Gray Television Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
February 27, 2025

There are 12 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, and welcome ladies and gentlemen to the Gray Media twenty twenty four Q4 Earnings Call. If you know you'd like to ask a question, you may press star one on your telephone keypad at any time during the call. Once again, that's star one on your telephone keypad to join the question queue. And without further ado, I will now turn the program over to Chairman and CEO, Mr. Hilton Howell.

Speaker 1

Thank you so much, operator, and good morning, everyone. As the operator mentioned, I'm Hilton Howell, the Chairman and CEO of Grain Media. Thank you all for joining our fourth quarter twenty twenty four earnings call. With me here as usual in Atlanta are all of our executive officers Pat LaPlatney, our President and Co CEO Sandy Breeland, our Chief Operating Officer Kevin Latek, our Chief Legal and Development Officer and Jeff Kymiak, our Chief Financial Officer. As usual, we will begin with the riveting disclaimer that Kevin will provide.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Hilton. Great introduction. Good morning, everyone. Today, we filed on Form eight ks, our earnings release and investor presentation. Later today, we will file with the SEC our annual report on Form 10 ks.

Speaker 2

These materials are all available on our website, which is www.graymedia.com. Included on the call may be a discussion of non GAAP financial measures, and in particular, adjusted EBITDA, leverage ratio denominator and certain leverage ratios. These metrics are not meant to replace GAAP measurements, but are provided as supplements to assist the public in its analysis and valuation of our company. Further discussions and reconciliations of the company's non GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP measures can be found on our website. All statements and comments made by management during this conference call other than statements of historical fact should be deemed forward looking statements.

Speaker 2

These forward looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results in the future could differ from those described in the forward looking statements as a result of various important factors that are contained in our most recent filings with the SEC. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. I now turn the call to Hilton.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Kevin. You do that particularly well. Good morning again and everyone. For many reasons, today is a great day to discuss with you the state of our company and its direction. This past Sunday on NBC and obviously all of our NBC affiliated stations, Grossport Garden Society, the first of the broadcast shows produced at our own assembly studios premiered at 10PM Eastern Time.

Speaker 1

Next, this Monday on CBS, the first new soap opera in over thirty years, Beyond the Gates also shot at Assembly premiered at 3PM Eastern Time and then every day so far this week on all of our stations and across the country. Significantly, The Gates is a co production between CBS and NAACP that focuses on a very successful African American family in Maryland, the Dupree family, a milestone show in broadcast history and we are exceptionally proud to help get it on the air out of assembly studios here in Atlanta. And tonight, we are thrilled to reinforce the news that across 24 gray television markets, the Atlanta Braves America's team will debut on live television from spring training in Florida. Tonight's game against the Washington Nationals will be the first of 10 pre season games produced by Gray that will air across Braves Nation. And we will follow-up with 15 regular season games simulcast across the same footprint.

Speaker 1

These are accomplishments that we are truly proud of. Now let's turn to our financials. We are very happy to announce that our results for the fourth quarter finished better than our guidance on both revenues and expenses. Total revenue in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four was $1,000,000,000 an increase of 21% from the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. Total operating expenses in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four were 2% below the low end of our previously announced guidance.

Speaker 1

Net income attributable to the common stockholders was $156,000,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four compared to a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $22,000,000 in Q4 twenty twenty three. Adjusted EBITDA was $4.00 $2,000,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four, an increase of 86% from the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three due primarily to political advertising revenue. In addition to these operating results, we're proud of the progress we made on our balance sheet during the fourth quarter. Just two weeks after our third quarter earnings call, we announced that we had completed a series of transactions that collectively reduced the company's principal amount of debt outstanding by $278,000,000 since October 1. During the full year of 2024, we reduced the company's total principal debt by $520,000,000 exceeding our $500,000,000 goal.

Speaker 1

That November announcement was a fitting way to complete the year in which we executed on our pledge to concentrate our free cash on reducing our debt and improving our balance sheet. In addition to reducing our total debt during the year, we also refinanced our debt to extend our maturity dates, increased our revolving loans availability and greatly lowered our capital spending as we completed numerous projects. In the end, we finished the end with a lower leverage ratio than we began the year. Operationally, we continue to enhance our local content offerings in 2024. We devoted from Nimbus efforts to reaching new local sports back to our television stations.

