Gray Television Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
February 23, 2024

There are 12 speakers on the call.

Operator

Welcome to the Gray Television Q4 2023 Earnings Call. I will now turn the call over to Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO of Gray Television. You may begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. As the operator mentioned, I'm Hilton Howell, the Chairman and CEO of Gray Television. Thank you for joining our Q4 2023 earnings call. With me here in Atlanta are all of our executive officers: Pat LaPlatney, our President and Co CEO Sandy Brielin, our Operating Officer Kevin Latek, our Chief Legal and Development Officer and Jim Ryan, our Chief Financial Officer.

Speaker 1

As usual, we will begin with a disclaimer that Kevin will provide. Thereafter, I will discuss the company's results and expectations, followed by brief remarks from Jim Ryan regarding our financial posture. And then after those remarks, we will have a few questions for all of our officers here with me today. Kevin?

Speaker 2

Great. Thank you, Hilton, and good morning, everyone. Gray uses its website as a key source of company information. The website address is www.gray. Tv.

Speaker 2

We filed our annual report on Form 10 ks with the SEC a few minutes ago. Included on the call may be a discussion of non GAAP financial measures and in particular broadcast cash flow, operating cash flow, free cash flow, certain leverage ratios. These metrics are not meant to replace GAAP measurements, but are provided as supplements to assist the public in their analysis and valuation of our company. Included in our earnings release as well as our website are reconciliations to non GAAP financial measures to the GAAP measures reported in our financial statements. Certain matters discussed on this call may include forward looking statements regarding, among other things, future operating results.

Speaker 2

Those statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results in the future could differ from those expressed or implied in any forward looking statements as a result of various important factors that have been set forth in the company's most recent reports filed with the SEC, including our most recent annual report on Form 10 ks and our most recent earnings release. The company undertakes no obligation to update these forward looking statements. I now return the call to Hilt.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Kevin. Before turning to today's earnings release, I want to address Gray's upcoming transition to a new Chief Financial Officer for the first time in 25 years. A few days ago, after the successful completion of the refinancing and the upsizing of our revolver, Jim Ryan notified me that he would like to transition into retirement after 2025 and as part of that plan to step down from his CFO position later this summer. As many of you know, Jim joined Gray as its CFO in 1998 upon our acquisition of Bussey Broadcasting, where Jim had also served as CFO. And during that process, we were so impressed that he negotiated to the very end and really almost negotiated himself out of a job that we decided to offer him a job to take over and run the combined company.

Speaker 1

And happily, he agreed. He has provided steady leadership and management of the company as we have divested our previous publishing assets and embarked on 2 significant waves of acquisitions of the highest quality television stations in the industry. Jim and his entire team have been instrumental in helping DeVille Gray into the leading multimedia company that it is today. While we will all miss Jim's day to day contributions, we're very fortunate to have succeeded in hiring his most logical successor in Jeff Geniak, a 20 year veteran of media and telecom banking at Wells Fargo Securities. Ray's leadership and finance teams have worked closely with Jeff over many transactions or transactions, and he knows our company as well as almost anyone who is not already working here.

Speaker 1

He is therefore the perfect candidate to become our next CFO. So I'd like to welcome Jeff to the Gray Television family. Turning now to our earnings release. It should be clear to all that Gray Television delivered in 2023 by nearly every measure. Our core advertising and retrends revenues increased over the prior year, and political advertising revenue increased over 2019, the last year before a presidential cycle.

Speaker 1

Meanwhile, our local television stations continue to score with our audiences and to bring new business to our airwaves through our digital platforms. Our stations also collected more awards and recognitions from outside organization for their successful news, investigations and community service. In the second half of the year, we reached substantial completion of our state of the art Assembly Studios moving and television production facility here in Atlanta. And in December, NBCUniversal commenced its long term lease for 2 thirds of our sound stages at Assembly Atlanta. With these achievements in 2023, we have laid a strong foundation for 2024, which we believe will be further powered by another significant presidential election cycle.

Speaker 1

In the Q4 of 2023, Gray had total revenue of $864,000,000 which was at the high end of our revenue guidance. The company had total operating expenses of $664,000,000 which was below the low end of our expense guidance for the quarter. 4th quarter revenue was $143,000,000 or 20% ahead of 2021, our most recent non political year. Our Q4 2023 core advertising revenue was $415,000,000 an increase of 2% from the Q4 of 2022. Retransmission consent revenue was $365,000,000 an increase of 3% from the Q4 of 2022.

Speaker 1

Unfortunately, investments to grow and diversify our company do not always pan out, but in the Q4 'twenty three due in part to non cash write downs of certain investments, Gray posted a net loss attributable to common ship stockholders of $22,000,000 On the other hand, when investments do pay off, the awards can be tremendous. And indeed, we saw such a payoff about 2 weeks ago with the receipt of $110,000,000 in pretax proceeds from the sale of BMI in which we have long held a position. Operationally, we had tremendous 4th quarter, not only in sales and content, but also in multiple initiatives to leverage our unique assets for future growth. In fact, our significant focus on developing new local direct advertising business continues to be very strong. During the Q4, we grew our new local direct ad revenue by 12%, and that momentum has continued into 2024.

