And so that will be the big lift, and we'll have that piece done by the end of 2024 and then we'll be a 24/7 cable news network. He wants to tell stories that are happening outside the beltways. Are they able to see the local football game from the NFL on CBS? Fox Board's Failure; McCarthy Pressed on Tucker Handout; Lord of the Studios What's your feeling about that? As a percentage of net revenues, our total expenses declined given our focus on controlling expense growth and significant political revenue growth. A Memphis station owned by Nexstar also ran a version of this story. But it is certainly a tailwind in core advertising revenue that auto is up and up double digits, and we see that continuing throughout the year. What were your direct operating expenses, excluding that, the CW, how are you seeing that tracking this new year? Were now up to 16%, but that means 84% of the country has no earthly idea. Perry Sook says that in addition to a strong trending political segment, "approximately half of our television advertising categories are pacing up for the third quarter." . Mr. Sook is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB), where he formerly served as Chairman. The format had just changed from big-band to country. . That will be followed by Tom's operations review and Lee Ann's financial review, and then we'll open the call for questions from you. Perhaps the most explicitly pro-Trump company in local television is Minnesota-based Hubbard Broadcasting. In addition, we continue to provide fact-based unbiased news for which our sponsors have been awarded for the excellent -- for which our reporters have been awarded for their excellence and our NewsNation cable network has been recognized by independent watchdog groups as -- for its content being reliable, balanced and trustworthy. We continue to expand our capabilities and leverage our linear, digital, mobile and streaming assets in new ways to deliver new levels of monetization, growth and shareholder returns. But the leverage we expect to fall again in 2024, which will be a political year. We also have multiple organic growth drivers, including NewsNation, the CW and ATSC 3.0 that are being positioned to generate material growth for Nexstar in the future. The company says that you can watch for free on the NewsNation Now app. Perry, please go ahead. Or is that kind of a necessity to free up that bandwidth capacity? It will be done from the heartland for the heartland, which is where WGN is primarily distributed. Sook is so serious about delivering straight news, hes hiring journalism professors and rhetoricians to review scripts. In the segment, news anchors read from a script decrying biased and false news on social media and other news outlets. Okay. Okay. It will originate from WGN in Chicago and. The remainder of our attributable free cash flow went to repay debt. No matter how talented an athlete is, seeking advice from those who have gone before you is part of the journey to success. Outside of the huge Chicago-based cable network WGN America, most of its 196 stations are ABC, CBS, Fox, CW, and NBC affiliates in small and midsize markets. So it's not an inconsequential number. In March, NewsNation VP of News Jennifer Lyons resigned amid concerns the channel might take a right-wing turn because of low ratings. Local television broadcasting generated $2.4 billion in gross political ad dollars, a record amount for midterm election, capturing more than 50% of the total spend in 2022, representing a 38% growth over 2018. Perry Sook, Nexstar's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "2022 was a monumental year for Nexstar as we generated $5.2 billion of revenue as well as record levels of Adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. NewsNation aired an interview with President Donald Trump in September 2020. Sinclairs name recognition spiked after a Deadspin compilation synchronizing the biased news must-run segment went viral, but Sinclair has been distributing corporate speech through local news stations for years. "We're now up to 16%, but that means 84% of the country has no earthly idea. Third, we are already making progress with the CW, not only to bring the network to profitability but to create value for the entire Nexstar enterprise as a result of the acquisition. August 21, 2021 / Scott Jones. Composed mostly of reporting from Nexstar stations, NewsNation was billed as offering straight-down-the-middle stories at a time when cable news is politically polarized. New York, CapEx was higher in the fourth quarter than prior quarters in 2022 as CapEx that was delayed in the first 3 quarters of the year due to supply chain disruptions was finally fulfilled in the fourth quarter. With that, it's now my pleasure to turn the conference over to your host, Nexstar Chairman and CEO, Perry Sook. Nexstar also closed its acquisition of The CW last quarter, bringing the . Many of the big cigars in media management will tell you that the Sook-led revolta high-stakes game of chicken against Cox Cablewas a definitive moment for the CEO, Nexstar, and the entire media industry. Sook did his undergraduate work at Ohio University in Athens, OH and was an adjunct professor at Edinboro State University of Pennsylvania.He and his wife Sandra have three children: Laura, Victoria and Perry, Jr. Political Advertising Revenue 265.9 18.9 . So you'll see our net retrans margin increase. The proposed terms were below market, and as a result, CBS-affiliated stations, including