Speaker 1

Last year's milestones included a historic deal, as I had mentioned earlier, bringing Atlanta Braves games back to broadcast on Braves TV stations in our hometown of Atlanta and throughout most of the Southeast this spring. We also renewed our affiliation agreement with the ABC network for four additional years. In 2024, our Investigate TV and local news live franchises both continued their momentum with viewers and both also significantly expanded their distribution across broadcast, digital and mobile platforms. The success of NBCU and CBS at Assembly Studios provides wind in our sales as we continue discussion about leasing our remaining studio facilities with other production companies. We expect to have more announcements about Assembly Atlanta throughout this year that will include progress on the build up of other parts of our mixed use campus on the land that we own, importantly, utilizing financial resource of our future business partners at the site.

Speaker 1

With our significant capital investments now largely behind us, future projects at Assembly Studios and Assembly Atlanta should enable the development to expand its financial contributions to our entire company. We're also encouraged by signs from Washington pointing to the long overdue reform of the regulatory constraints that have literally harmed local broadcasters. While every day we compete for local ad dollars with tech giants free from constraining rules that we are shackled with, which as one of our more eloquent lawyers wrote were enacted before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. It remains a fundamentally wrong and harmful policy for the government to burden our local news and sales employees with these decades old restraints, while imposing essentially no restraints on much larger companies who compete vigorously with us for the attention of viewers and advertising budgets. We are optimistic that the federal government as well as our upcoming negotiations with our network partners, CBS, Fox and NBC will recognize the reality of today's media marketplace in 2025.

Speaker 1

Such actions will enable us and our peers to operate more efficiently, compete better against the tech giants and deliver better services for our viewers, our advertisers and indeed our shareholders. At this time, I would like to turn it over to Pavel Platnik.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Dalton. Last year, our business will be remembered primarily for political ad revenues. Broadcasters overall took in record revenue from political ad spending and a lot of new dollars that entered the space were used to buy ads on connected TV. Gray also sells ads on connected TV platforms and has a dedicated team focusing on ways to better leverage our strong digital audiences and local connections in the political ad space as we expect that sector to grow going forward. Overall in 2024, we saw increases in each category of political ad revenues other than Senate, which is our largest category.

Speaker 3

Despite the Senate map not favoring Gray's footprint in 2024, we still believe that our political advertising revenues for the year exceeded our peers in total dollars and on a per television household basis based on the results announced by our peers right after the election. The $250,000,000 of political ad revenue in the fourth quarter had the expected effect of displacing a large amount of core advertising revenue through Election Day as happens every election year. As we mentioned on the Q3 call, we also heard from our commercial advertising clients in the third and fourth quarter about some hesitancy around advertising during the election given the tone of some of the political campaigns. We did, however, exceed our Q4 guidance core guidance. The hesitancy and caution around advertising we saw during last fall's election season persisted into January, we think resulting from economic uncertainty due to potential government policy changes.

Speaker 3

This caution is most evident among our automobile advertising customers. We're hearing that some dealers and manufacturers are pausing and reducing their advertising campaigns as they rate how tariffs and continued high interest rates may impact near term demand for new and used cars. Our January core ad revenues were down from last year. Our February core ad revenues were about the same as last year's excluding Super Bowl bookings and Leap Day. And March pacings are currently showing improvement and tracking roughly flat to last year's actual core ad revenues.

Speaker 3

Overall, for the first quarter of twenty twenty five, we currently expect that core advertising revenue will be down 7% to 8% compared to the first quarter of twenty twenty four percent. Again, there are three primary factors causing this decline. First is the political or economic uncertainty that I just discussed. The second impact on core results was from the Super Bowl airing on our 33 FOX channels in 2025 compared to our 54 CBS stations in 2024. Our FOX stations did very well, increasing their Super Bowl advertising revenue by about 50% from the last time the big game aired on FOX in 2023.

Speaker 3

This, however, was still only about half of what we sold during last year's Super Bowl that aired across our much larger CBS footprint, including our CBS station in the Chiefs hometown of Kansas City, as well as St. Louis, Topeka and Wichita. Finally, our first quarter of twenty twenty five will be negatively impacted by one less billing day due to Leap Day, which we estimate impacted our core revenue by $3,500,000 to $4,000,000 Excluding Super Bowl and Leap Day impact, our core advertising revenue guide for the first quarter twenty twenty five is down 3.3% to 4.6% from the first quarter of twenty twenty four. We are encouraged by our success in acquiring pro sports rights. Hilton mentioned the Braves, which will impact 24 gray markets.