Speaker 1

In addition, as the year drew to close, we extended our affiliation agreement with NBC for another 2 years. We are happy that this long term relationship continues. The most exciting initiatives involve our aggressive efforts to bring professional sports teams in our markets back to free over the air broadcast television. After extensive efforts over the summer and fall, we were able to announce 2 major deals on top of our previously announced long term deal with the Phoenix Suns and Mercury. With story professional sports franchises at the end of the year, literally New Year's Eve.

Speaker 1

First, the Atlanta Hawks returned to Peachtree TV in Atlanta after almost 30 years away for nearly every Friday night game remaining in the 2023, 2024 NBA season. Thereafter, we followed up with the announcement that the New Orleans Pelicans would have 10 of their games this NBA season broadcast to fans on Gray's WVUE and our balance channel in New Orleans. But significantly, in both cases, we have supported the teams by carrying these games in all of our stations where all of their true fans are. So the Hawks are broadcast throughout the state of Georgia and a good half of Alabama, and the Pelicans are broadcast across the entire great state of Louisiana and most of Mississippi and even part of Alabama. Gray has begun 2024 with great momentum.

Speaker 1

In January, we hosted our station general managers for our annual meeting, and they are universally excited about the year ahead. We have continued to sign up professional sports contracts with new deals announced in the last few weeks to bring Gray Stations games featuring the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Milwaukee Bucks. Over the past several weeks, Gray has also renewed all of its retransmission consent agreements with MVPDs that expired in the Q4 of January 2024. These renewals cover a sizable portion of our subscriber base at higher rates and improved terms that recognize the enduring value of our truly unique local stations and what they continue to provide. Earlier this month, our CBS portfolio capitalized on the Super Bowl with $18,000,000 in local ad sales.

Speaker 1

That was a 200% increase over our Super Bowl net revenue last year across our FOX station portfolio. But significantly, it also represents a 39% increase over the last Super Bowl broadcast on our CBS stations. Most recently, we took advantage of a good opportunity to launch a process to refinance certain of our senior credit facilities. Unfortunately, an unexpected turmoil in capital markets led us to postpone that effort with regard to our term loan expiring in 2026. We did, however, refinance our revolving credit facility as our bank stood strongly with us and provide us with a new and larger revolver totaling 6 $25,000,000 Although we do not have any amounts currently drawn on our revolving credit facility, it will provide us with additional flexibility in the future when and if needed.

Speaker 1

We very much appreciate the bank's continuing and deep understanding of our company and our business and their unwavering support of our efforts to grow the company and reduce sit stead load. As we now look ahead to 2024, I remain very bullish about our prospects and our future. Our television stations continue to perform at the absolute top of their game. Sports teams are rediscovering what our local advertisers and viewers already know, which is that our local stations offer unparalleled reach and promotional opportunities for free to 100% of the viewing audience. 2024 will see us continue to build on these foundations for continued success.

Speaker 1

Finally, I'm very proud that we have created the nation's finest television and movie production facilities at our Assembly Atlanta complex here in Atlanta. By relying on local contractors, tradesmen and materials, we were able to deliver the facilities to NBCU in just 19 months from the date of announcement. In 2024, we will be putting the finishing touches on the studio complex and certain infrastructure projects. These additional projects will require about $52,000,000 in capital expenditures, but they will be netted about by against about $31,000,000 in reimbursements for the public nature of these infrastructure projects or a net of about $21,000,000 It is extremely gratifying to us to now see the major content creator NBCUniversal leverage the sound stages and support buildings into a new major center for its class productions. On the gray side, we are actively marketing the sound stages that we have retained at Assembly as well as our pre existing sound stages at our adjacent Third Rail Studios to bring additional production work here to Atlanta.

Speaker 1

This now concludes my remarks, and I will turn the call over to Jim Ryan.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Hilton. Good morning, everybody. Hilton covered the key highlights of the quarter and of the full year. So my remarks will be very short today. Again, we're very pleased with our Q4 and year to date results, especially the growth in core revenue.

Speaker 3

On a debt net of cash basis and on terms consistent with our senior credit facility, total leverage ratio at the end of the year was 5 point 6 zero times and our 1st lien leverage ratio at the end of the year was 2.38 times. Turning to our Q1, twenty twenty four guidance, we look forward to successful full year twenty twenty four and we're off to a good start in Q1. We're very pleased with core revenue in Q1's growth guiding to mid single digit percentage increases. Core revenue got off to a great start helped by the $18,000,000 of Super Bowl advertising revenue in February, providing for a strong year over year increase in core revenue in February. But more importantly, we see both in January March core revenue is expected to be increasing in both months year over year.

Speaker 3

I'll turn now to some comments on the full year 2024. And as we've said consistently for some time publicly, we are not providing a guide on political revenue for the full year of 2024. We will point to 2020 and say that after deducting the $50,000,000 that was associated with the double Senate runoff election in Georgia in that year, we had approximately $600,000,000 of postal and of that $600,000,000 about 22 percent represented the presidential campaigns that year. We'll also point to 2022 where we had approximately $515,000,000 of political revenue. All of you on the call are welcome to plug in whatever political revenue estimate you want for 2024 and after Election Day we can compare notes to see who got closest.

