Across the television industry adverting revenues have continued to fall. Now Nexstar the largest owner and operator of ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC affiliates has reported that in the 2nd quarter of 2023, its ad revenues fell $87 million compared to the same period last year.
Overall revenues for the quarter were only down $5 million compared to the same quarter last year. This comes Nexstar has worked hard on cost cutting efforts at The CW.
Excluding The CW Nexstar saw revenue went up to $1.170 billion from $1.245 billion in the same quarter of 2022. Nexstar took over majority ownership of The CW on September 30th, 2022.
Nexstar is not alone most major local and national TV owners have reported revenues dropping in the 2nd quarter of 2023. This comes as the ad market has been soft in 2023.
Here is what Nexstar’s CEO Perry A. Sook had to say about the company’s current and future plans.
Perry A. Sook, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Nexstar Media Group, Inc. commented, “Nexstar again outperformed consensus expectations in the second quarter across all key financial metrics including net revenue, Adjusted EBITDA and Attributable Free Cash Flow. We attribute our strong performance to the combination of the benefits of scale in our Company-wide relationships and our decentralized local and business-unit management which are focused on delivering exceptional news, sports and entertainment to viewers and proven marketing solutions for advertisers at attractive operating margins. During the quarter we made continued meaningful progress with our ongoing organic growth initiatives at The CW Network and NewsNation. Our consistent free cash flow generation provides us with the financial flexibility to invest in our future while continuing to return capital to our shareholders. In the first half of the year, we returned $414 million to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases, representing 86% of our first half Attributable Free Cash Flow.
“We are excited about Nexstar’s near- and longer-term organic growth opportunities as we continue to leverage our portfolio of local and national media assets. Our platform provides nationwide reach with local activation at a greater scale than every other major broadcast network owner. Nexstar’s platform has attracted strong interest from sports properties looking to align with broadcast television to deliver the highest ratings and widest distribution to their fan bases while also providing promotion and engagement at the local level to drive attendance and ancillary revenue streams. Subsequent to quarter-end The CW entered into sports programming agreements to carry ACC football and basketball beginning in September 2023 and the NASCAR Xfinity Series beginning in 2025, both of which are expected to accelerate viewership and revenue growth for The CW ecosystem. In addition, with our deep local and national news resources and unbiased approach, NewsNation remains the fastest growing cable news network in primetime. During the quarter, NewsNation marked a major milestone by becoming a 24/5 news network with the debut of new expanded daytime programming, the launch of the network’s political ensemble program, The Hill, and the addition of a new evening news program.
“Looking forward, we expect the balance of 2023 will continue to reflect our ability to outperform the overall advertising market and benefit from renegotiated distribution contracts representing more than half of our subscribers at the end of 2022, partially offset by the ongoing impact of negotiations with certain distribution partners. We are even more excited about 2024 as Nexstar will realize upside from presidential election year political advertising, additional distribution contract renewals this year, a slowing of losses related to The CW Network, as well as expectations for a declining interest rate environment and a recovering economy. Given Nexstar’s exciting growth initiatives, robust free cash flow generation, solid capital returns to shareholders and our modest leverage, we remain well positioned to deliver enhanced value to shareholders.”