Speaker 3

We announced our Memphis Grizzlies deal this morning and expect to announce a couple more agreements in the next few weeks. We anticipate having local sports product in 75 to 80 gray markets by the end of the first quarter. With that, I'll turn it over to Jeff.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Pat. As Hilton mentioned earlier, reducing debt and leverage remains our top capital allocation priority and we made significant progress again in the fourth quarter. As everyone saw in our release, we finished the year at 2.97 times first lien leverage and 5.49 times total leverage. And as an aside, I would note that our leverage ratio as defined in our senior credit agreement, it does not allow us to take credit immediately for cost containment initiatives. And that may not be comparable to what is indicated by publicly available documents for others out there.

Speaker 4

So to be clear, we've not retroactively included the benefits from the $60,000,000 of cost initiatives we announced last quarter in our 12/31/2024 calculations. We are however on pace to be at the full $60,000,000 run rate by the end of this quarter. We've been very transparent and opportunistic on our debt reduction efforts and are proud that we reduced our principal balance by $520,000,000 during 2024. Through use of open market repurchases, we captured $46,000,000 in debt discounts during 2024 And we continue to have our $250,000,000 authorization available for further open market repurchases. And I think as we've pretty clearly demonstrated, we'll continue to be thoughtful and nimble in deploying our liquidity to further delever the company.

Speaker 4

We entered 2025 in a very strong liquidity position. As of 12/31/2024, we had $135,000,000 in cash plus our $680,000,000 revolving credit facility available. We expect that the next political cycle in 2026 will provide significant cash that together with the liquidity that I just mentioned will be more than sufficient to address our remaining $528,000,000 20 20 7 bond maturity. While repaying debt is our number one capital allocation priority, we could also access the debt markets if attractive terms and pricing are available. A couple of other items to mention, our cash taxes were a little above our Q4 guidance.

Speaker 4

That's primarily due to taxes on cancellation of indebtedness income and our CapEx excuse me, our CapEx came in slightly below our fourth quarter guide at $96,000,000 and we expect slightly lower CapEx again in 2025. Yesterday, our Board of Directors declared our regular quarterly common dividend of $0.08 per share in the cash payment of our quarterly preferred dividend. As a reminder, the common dividend is a small use of cash for the year that helps the company on the equity side of the balance sheet. And going forward, the Board will continue to evaluate our dividends in light of our financial position, capital needs and other appropriate factors on a quarterly basis. Before I turn the call back to Hilton, a couple of comments on what we're seeing on retrans.

Speaker 4

Over the last two years, our traditional MVPD subscriber base has declined essentially the same year over year overall rate. We're encouraged however by recent sub reports from major cable companies showing a modest improvement in their rate of sub declines, which we attribute to a number of factors that have been discussed on many of our prior calls, including better consumer value proposition by staying with cable. As you know, we entered into a four year affiliation agreement with ABC end of last year. That agreement and the upcoming renewals this year with the other broadcast networks provide opportunities for us to rebalance the economics of those deals in light of the MVPD subscriber erosion and loss of exclusivity that have occurred since our last renewal cycle. It's worth noting that our network affiliation fees increased for many years at double digit rates.

Speaker 4

Over the past few years, those network affiliation fees have flattened out and even better, we booked the first ever year over decrease in network affiliation fees in 2024, which we anticipate will continue and even accelerate. This concludes my remarks and I'll now turn the call back to Hilt.

Speaker 1

Thank you very much, Jeff. And now operator, I'd like to open up the call to any questions that anyone may have.

Operator

And so far, it does look like we have several in queue. So we'll take the first one, Mr. Aaron Watt of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Speaker 5

Hi, thanks for having me on. I have two questions. Maybe I'll just cover one at a time. The first is around core advertising. Your comments on the softness at the end of twenty twenty four and into 2025 seem to echo your peers.

Speaker 5

Given the modest firming up you saw as 1Q played out, As you look ahead, do you think core adds can move to growth on a full year basis? And if so, what might drive that?

Speaker 3

Yes. Aaron, it's Pat. So I think the answer is yes. We are it's early, but we are encouraged by the second quarter pacing currently. Some of those categories that have been challenged over the last four to six quarters are showing improvement at this point.