Speaker 3

Turning to some other data points in full year 2024. We expect core revenue of approximately $1,600,000,000 retransmission revenue of approximately 1,500,000,000 dollars other TV revenue of approximately $70,000,000 production company's revenues of approximately $110,000,000 dollars Our operating expenses before depreciation, amortization, impairment, gain and loss on disposal of assets, broadcasting of approximately $2,400,000,000 that would include approximately $9.37 of network compensation also known as retransmission expense. We expect approximately $85,000,000 of expense at the production companies and our corporate expense of approximately $125,000,000 Significant cash uses in 2024 are as follows. We expect cash interest of approximately 430,000,000 Routine capital expenditures between $115,000,000 $120,000,000 As Hilton already mentioned, our net additional investment in Assembly Atlanta is expected to be $21,000,000 Cash our cash taxes are expected to be between $190,000,000 $210,000,000 That obviously reflects political in 2024. It also reflects the taxes we will be paying on the 110,000,000 dollars of the BMI sales proceeds.

Speaker 3

Our preferred dividends were approximately $52,000,000 and our common dividends will be approximately $30,000,000 Turning again to the BMI proceeds of $110,000,000 that translated into approximately $81,000,000 after tax cash proceeds. We use $50,000,000 of that $81,000,000 to repay in full all outstanding amounts under our revolving credit facility. As Hilton said earlier, we have nothing drawn on the revolving credit facility as of today. Finally, as Hilton mentioned, we're very pleased to upsize our revolver to $625,000,000 and we appreciate our bank syndicates understanding of the fundamentals of our business and partnering with us into the future. I'll now turn the call back to Hilton.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Jim. Before we open up the floor to take questions, I would like to conclude our remarks on what I view as exceptionally positive note about the momentum that we are building with professional sports, particularly with the NBA. We have been able to use our unmatched regional presence to distribute these games on our stations across the entirety of the states of Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. At the same time, we have worked with other broadcasters to fill in a few holes in our distribution map as we have done with Allen Media, and soon will announce similar deals with other groups. We have also worked with other broadcasters to enable our stations to provide outer market distribution for NBA teams in cities where we do not have the major market television station, as we have done with Griffin Media in Oklahoma City and Tulsa and with Weigel Broadcasting and soon with more companies.

Speaker 1

I'm happy to see the industry working together to provide the power of broadcasting to local professional sports teams and their amazing fans. Last but certainly not least, it is worth highlighting the massive increase in viewership that these teams are receiving when their games appear on free local broadcast stations instead of their traditional regional sports networks. In market after market, these NBA teams are enjoying ratings that are 2 and often 3 times higher than what they had been receiving previously. And even more importantly, they're reaching 100% of their fans. We're racking up impressive ratings for NBA games, not just, and this is important to me, in their home market, but throughout the regions where we are distributing the games.

Speaker 1

Through local broadcast on gray television, they are getting to 100% of their fans. And broadcast stations and professional sports teams are among the strongest local institutions that help to bond our communities together. When we struck our deal with the Phoenix Suns and Mercury, something occurred that I'm extremely proud of that I am a little embarrassed that I didn't think of beforehand. Once we launched and it went out on broadcast television, our local general managers received many letters from local individual American Indian viewers who had never been able to watch their basketball teams before. We are immensely proud that we have spread these sports teams to truly 100 percent of their fans.

Speaker 1

We are at an important time in history when these two powerful forces are proving that coming together can provide unparalleled reach and experience that benefits everyone. So operator, at this time, we ask that you open the line for questions of anyone here on the leadership team.

Operator

It looks like our first question is going to come from Aaron Watts with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me on. Let me start by saying to Jim, congrats on the announcement, well deserved. But happy we still have some time left to work together and I'll save my laudatory remarks for a later date. Maybe I can start with a question around retrans.

Speaker 4

Your retrans revenue growth implied in your Q1 guidance seems to be a bit of a slowdown from what we've seen in recent quarters. Can you unpack that a little more for us? Is that just timing of renewals? Is there an acceleration in the decline in the underlying sub base? And maybe same question thinking about the components for the full year.

Speaker 2

Hi, Aaron. This is Kevin. Aaron, this is Kevin Latek. We renewed a number of our contracts that were expiring at the end of the year as Hilton mentioned on the call. And we're happy where those renewed at.

Speaker 2

As the numbers are getting bigger, the percentage increases are can't be as big. But they we're very happy with the rates that we got and the terms that we received. So the Q1 was about 38% of our total MVPD sub base. The virtuals, of course, are coming a more sizable portion of that. So when we talk about the percentage, we're talking about the traditional MVPDs.

Speaker 2

The increase in our gross was not as significant as we had hoped and we attribute that to not to the rate increases, but to the sub declines. The traditional MVPDs, this is publicly reported by the public by the companies. You all continue to see losses last year and unfortunately, it seems like the losses actually accelerated last year that may be due to the strikes leading to not as much new programming or interesting programming on big broadcast networks. So we're hopeful with the strike behind us and new premieres coming back out that we'll see the sub losses stabilize. But we did see a continued decline in the traditional MVPD subs through last year, including through the end of last year when we were expecting to see that slowdown.

