalism so that we remain relevant in the local markets where we operate requires more than just consolidation. While we will take advantage of consolidation to improve our economics, we have to take it a step further and transform the business, and that is what you see Scripps doing.
This concludes our question-and-answer session and today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.