Speaker 3

So again, based on the data we have today, I would answer yes to your question and say that as we look out a little bit, things are more encouraging.

Speaker 1

And Aaron, this is Soltan. Can I add just a little bit of something to that? We discussed this at length in our board meeting yesterday. A lot of our the weakness is in the automobile department. And really for the first time since the end of the second war, the automobile productions don't know what the cost of goods sold are going to be.

Speaker 1

So many parts come from Mexico and Canada and other places around the world. And as we discussed tariffs, I think that's putting a natural chilling effect upon advertising in the automobile sector. That will settle out. As President Trump has said, there may be some initial pain, this too will pass. And when they know exactly what the prices they need to have to sell their products profitably, And then you can see all of the automobile sector returning to advertising.

Speaker 5

Okay. That's helpful commentary. Thank you. And then my second question is around expenses in the first quarter. Can you parse out your guide and which looks relatively flat year over year?

Speaker 5

How much of the cost efficiencies you've highlighted flowed through in the first quarter? And what other factors are at play there, including maybe any incremental sports rights? And then if you can, how should we think about expenses overall as the year unfolds?

Speaker 4

Yes. Aaron, I'll kick off and others can weigh in. So as we think about what the flow through of the initiatives that we've announced, you do start there's probably by the handicap, but it's two thirds to 75% of it is going to be flowing through in Q1. And then it will build from there. It also doesn't mean that we're necessarily done.

Speaker 4

We look at everything every day and try to be real hard about where we're spending. So I think for the full year, our hope is that we'll be able to, as we've said before, keep the overall rate of growth on the expense side below inflation and potentially even get it to turn negative during the year.

Speaker 3

Yes. I'd just say, Aaron, just real quick, I would amplify what Jeff is saying. We look at these numbers every day and are trying to find ways to rein in costs. And I can think of a few initiatives over just the last three to four weeks where may not have been part of the big project we announced in fourth quarter, but like Jeff said, we're looking at it every day.

Speaker 5

And so offsetting some of those you're taking out, what were some of the kind of offsetting ups in costs that are playing into the flat overall guidance in 1Q?

Speaker 4

Yes. Look, we didn't we still have to run very strong local businesses and we have to attract and retain the talent across the firm. And so we did give raises that are ordinary course of business type things. So when you have 9,700 or so employees in the company, that there's some uplift there. There's some normal increases in other things that just are contractual.

Speaker 4

But other than that, I mean, it's really like Pat said, it's looking for more the most efficient way to continue to deliver a very high quality product in the markets that we serve.

Speaker 5

Okay. Appreciate the time. Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Aaron.

Operator

All right. Next up, we have Daniel Kurnos of The Benchmark Company.

Speaker 6

Great. Thanks. Good morning. Hilton, maybe I'll stick with you or Pat a little bit here since you talked about the Braves. Obviously, we have a somewhat public breakup between Major League Baseball and ESPN.

Speaker 6

So just curious, the RSNs have picked up a bunch of local games in other sports, but curious if you view that as an opportunity. And then separately, Hilton, you've talked a lot about expanding sort of the mixed use zones with regards to assembly. It seems like that's starting to move forward. So I'd love to get a sense from you on TAM timing, monetization, just how we should think about the contribution to that either this year or next year and for however you want to frame it? Thank

Speaker 1

you. Well, you heard this in Pat's discussions. Let me start with sports first, all right. It's a remarkable opportunity. I think by the end of this quarter, Pat articulated to you guys that we will have live professional local sports in 80 something markets across our 113 market profile.

Speaker 1

That's amazing. And we have been working assiduously. A year ago, we had Arizona and the Suns. And now we have stations across our footprint. If you take a look at our instrument deck, Daniel, you can see our sports networks, the gray regional sports networks that we've created on our own, all in broadcast.

Speaker 1

And we are immensely proud of what we're able to do, not just with the professional sports, but with local sports teams that go down to the high school level across these networks. And so I think that's going to be really, really hugely additive in terms of our viewership and our profits because it creates an immense halo around the stations and attracts viewers. And a year ago, we didn't have that. It's a great, great addition to our portfolio. Now assembly, the studios are finished.