Speaker 2

So the net result of that was our grocery trends. It was not powered as much just because we had smaller sub base to multiply it on. On the reverse side, we've been saying for some time, we expect the network comp is going to stabilize. And I think that's pretty clear in the guide today that network comp is stable. But the system where we're paying a fixed fee to the networks and receiving variable income is one that has to change.

Speaker 2

And I expect all the broadcasters see that and we will continue to push for a realignment of that formula because that's not absolutely not working for local broadcasters any longer.

Speaker 4

Okay, thanks. That's helpful. And then, Jim, I appreciate your comment on political, But with the way the Republican primary has played out, have your expectations for political for the year changed? And given the races you see in play, I don't know if I could ask you, you think you can grow off that $600,000,000 result from 2020, I think you mentioned?

Speaker 3

We are not going to comment on any growth rates or specific numbers. We will tell you we are confident that 2020 4 will be a strong political year given how this year's primaries have shaped up versus 2020, which is just stating the obvious, right? I mean, it's 2 different cycles. We think the political will be naturally more back weighted to the second half of the year and especially the traditional general election campaign season of September through Election Day.

Speaker 2

So

Speaker 3

other than saying, I don't know how many 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars we're going to get, but we're going to get a lot of it. So and we have always historically done better per capita than anybody in the peer space by a long shot. We don't see that being any different this year. And we are got a lot of Senate and House races as well. So we think it will be a good year, but we're not going to put a number on it this early.

Speaker 3

It's way too early to even try to put a number on it.

Speaker 1

Aaron, let me just add a little bit to that. I mean, this is an unusual time period in the sense that you have a number of 3rd party candidates. We've had them in the past that may be out there. Robert Kennedy obviously comes to mind. He had a $7,000,000 ad that a pack of his put on the Super Bowl that I'm sure all of you saw.

Speaker 1

We have had a rapidly moving Republican primary season. South Carolina is Saturday, but Governor Haley, Secretary Haley, Ambassador Haley, I should say, has significant funds and she intends to continue with the primary process. Donald Trump is able to generate an awful lot of free media by his rallies and that covers it, but he's not going to get what he's had in the past. And so I think he's going to be advertising. Now a lot of you may be thinking that a lot of his money is going to legal fees.

Speaker 1

We'll see. But one number that I'm actually certain of is that the Biden Harris team announced a quarter ago that they had raised 100 I think it was $114,000,000 which was the largest sum ever accumulated by any Democratic candidate in any previous election cycle and that was a long time in advance. And so I think the real determinants are going to be what the respective parties and the respective candidates raise. And from everything I'm seeing, those numbers are historic numbers. And hopefully, that goes through and matriculates through in an ad business because they're not going to sit on that money.

Speaker 1

They're not going to pay their debt off with it, right? They're going to spend that money. And gray television stations because of their news dominance and their huge viewership in their local markets always outperform. So the only thing we see is not repeating outside of strong, strong political revenue. We don't expect a double Senate runoff for 4 months in Georgia this time around.

Speaker 1

So we've taken that out and that was in Jim's comments, but we think it's going to be a great season.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thanks for that Hilton. And if I could put one more in and I appreciate the time. You ended 2023 at 5.6x leverage. As we're starting a new year, Jim, any fresh thoughts on where you see that leverage trending 12 months, perhaps 24 months out?

Speaker 4

And relatedly, does debt pay down remain a top capital allocation priority? Are there any other levers beyond organic free cash flow we should be thinking about to help accelerate the deleveraging process? That's it for me. Thank you again.

Speaker 3

So our number one priority with our free cash is to delever as rapidly as possible. We've been saying that consistently for some time and that has not changed. Over the next year or so, I see us getting without being too specific, because if I get too specific, then people will start triangulating on political and I'm not going to go step on that landmine after just saying we're not guiding for political. So I see us getting into the lower fives. And then as you go out a little farther, you're definitely in the 4s.

Speaker 3

And we will continue to push it downward over the next several years as rapidly as possible.

Operator

Our next question is going to come from Dan Kurnos with Benchmark. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Great. Thanks. Good morning. Kevin, can we just

Speaker 6

go back to retrans for

Speaker 5

a second? I just first housekeeping, because I think Hilton said this,

Speaker 4

are

Speaker 5

all of the deals that came up at the end of the year, that 38%, are they all done?

Speaker 2

Hilton said all of the deals that expired in the Q4 and in January 2024 have been renewed. We have not finished the Q1 and therefore we have not finished renewing the contracts that expired after January 2024. We're still in discussions. The figure of 38% of our subs is the entire quarter. So we have renewed almost all contracts, but there are we're still in discussions with another large party.

Speaker 2

It's going fine. We expect as it has in all prior cases, we will get it wrapped up in the ordinary course and it will be retroactive to the expiration date. So again, we had 38% expiring in Q1, which takes us to basically January 1, and we've done all those that expire at the end of the year in the month of January. And we have a continuing conversation with another party that's on track that is in Q1. In the Q2, we have more renewals that are up.

Speaker 2

Those renewals represent about 23% of our traditional MVPD sub base.

Speaker 5

Okay. So the Q1 guide assumes that retroactively you will complete the large party negotiation. That's what you're saying what you're telling us?

Speaker 2

Our guide represents our current estimate at this time of the deals that will be in place and our good faith estimate of what the rates will be for the Q1.

Speaker 4

Okay.