Speaker 1

They are making shows. And as I mentioned, and I mean, you guys know, I mean, some people kick me about assembly. I'm immensely proud of what Rose Pope Garden Society on NBC did Sunday night and remarkably proud, really remarkably proud of Beyond the Gates in terms of the productions that are now on our stations. And so from the business standpoint, I could not be happier with Assembly Studios and the Georgia film production that we have in the state. Now in terms of Phase two, I'm not in a position to prudently announce anything, but we are looking at growing other assets largely in partnership with other companies.

Speaker 1

We've had a lot of folks that have come to us and we do not have a large capital expenditure budget in assembly. So it will be met. We contribute our land, they put in whatever they decide to do and we will add more profitable operations to it, not using our balance sheet dramatically at all. But it will allow the remaining 80 something acres to begin adding profits to the broader company, which we're very excited about. So I hope I answered your question, Daniel.

Speaker 3

And Dan, I'll just touch on ESPN real quick and baseball. I'm not sure that's a huge opportunity for broadcast. As Hilton mentioned, there's all kinds of opportunities out there. That particular sort of divorce, if you will, I'm not sure that creates a ton like the Sunday night package, right? Is that going to end up in syndication?

Speaker 3

I kind of doubt it, but who knows? But the reality is just if you look at our new investor deck and the logo suit page on the sports section, I mean, there is a lot of baseball that's going to land in small packages on broadcast television this year, and we're involved in many of those. And Hilton touched on the sort of halo impact of having sports on your stations. And I'm going to turn it to Sandy to talk about that for a second because it's very real.

Speaker 7

Yes, Sandy. It is. I mean, these relationships not only bring viewers to the games, but there's an overall halo effect and we're seeing that. And Phoenix is a perfect case study. We're in our second full season with the funds and we have seen that.

Speaker 7

We have seen advertisers who came to us for the games and now rediscovered the power of broadcast and local broadcast reach and are now advertising in other dayparts. So we've seen that halo effect across the board.

Speaker 6

That is very comprehensive guys. Thank you. And Pat, we'll see how they end up carving it up. Maybe they'll see the NDA in HL.

Speaker 3

Yes. It will be interesting.

Operator

All right. Moving right along. Next up, we have Craig Huber, Huber Research.

Speaker 8

Thank you. On Assembly Atlanta, maybe can you just give us the updated figure for what the total cost is for the project gross and the net cost? Why don't we start there, please?

Speaker 1

Land cost, acquisition cost, building cost is roughly $500,000,000 more or less.

Speaker 2

Specific numbers are in the 10 K that we're filing later this afternoon.

Speaker 8

All right. So roughly 500 net, is that what you're saying?

Speaker 1

Yes. Net or gross, I didn't look at it.

Speaker 8

Okay. Very good. And then you guys are I think you're talking about $27,000,000 to $28,000,000 production company revenue in the first quarter. That'd be up, I guess, dollars $5,000,000 to $6,000,000 over a two year basis. Do you expect that number to ramp up significantly as putting aside seasonality or as the year progresses?

Speaker 8

I'm just trying to get a sense here of the ROI that you're getting off that $500,000,000 here.

Speaker 1

The answer is yes. But there's a couple of things to keep in mind. The immediate impact will be added revenue as more productions build, because I'm sure a lot of you guys know. Right now, Hollywood, however you want to define that, has had a lot of issues. And none of those are under our control and none of it was created by our company.

Speaker 1

But the strikes slowed everything in 2024. But as you can tell, productions continue and I'm really quite excited about not just what we have currently in place and the television shows showing. And for the first time in Georgia, we actually got a broadcast TV show. Everything before went on streaming or on cable and we have Grosse Pointe and the gates on our stations and I could not be happier about it. We're probably 70% occupied in the stages.

Speaker 1

So I think there's about a 30% maybe more upside just in terms of booking and we have literally quotes out for every station that is not currently filled with a film and television production. And so we're seeing a lot of more robust activity in the film and television production side. And while I can't talk to you about the individual stuff, because often sometimes I really don't know. Like when we're doing a deal, it comes under a code name and we'll get a production request and I have no idea other than who the company is, what the actual production is because they kind of keep it under wraps until really the last moment because they like to control their own publicity. So immediately, you're going to see it through the return on the studios.