Speaker 5

And look, you made some fairly strong commentary about the ecosystem and the fact of the fixed fee and the impact obviously on reverse. Based on your guide, how do we think about kind of net retrans from here? Obviously, 15 could mean a couple of different things, but just we have the reverse piece of this. I'm just trying to get a sense, especially since your biggest renewal year, how we should be thinking about net growth from here?

Speaker 2

Jim provided a full year guide of approximately $1,500,000,000 for gross and $937,000,000 I believe for network comp. We're not at this point smart enough to know tens of 1,000,000 of dollars which way that $1,500,000 is going to be. Again, we don't have a crystal ball on the sub numbers. And as you know well, we don't even get the numbers until 3 to 6 months after the quarter is over. So doing all the modeling, we can making assumptions.

Speaker 2

We have bullied for a while that the sub losses would be kind of mostly moved through the folks who were planning to drop traditionals and either go forward with virtuals or back to antennas. This past fall, the programming was not particularly strong and the sub losses continued when we expected them to slow. We can only make guesses at this point as to what the future holds. And so we'll just simply say, we continue to think that the sub losses should be slowing, but we don't have the visibility into what's going to happen in the future. So I don't know how we can give a and we are not going to give a more specific guide on gross because we don't have enough intelligence on what the future is actually going to do with the traditional MVPD subs.

Speaker 5

Okay. And just one on the production studios on assembly, where is that I guess for Jim or for Hilton, where is that going to hit the P and L? And what do you guys have assumed, I guess, or directionally assumed for 2024? I think Hilton said Hilton, I think you said you're marketing the other sound stages. So just how do we think about your ability to grow?

Speaker 1

Let me just kind of touch base on that. I mean, we're in a very unusual time. Hollywood, however you define that term, is not green lighting a great number of productions right now. In fact, we have had 3 that were coming to our studios initially that ended up getting canceled by their respective production houses. I think there are a number of issues that are holding that back.

Speaker 1

Obviously, there is a potential strike and hopefully it is just a potential and it will dissipate with IATC That I think comes up in May, and I think that leads to some reticence. I will say I think there was a lot of expectation that when the studios and the guild and SAG AFTRA came to conclusion that it would be a rush back. The truth is, I think people actually really stopped. And so I think a lot of productions are out there writing the scripts. And so we expect pretty healthy resumption of production capacity.

Speaker 1

But exactly when that begins will depend I think largely on the odds, either strike or lack thereof.

Speaker 5

And where does all that stuff fall in the P and L just to be clear?

Speaker 3

It's in the production lines as it has been.

Speaker 5

Got it. All right. Thanks guys. Appreciate the color.

Operator

Our next question is going to come from Jim Goss with Barrington Research. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

All right, thanks. A couple about your sports comments. One, I'm curious if adding some of the sports at the CW, including LIV Golf has impacted your affiliated properties to any significant extent? And also when you noted sort of regional broadcast of some of the local sports teams to maybe the rest of the state or neighboring states to your race stations. I assume that's envisioned in the contract terms when you do those negotiations.

Speaker 7

I wonder if you might talk about that a little bit.

Speaker 8

Sure. Let me start with your second question, Jim. It's Pat. So yes, we are I think Hilton's point in pointing out the fact that we're not just in Atlanta, but we're in the whole state of Georgia and some other markets in neighboring states with over the air television is just an indicator of how and the audiences that we're seeing is an indicator of what a great move this is for professional sports to go to local television stations. Hilton referenced a little bit about ratings performance and I'll give you a couple of examples.

Speaker 8

So in New Orleans, Louisiana, we've run 4 or 5 NBA Pelicans games on our Fox affiliate there. And Sandy, correct me if I'm wrong here, but the ratings on those games are essentially double what the normal prime time averages in that market. That's correct. So these games are bringing new viewers. Many of those viewers are younger.

Speaker 8

They're bringing very large audiences. They're bringing new advertisers to our stations. And again, the key point in your question revolve around such as New Orleans is also Shreveport and it's Biloxi, Mississippi and it's Baton Rouge and same thing with Augusta in Albany and Columbus and Macon in Georgia. So all of those markets are seeing a lift there, not only in ad revenue, but also in new folks coming to traditional television stations along with new advertisers. So your other question was around LIV Golf and CW?

Speaker 7

Right. And I think they've been looking at sports as a complement in areas where you really didn't have any programming from that network.

Speaker 8

Yes. So I think the first thing I'd point out is that the ACC football and basketball packages that the CW is airing actually comes from Raycom Sports, which is a great company. And we're very excited about that. Look, we're happy to see the network go acquire sports. We think it's good.

Speaker 8

We think it's good for to grow the viewership base on that network and good for retention. We are happy to have some Odd CW affiliates and to be partnered with Nexstar on that. I hope that answers your question.

Speaker 7

Well, I was just wondering if it's made much of a difference. Is it significant or just a minor thing?

Speaker 8

We're seeing some increases, but I can't say it's

Speaker 1

I would just tell you as a viewer, Jim, like just to have Georgia Tech Football here in the Atlanta market,

Speaker 4

that's a

Speaker 1

really big deal. I mean, I'm not a Georgia Tech alum, but I love watching those games on the CW. And so I think we're probably the 2nd largest CW affiliate and we're thrilled that Raycom Sports could help move the ACC to the CW. And we're actually also thrilled that LIV Golf is out there. It was out of Super Bowl, LIV Golf was out there at the same time.