Speaker 1

But we have another 80 acres that is not currently adding value. And as I mentioned, we're not going to spend a lot more capital, but we're going to enter into partnerships for a variety of assets. It's because it's an Atlanta thing, sort of the inspiration for what has been done at the Battery with the Braves, which has added immense value to the Braves franchise and to their audiences is sort of what we're looking at as a comparable in this city. We're going to take it deal by deal and step by step. And we delayed everything because the market wasn't right.

Speaker 1

People banks weren't lending. And the world kind of changed in November. There's a lot of animal spirits that we're seeing out there. So we're very bullish about opportunities and partnerships going forward.

Speaker 8

And my second question, if I could, on potential deregulation here, do you guys feel that you will be a major of significant participant if deregulation happens here, if assets come available out there or does your debt load preclude you from participating much? How are you thinking about that?

Speaker 1

Well, I mean, look, we're going to if we do a deal, it will be a smart deal. There are a lot of things that we would be very interested in doing. Deregulation occurs as we have been indicated, it will. There are opportunities for slots. There are opportunities for acquisitions.

Speaker 1

And when we we've been in this position before and we've done a number of acquisitions, actually de levering acquisitions. And so we will be looking at that, but there is an opportunity and this is a finite universe. And we'll take each deal and each opportunity as it comes. One of the happy things about our company is that there's no must have deals we need to have. We have and I suggest you look at it.

Speaker 1

I think we have the finest footprint in broadcast history. There is no peer in our industry that could have delivered what we delivered to the Braves and Braves Nation, twenty four markets. If you look at what we have and what we can do, it's quite remarkable. But you can look in our investment deck that we had published, I think today, and you can look at that being true in Arizona, throughout Nevada, throughout the American Midwest, throughout the other Southeastern states that are not the same. But what we've done in The Gulf Coast with the pelicans, we're thrilled with, absolutely thrilled with.

Speaker 1

And we hope to replicate that in a lot of places because while you got to have the major markets, Gray has the smaller markets that really root for these teams.

Speaker 8

My last question, you guys talk about the potential here for retrans sub declines to moderate. I'm just curious if maybe you're willing to share with us, how are you guys budgeting sub declines in your financials for this year? Are you expecting it to materially get better, say, in the back half of the year on a year over year basis?

Speaker 2

Hi, this is Kevin. We do expect the rate of sub decline to slow. We said the same thing last year. We have seen some encouraging signs late last year as have other folks in the media industry have expressed that. Our internal numbers are assuming things stay the same.

Speaker 2

But again, we're not giving full year guidance on retrans, so that's just an internal number. We are not projecting a material increase or decrease. We're presuming that the sub rate of decline will just be the same. That's the easiest baseline to budget.

Speaker 8

Okay, very good. Thank you, Vogue. Thank you all.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Greg.

Operator

All right. Next up, we have Avi Steiner of JPMorgan Chase and Company.

Speaker 9

Thank you. Thank you and good morning. On the reverse comp trends, you mentioned an opportunity to rebalance economics. And I think you rightly pointed out the decrease in fees in 2024. I thought you mentioned it could be lower in 2025.

Speaker 9

Could you dimensionalize that for us this year or maybe put a little more context around it? Thank you. And then I have one more.

Speaker 1

Yes, Avi, it's Jeff. So

Speaker 4

we have the our two large our two large contracts, CBS and Fox are up this summer and then NBC at the end of the year. And so I don't want to say a lot about specifics around where those contracts

Speaker 6

A coordinator will assist you momentarily. To cancel your request, press 0.

Speaker 4

We're not going to be giving a full year guide until we have more clarity on where those negotiations are going to come out.

Speaker 1

But suffice it to say, Avi, we're very optimistic and again, we can't disclose it, but we're very proud of our new relationship with ADC. I think it properly balances the value of their affiliation with the value of our local TV stations. And as has been mentioned in our earnings script, it's the first time we've actually started seeing a decrease in our network by payments. And I think that's very important in today's world. And it's a recognition of reality for the media broadcast space in 2025.

Speaker 9

Perfect. I appreciate that. Thank you for that color. One last one for me, maybe Jeff for you or anyone else, but you guys were opportunistic late last year across the debt stack. And as we move into '25, you have the authorization you highlighted, perhaps some other cash coming in.

Speaker 9

The question is how do you view the trade off from here between discount on the longer dated debt, but lower coupon debt versus some front end needs you will have in the coming years? Thank you.

Speaker 4

Yes, I think look, I think the best place to look is what we did last year. The market guided where we were going. I did want to finish the year with a manageable 2027 maturity. And so at $528,000,000 that is manageable either via the revolver or a nice round offering size if we went back to the debt market. So I think we're just going to have to see where things are trading at any point in time when we have excess cash available to deploy it and let that be our guide.

Speaker 1

And Abigail, this is Thank you.

Speaker 9

Go ahead.

Speaker 1

Just one piece of maybe sort of color to what you were asking about. Like on our CapEx deal, which everybody's got to realize that this company did a lot of acquisitions over a substantial period of time. We announced quite candidly that we were cutting back on our CapEx. Well, that is what that is in recognition of is that we basically have done all the CapEx that we inherited because because we picked up a lot of portfolios that weren't where they needed to be. A lot of stations needed transmitters that we picked up.

Speaker 1

A lot of stations had really, really not secured buildings that kind of imperiled some of our employees. We had a variety of CapEx. And so we naturally have finished that. We're not cutting it off and leaving our stations short of what they need. They're fully prepared to fight and win the battle that they have in their markets.

Speaker 1

And we're very excited about that.

Speaker 9

Appreciate the time. Thank you, everyone.

Operator

All right, ladies and gentlemen, before we move on to the next one, I just wanted to remind participants, you can press star one on your telephone keypad if you would like to join the queue. The next up we have Stephen Cahill of Wells Fargo.

Speaker 10

Thank you. First, Hilton, I was wondering if you could just touch a little more on some of your comments around the M and A opportunity. Certainly looks like could be an exciting next few years with what the FCC is doing. You mentioned swaps as something that might be attractive to Gray. How do we think about those and what the financial benefits of those could be?

Speaker 10

And I know assembly is close to home figuratively and literally. You do have the large acreage there that you spoke about. Would you ever consider monetizing that to give you more dry powder for station M and A since you're at a point of a little higher leverage now? And then just a second question on political. Some of the things stayed the same this last political cycle, some of the things changed.

Speaker 10

As you look to 2026 and maybe have a little bigger fight against Connected TV to retain your share of political dollars, what can you kind of do this year and next year to be ready to maintain that share? Thank you.

Speaker 1

Well, I think we're going to have to pass these questions around to each other. Make sure I have I understand the question about what we're doing at assembly, Steven, what were you asking?

Speaker 10

Yes. If you would just monetize any of your unused acreage just to give yourself some more dry powder for station M and A.

Speaker 1

I mean, we don't foreclose any profitable and appropriate transaction, all right? So we're willing to listen to all kinds of folks. So the answer is yes. Does that mean we're going to do that? No.

Speaker 1

But I'm not going to foreclose any kind of opportunity. It would depend on the individual sort of transaction. And we have considered a variety of things, all of which add great value to our company and to our shareholders. I really I encourage you, Stephen, and actually everybody on this call, that we really should probably one day have an investor meeting at our studios because I think when you actually physically see them, I think you're going to have a very positive view of what we've created and the value that it has for this company and will in the future. But a core business for us is the studio.

Speaker 1

We got 80 acres and we're going to be we may strike lots of deals and lots of different financially beneficial structures as we see what we can do with the remaining 80 acres. Now with regard to political and connected TV, Sandy, is that I just want to echo what Pat said in his comments.

Speaker 7

I mean, Steven, we're fortunate that with the strength of our stations, we have not only strong local reach on the linear broadcast side, but because of that also on all of our platforms. We have strong digital audiences and we have strong connections in those communities. So we have a set of dedicated team now actively working to focusing on ways to better leverage our strong digital audiences going forward. We know that that's going to continue and we have a lot of opportunity in 2026. We have a lot of political opportunity in all of our markets.

Speaker 7

So that is a high focus for us and we expect that to grow certainly for Gray.

Speaker 1

Well, and then you asked a question about M and A and anyone in our end guys can open as you see fit. But, Stephen, I mean, there's all kinds of opportunities. SWAPs, we'll be looking at, particularly if the FCC and the Department of Justice allows them because it's hard, particularly in smaller markets to make a decent buck with the expenses of one of the significant local news. One of the great benefits to our company that we have been articulating to the public markets literally forever is that we have only bought number one news stations throughout our entire M and A efforts. And so we have a handful that are not at the levels that we want them to be.