Speaker 1

They had huge audiences. We don't have any numbers for that here. That may be a question you need to ask the folks at Nexstar. But from our side, we're very happy with what they're doing, and we're very happy to be affiliated with the CW network.

Speaker 7

Okay, thanks. And one other, and maybe this is for you, Hilton, primarily. You've had quite a period of time over the past several years with the significant acquisitions, which you mentioned and talking about Jim and retrans growth and assembly studios now ramping up. I'm wondering, as you look forward the next year or 2, what do you think would be the principal growth levers you should think we should be calling attention

Speaker 1

to? Well, we haven't spoken about this, but we have a presentation coming up for our Board from Rob Folliard. We think ATSC 3.0 is going to be a huge growth for the future. We think there's going to be changes with regard to the retrans that exist with traditional MVPDs in terms of how that's taken. I think Kevin sort of addressed that.

Speaker 1

One of the things that I'm actually really thrilled about is that throughout 2023, Gray was the only TV company out there that consistently grew its core revenue. And so quarter after quarter, our core revenue was up. And in the 1st 2 months of this year, it's accelerating. Now that may because Sandy Greenland's now in charge of it all. I don't know, but she's doing a great job out there.

Speaker 1

And so we think there is all kinds of avenues for growth. Some of them may not be quite as fast as the retrans from 20 20,009 to today in terms of its growth. But we think broadcast television is as healthy now, if not healthier than it's been in decades. We actually did a video for our general managers of Back to the Future. And because what we're seeing is a return to broadcast television.

Speaker 1

Now I know that doesn't fit the narrative out in New York, but too many people confuse the term linear television. A lot of people, what they mean by that is cable networks. Back in the day when Ted Turner was in the cable business and he was telling everybody he was cable before cable was cool, well, they started all those different businesses. But way back in the day and some of us around this table were here, all we had was advertising to grow the company. Now we have so many other different areas.

Speaker 1

One of the things that we have been so successful is growing our digital revenue. That's 100% ours, and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger every year. And so I think there's just a tremendous amount of opportunities for growth. And I think you're going to see us have an extraordinary 2024.

Speaker 7

All right. Well, thanks for your comments. Appreciate it.

Operator

Our next question is going to come from John Corniche with JK Media. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Hi. Jim, I got a question for you. Right now, you have subordinated debt of $1,450,000,000 coming up in 2026 and mid-twenty 27. The market is expressing skepticism as to whether you're going to be able to refinance that. The yield on that debt is about as of today is about 13%.

Speaker 9

What is the plan to reliably, predictably refinance the 26, 27 subordinated debt?

Speaker 3

You're talking about the senior notes, John, and not the term loan?

Speaker 9

Right, the bonds.

Speaker 3

I have every confidence that they'll be refinanced in due course. The company throws off tremendous amounts of free cash on a 2 year blended cycle as you well know and as we've consistently demonstrated for years. I think a lot of the pricing in the bonds is reflective of the interest rates on those bonds and where the current interest rate environment is.

Speaker 9

They're yielding 12% to 13% yield to maturity, not current yield. I mean that to me expresses some skepticism of your ability to refinance the bonds. Otherwise, they'd be yielding more like Nexstar or TEGNA bonds, which they're not.

Speaker 3

Well, all I can tell you is I have absolute confidence that we will be in due course we will be refinancing them.

Speaker 9

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is going to come from Greg Huber with Huber Research. Your line is open.

Speaker 10

Great. Thank you. My first question, your retrans subs in the Q4, how much were they down year over year? I think you said 3 months ago for the Q3, they were down mid single digits. What was the trend the latest quarter?

Speaker 2

Yes. We have not been providing our sub counts. Our sub counts are running sort of consistent with what you're reading in the press on what the public companies are reporting. So the traditionals have been declining. The virtuals have been growing.

Speaker 2

The net effect of that is that our total sub count is down a little bit. But the traditional is where obviously our rates are higher because we negotiate those on our own. And those are declining much faster. Those numbers the public company the public pay TV companies are reporting their numbers, and we're seeing numbers our numbers are fairly reflective there as our company used to be primarily concentrated in small and midsized markets. So our sub trends seem to be different than what was being publicly reported since we closed the Meredith deal.

Speaker 2

We're now more evenly distributed among large markets through small markets. And as a result, we've been saying over the last year or so that what we see in our own internal sub count, sub report are numbers that are largely reflective of what's being reported publicly. So we don't feel the need to start throwing out minor differences between what's being publicly reported. So what you see publicly is reflective of our own experience.

Speaker 10

Okay. And then Jim, a housekeeping question. Below the line, you have a miscellaneous income number of about $12,000,000 in the quarter. It's a lot larger than it normally is. Just what is it to be clear?

Speaker 3

Hang on, I'm trying to grab my pen.

Speaker 10

Gain or something in there?

Speaker 3

Yes, it's probably how some of the now it would be further.

Speaker 2

Interested in a call

Speaker 4

later today.

Speaker 3

Let me just catch up I'll catch up to you later on that. I need to go down another level of detail, which I don't have right in front of me.