Speaker 1

We've fixed that. I mean, we have done that. And our news content is there and it's focused, it's consistent and it's focused on local issues and local news. We don't do opinion journalism and something I do want to say with regard to this. I'm really proud of what John Decker, I want to call him out because the White House has been calling on great television and our boy John Decker almost every day in the White House conferences and I've been awfully proud of that.

Speaker 1

But adding duopolies in smaller markets, which is something that has been anathema and in bigger markets candidly, that has been anathema to regulations in the past is something that is going to be very helpful to maintaining a strong local news content. And the government has got to get with it. So I think that M and A will begin with the swaps, but who knows if the rules change dramatically, there could be broader combinations. And Greg is interested in all the above.

Speaker 10

Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Thank you.

Operator

All right. And so far, we only have one more question in queue. So I'll just remind everyone, you can press star one on your telephone keypad So far, our final question is going to come from Alan Gould of Loop Capital.

Speaker 11

Thank you. Thanks for taking the question and thanks for the investor deck earlier today. First, Jeff, in the investor deck, it shows a leverage goal of four times. You're about 5.5 times today. You usually go up in political it usually increases in political years.

Speaker 11

How long until we get to four times? And then the second question, I guess for Kevin, your Washington slide talking about deregulation. So besides M and A and station swaps, what other deregulation opportunities are there? I know specifically you also mentioned there the network affiliate relationships. I assume that's with the VMBPDs, but what else will help benefit with deregulation?

Speaker 11

Thank you.

Speaker 2

I'll go first because it's easy. Our big goals from Washington are, as Hilton mentioned, relaxing the one to market rule adopted in 1940. Secondly, the FCC has shown some interest in the network and affiliate relationship, primarily around the network's complete control of our distribution on the virtual MVPDs, which are a sizable part of the distribution industry at this point. And then third, next gen TV is a huge and important growth opportunity for this industry. And we've gotten some middling progress from the SEC the last couple of years.

Speaker 2

We really need them to step forward and remove some of the shackles on our business regarding NextGen. So there's a lot they can have in there. So those are the big three pillars on Washington regulation.

Speaker 4

Yes. And Alan, on your other question about getting to the four times, it's going to take a few years to get there. Obviously, the heavy cash flow years are the political years. Even in off years, we are cash flow positive. And so it's just not to the same extent.

Speaker 4

And so it'll take us a few years to get there, but I think there's clear line of sight after what we've done what we did in 2024 and capturing a little bit of discount accelerated it in fourth quarter, accelerated some of the principal reduction, which then drives lower interest expense and starts to get the cash flow the discretionary free cash flow to a spot where we have more ability to reduce the principal further.

Speaker 1

Well, Alan, just let me tell you a little bit about history. When we closed on the Raycom transaction, one of the best deals in the history of broadcast, we got up to a 5.5% and within eighteen months we got down to a 3.5%. And but that was at a time when the interest rates were very much lower than what we have had in the past. Over the last couple of years, since we finished the acquisition of Meredith and Quincy, we've seen during the Biden administration a very rapid increase in interest rates. And it's been happy that the Fed happy for me at least, that the Fed has seen Fed to reduce interest rates over the course of or at the beginning of 2020 through 2024.

Speaker 1

I know they kind of paused at the beginning of 2025, but I think that we are in an interest rate diminishing area, prospectively. And that's going to help us tremendously because this is a free cash flow generating business and Gray particularly is a robust free cash flow generator. So we look forward to getting it delivered on a lot of in a lot of areas. Okay. Thank you.

Operator

All right. And with that, we will now turn the program back over to Mr. Hilton Howell for closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Thank you so much operator and everyone on this call. Listen everybody, Gray is an exceptional company with an exciting future that will continue to evolve and invest to meet the opportunities in our ever changing and really quite exciting industry. Our revenues and cash flow are solid. We have walked the talk on reducing our debt. Our expenses slowed significantly.

Speaker 1

Our investment in Next Gen TV and Assembly Atlanta are poised to deliver. We are reaching new audiences with local sports and we expect that the government will finally level the playing field for companies like Gray. These are the main reasons why I personally remain buoyed and excited by our long term prospects. We thank everyone for joining the call today. Operator, at this time, we ask that you close the line and thank you all for being with us.

Operator

And with that ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude your call. You may now disconnect your lines and thank you again for joining us today.

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Earnings Conference Call
Gray Television Q4 2024
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