Speaker 10

Okay. Appreciate that. So on this the total cost, total net cost for Atlanta Assembly, including the $21,000,000 net you're expecting to have to pay this year, what's the total net cost for that to come out, do you think?

Speaker 2

It's in the 10 ks.

Speaker 3

Yes, we put it in the 10 ks in liquidity.

Speaker 2

$570,000,000 Okay. Including what you're going

Speaker 10

to pay this year. Okay. Appreciate it. Okay, good. So just given your guidance for this year, so I want to get down to here.

Speaker 10

You talked about production revenue of $110,000,000 $85,000,000 of production costs, obviously, back into $25,000,000 or so of EBITDA for the whole production company line. Obviously, that line, the EBITDA last year, I guess, was about $6,000,000 the year before was $10,000,000 Are you so I mean first maybe round up call it $20,000,000 or so of EBITDA this year. You're inferring that over time that's going to grow significantly from that number? Or is or what's going on there between $20,000,000 of EBITDA versus $570,000,000 total cost is not exactly the ROI I'm sure you originally were expecting?

Speaker 3

So there's some puts and takes in the production line. As Hilton already mentioned for this year, our studios that we own are not we expect that they will be leased a little later in the year, which is muting that production revenue number for the full year. But as Hilton said, we fully expect as the year goes on that those studios will be leased out as we had originally intended. Also, if you recall, and we commented about this in the Q1 call last year, When Diamond had its bankruptcy, we had to completely redo our ACC agreement and that's how we got it over to the CW. But we also said at the time that that redone agreement was not as lucrative to us as the previous agreement we had with Diamond.

Speaker 3

So there is some noise in that production line for this year. Thinking to the larger assembly project overall, remember the studio complex represents only about 43 acres of the total acreage. And we have somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we have about 80 acres left that is undeveloped presently. And we have said that over the next 3, 5, 7 years, we would be looking to develop that. And I think that future development certainly will bring with it additional revenues to justify the total investment.

Speaker 10

Okay. Appreciate that. But you're just saying it's going to take some time here to build to a proper ROI in your mind, I guess, you're saying?

Speaker 3

Yes. Yes. Phase 1 was the studios and we and as we've talked about a couple of times on our calls last year, we rushed that because we had a tight delivery line under our NBCU lease agreement. And so we ran full speed ahead to get that done delivered to NBCU on time. And then we had been clear on multiple calls last year that aside from the $21,000,000 of modest cleanup investment this year, which is largely public infrastructure, that we would be taking a pause in the very near term to start thinking long and hard about how to unlock the rest of the value in the undeveloped acreage.

Speaker 3

So the short answer is yes, it's going to take a little more time.

Speaker 10

Okay. And my last question, if I could, guys. Your retrans cost for you, your guidance is obviously flat year over year and stuff. I believe you had an NBC contract renewal at the end of last year. Correct me if I'm wrong there in a handful of CBS stations for renewal.

Speaker 10

I mean that's pretty good on darn good on your part that you're able to hold that line flat this year despite those contracts of renewal at the end of last year, if I have that right. Can you just talk a little bit deeper about that? I mean, what's going on there? Because that's not like what's happened in the past obviously. You're obviously having your way here on the contract side of things with these renewals.

Speaker 10

It refers to me, right?

Speaker 2

Without obviously commenting any specific contract, we renewed CBS last summer for the Meredith Group and then the legacy group and which were on slightly different dates. And then yes, all our MVCs were up at the end of the year. We have been predicting for, I think, 2 years now that the network comp rate of increase would be slowing, if not stabilizing. And I think we've seen that in the numbers that we posted today in our full year guide for comp being flat with last year. That what I said at the beginning of the call is we would anticipate broadcasters being more vocal about changing that regime so that the network comp begins to decline along with the sub numbers.

Speaker 2

But that will take some time to work out and that's obviously something that's not on our near term debt since we have no near term renewals.

Speaker 10

Okay, great. Thank you guys.

Speaker 3

Certainly, back to the question on the $12,000,000 miscellaneous, the vast majority of that was actually some proceeds on some spectrum auction that we actually were pleasantly surprised at.

Operator

Our next question is going to come from Hal Steiner with BNP. Your line is

Speaker 11

open. Hi guys. Thank you so much for taking the question. I think I just wanted to clarify for 1, I think your 26s and 27s are trading at yields actually below 10%, nowhere near 12%. So I just want to maybe straighten that out because I thought that was a law.

Speaker 11

But anyway, I think notwithstanding maybe a little bit of a softer guide for 1Q, you guys are still going to generate a substantial amount of free cash flow this year. And in light of the equity coming off a little bit, the bonds coming off a little bit, is it still right to think that the main priority for free cash flow should be addressing the front end 26, 27 and not pursuing any discounted debt buybacks or anything like that?

Speaker 3

I think that is more likely than not, yes. You always got to say, I can't never say never. But I think and as clearly as we did start a refinancing of the 26 term loan a couple of weeks ago. And then because of a market dislocation that had absolutely nothing to do with us, we put it we postponed that just to wait for a little bit better time in the market. So I think our we've clearly signaled that it's more likely than not that we'll be focusing on the 26s and 27s first and then thinking about the longer dated stuff later.

Speaker 11

Got it. That's super helpful. Thank you so much. That's all my questions. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is going to come from Alan Gould with Loop Capital. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Thanks for taking the question. And first, Jim, congratulations on your retirement. I have two questions left. One is the reimbursements on the assembly plant appear to be a little bit less than I was expecting. I was wondering if that might be in some other line item.

Speaker 4

And secondly, if Hilton or someone could comment if the Georgia production tax credit bill has any significant impact on what you see coming to Georgia?

Speaker 3

So I'll take the first question. Yes, there's a little bit of a timing difference in 2023. We some of that we had expected to get in 2023 and it's actually showing up now in what we're about roughly $31,000,000 we're expecting in 2024. Part of it was just the shift in the timeline of some of those projects. So as I've commented before, the public side has to be done, completed, inspected, valued.

Speaker 3

And I think there's several other steps involved. So, one, some of the public stuff, it wasn't critical to get it done to activate the NBCU lease. So we let it slide a little bit. So the public funds are following it as well in the construction schedule. And I'll remind everybody that those public funds, which we refer to as the CID, all of that money has been in a trust account.

Speaker 3

So it is dollar good. It's just the related public infrastructure has to be completed in order for us to go through the process of getting the funds out of the trust account and into our bank account.

Speaker 1

And then with regards to any questions about the Georgia tax film credit, we've obviously been deeply involved. I personally have been deeply involved in all of the negotiations. During the summer, the state of Georgia launched a review of all tax credits in an effort to begin a process of reducing the overall tax burden on the Georgia citizens here. And we don't see any effort on the part of anyone in the Genomely to get the tax credits. We don't think that's an issue at all.

Speaker 1

In fact, everyone wants to make sure that Georgia remains a competitive player in the film industry because it is now a permanent part of our economy and generates a huge amount of revenue for the state. There's all kinds of discussions about how much that really revenue is. And there's room for people of good faith to differ with what that is. But I'll tell you one thing, it's the film business that has a big chunk of the reason that the state of Georgia is sitting on close to an $18,000,000,000 surplus this year. And so and I think everybody at the General Assembly understands that because it creates revenues from everything, from restaurants to lumber mills, to carpet mills, to every industry in the state.

Speaker 1

And so plus all the creatives that we have, and Georgia has spent 2 decades, 2 generations really through Georgia Film Academy of building up a huge reservoir of local talent that can operate in the production space. And that employment base is in the 100 of 1000. And so there's a huge constituency here for that in this business. And so I expect to continue. The slowdown that we have in terms of leasing, I think you'll probably hear about it in a lot of places.

Speaker 1

People are reassessing a number of things. Holly is just not green lighting enough. I think that will change dramatically when this potential strike is settled and when some scripts get written.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thank you, Hilton.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Operator

And we have enough time for one more question and that's going to be from Stephen Cahall with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Thank you and thanks for squeezing me in. Maybe first, Kevin, just as it relates to reverse, the slowing rate and you said the comment about how reverse isn't working for broadcasters any longer. I think you've maybe been leading the charge here to try to change the norms, whether it's negotiating directly with the MVPDs or changing the structure of reverse. Can you give any more clarity on how you think this can work for affiliates over the next couple of years to start to realign expectations in reverse your outlook for growth? And then maybe Hilton or Pat, how do we think about margins on sports rights?

Speaker 6

So it certainly seems like the viewership is strong, the advertising and the revenue generation is strong. I think one of your peers has said they expect to be essentially cash accretive on sports in year 1. So wondering if you could confirm that with your sports right as well. And then lastly, Jim, how do you just think about when you want to restart the refinancing process? I know

Speaker 4

there was a lot of volatility in

Speaker 6

the stock that caused you to delay that though with the completion of the upsized revolver, but what do you need to see to kind of get back on that track? Thank you.

Speaker 2

We're going to do these really, really fast because we have the post calls, actually starting a minute ago and got your team coming up this afternoon. So it's super fast. All the affiliates of the content companies, cable, satellite, virtuals, pay for all channels on a per sub basis. Broadcasters are the only people who are paying the conglomerates on a fixed fee basis. So I think the simple answer there is, we should be paying a per sub basis as well.

Speaker 2

So quick answer on sports?

Speaker 8

Yes, sure. So these deals will be accretive.

Speaker 3

Sorry, Steve, can you what was the third leg of the question for me?

Speaker 6

See to restart the refinancing process?

Speaker 3

We will more likely than not be coming sooner than later. That's not necessarily Monday, but we certainly would like to get back to the market and get that done in the reasonably near future. Obviously, that was an opportunistic refi and we want to hit a good market window where we can conclude that opportunistic refi.

Speaker 6

Got it. Got it. Thank you. Great.

Speaker 2

That was efficient. Thank you. Talk to you soon.

Speaker 1

Listen and thank all of you for being here this morning. We really do appreciate it. We can't wait to talk to you about our Q1 of 2024. It's wonderful to bring 2023 to an end. As you all recall, we began, everybody was nervous, we were going to have a recession, going to be a bad year, turned it to be a fabulous year.

Speaker 1

I expect the same thing to happen in 2024. So talk to you next quarter. Bye.

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Earnings Conference Call
Gray Television Q4 2023
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