Nexstar, remain off the air on that platform. South Dakota Senator John Thune received the biggest haul from Sinclair in 2016 (over $30,000). We have assumed no material M&A or other onetime or usual transaction these figures. A 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, charitable organization, 1100 13th Street, NW, Suite 800 Or am I giving some national game like the (inaudible). CW affiliation fees will have a slight positive impact on our year-over-year reported growth rates until we lap the acquisition date. Sinclair was even accused of trying to influence the 2004 election by airing a documentary (Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal) that accused John Kerry of fabricating parts of his military service. Mr. Sook previously spent five years with Cox Broadcasting, first in local sales in Pittsburgh, then at Telerep, Inc., as a National Account Executive. So, there were challenges. He found the perfect candidate for such an arrangement just down the road in Wilkes-Barre, in the form of WBRE-TV. So were launching this year, a three-hour, live, primetime newscast, seven nights a week, on WGN America. Perry A. Sook -- Chairman and Chief Executive Offcier Thank you, Joseph, and good morning, everyone. Sook believes in the notion that if a national story breaks in one of Nexstars locales, his gang of reporters will be first on the scene and report it through an impartial lensand America will love it. Political ad revenue of $266 million, up 1,307%. It would be more in the form of a test of the technology and people testing certain use cases. Right now, I think you can say that the Fubo dispute is a dispute over money as well as governance issues. Double-digit attributable free cash flow growth enabled us to return approximately 68% of our 2022 attributable free cash flow or a record of $1.02 billion to our shareholders in the form of share repurchases as well as dividends. So, in our ads, we put the general manager of the cable companys home phone number so people could express their opinion, Sook says. In the days before the 2016 election, Van Hollen appeared on a Fox 45 news segment called Your Voice where he talked about the ease of early voting and pitched his plans to accelerate job growth in Maryland. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. Political spending at Tribune peaked around 2000 when they gave $123,280, the majority of that to Republicans. And I think that the prior guidance was mid-teens. That year they gave $18,500 to Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) and $16,300 to Ted Cruz. Stay up to speed on DFWs fast-moving business community with weekly news reports, interviews, and insights. Please go ahead, sir. That didnt leave time for much else. Thank you, Tom, and good morning, everyone. Okay. As always, Tom and Perry gave you most of the details on the revenue side. Some of my most fun days, my best days, are when I go visit one of our local TV stations. Excluding the impact of the CW, our top-performing categories in the quarter were automotive, home repair and manufacturing, entertainment, paid programming and air conditioning and heating. (Podcast). Its a good tale of battles, bargains, and bold strategies. Now were obviously getting smaller rates because our ratings are smaller, Sook noted. There are a lot of conversations going on. Your comments about (inaudible) drawing attention to the CW. For all the factors are enumerated by Perry and Tom, we are excited about the prospects for 2023 and remain confident in our ability to enhance shareholder value and deliver on our new pro forma annual -- average annual attributable free cash flow guidance for 2023, 2024 cycle of approximately $1.25 billion, including $90 million of attributable losses and associated tax benefit in connection with our ownership interest in CW.Comparing this to our original 2022, 2024 guidance of $1.4 billion, for the 2023, 2024 average, we have about $110 million more interest expense given the movement in interest rates and a $90 million attributable loss for the investment in the CW. Core television advertising decreased 3.3% year-over-year. Nexstar took control of The CW and signed a . Because of the lack of information until now, the research analysts that cover us have had a variety of ways of showing our numbers. Certainly, sports is 1 avenue that has never been pursued there before. Hubbard Broadcasting gave $350,000 to Freedom Partners Action Fund, a Koch-network Super PAC, in the 2016 election cycle. Perry A. Sook-- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thanks very much, everyone for joining us. I think, again, if we had a sunset for 1.0, even if it was several years, hence, that would cause the set manufacturers to begin to build to that standard, lessen the backward compatibility problem with those that don't have sets -- compatible sets that need dongles or receivers and all of that has to be dealt with and the consumer issues have to come first and foremost. 20005. And people are enthusiastic about engaging in those conversations. They had no audience, no advertisers, and no followers, Sook says. It starts back in 1996 when he bought WYOU, a little pissant TV station in Scranton, Pennsylvania. That number has been corrected to $9,100. Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit OpenSecrets. We have developed these audiences over decades by consistently providing top-rated local news, sports and entertainment content. He is largely credited with forging in 1998 what was the first shared services agreement among American television stations. Yourcentralvalley.com, a Nexstar site affiliated with NBC covering Fresno, California, ran a story about Kevin McCarthys claims that California Democrats had fallen out of touch with voters. At OpenSecrets.org we offer in-depth, money-in-politics stories in the public interest. And I think you'll see, again, in 2023, some test cases and use cases that will be developed that again is -- we'll be seeing this forward progress in the development of ancillary revenues from NextGen TV spectrum. Our country is very important. At the Nexstar level, we see the CW as instrumental to our ability to unlock the national advertising opportunity I discussed just a moment ago. He told employees during a long session that included about 40 minutes of Q&A that. Fourth quarter CapEx was $57.1 million or $56 million, excluding CapEx related to the CW. As such, our net first lien coverage rate -- sorry, our net first lien covenant ratio for Nexstar, excluding the CW at December 31, 2022, was 1.77x, which is well below our first lien only covenant of 4.25x. Or is it just like a national game on that national feed? And important for us, the linear broadcast ratings increased 21% from Saturday to Sunday, so all of which is to say those numbers exceeded our expectations. And so I think it's an iterative process. On a net basis, we expect reverse comp to increase but at a mid-single-digit rate, slightly improving our distribution or retrans margin. We also have begun to execute on our cost savings plan by reducing redundant functions at the network, and we've hired new top-tier executives with backgrounds at Fox, NBCUniversal, HBO, Pop TV and Google to lead our programming and distribution strategies. Emily Barratt, Renee Cassis, Meghan Buonocore, James Gwynn, Janice Garjian, Dolores Nolan 5. Commodity futures news: Nexstar Media Group Reports Record Fourth Quarter Net Revenue of $1.49 Billion and Fiscal Year 2022 Net Revenue of $5.21 Billion, updated 2023-02-28 07:00:00. Q4 2022 total corporate expense was approximately $49.2 million, including noncash compensation expense of $18.2 million compared to $43.6 million, including noncash compensation expense of $12.4 million in 2021. We ended up with one guy standing. With that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Lee Ann for the remainder of the financial review and update process. The linear television business is a fairly mature industry, and we wanted to be one of the leading consolidators, he explains. Do we know enough yet to know if it's a buyer's market? So thank you, everyone, for joining us today. As a reminder, Nexstar generates distribution revenues from our linear MVPDs like Comcast and Charter, virtual MVPDs like YouTube TV and Hulu and other direct-to-consumer platforms like Paramount Plus and Peacock. I mean can you generate revenues that are meaningful without that? We returned $1.02 billion or 68% of our attributable free cash flow to shareholders in 2022, paying $142 million in dividends and repurchasing $880 million of stock or 5.1 million shares, 12% of our shares outstanding as of December 31, 2021. NewsNation launched officially in September 2020 with high hopes of securing solid viewership in a time of deep mistrust of the media. The company also spent $390,000 lobbying during this period and employed a former chief counsel to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and a former deputy staff director for Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) as lobbyists. We look forward to gathering together in three months' time to update you on all of our initiatives . The studio consisted of a large metal building at the base of the transmitter. In 2018, their top four recipients were all Minnesota politicians: Republican Senate candidate Karin Housley, Rep. Erik Paulsen, Emmer and Rep. Jason Lewis. Nexstar Media Group's purchase of Tribune Media Co's 42 TV stations makes Nexstar the nation . A July segment in Centex Proud, a Fox-affiliated, Nexstar owned, Waco-area station, covered a Cruz event saying (Cruz) is excited to see the current economy and business boom with the lowest unemployment rate for Hispanics and African-Americans in a decade. Perry Sook, Nexstar's CEO, gave $5,000 to the company's PAC in the 2014, 2016 and 2018 election cycles. That deal, if approved. But our quantum of debt, we don't expect to tick up. Looking ahead, excluding the impact of the CW affiliate fees, given our recent contract resets, we expect distribution revenues to be up high single to low double digits for 2023, depending on the outcome of our partners' ongoing negotiations with multiple -- with a couple of MVPDs on which they are currently dark and inclusive of our projections for subscriber attrition. Revenue rose to $1.25 billion, up 10%, from [] It seems like you're pretty much through with the reshaping process there. Perry A. Sook has over 37 years of professional experience in the television and radio broadcasting industries, covering all facets of the business including ownership and M&A, management, sales, on-air talent and news. Next steps for us, obviously, Elizabeth Vargas joins the network in April. And we've seen a lot of our competitors in the media industry with broadcast assets take notice suddenly remembering the lion's share of their revenue and profit come from that tried and true effective and profitable broadcast media. Lee Ann Gliha; Executive VP & CFO; Nexstar Media Group, Inc. Perry A. Sook; Founder, Chairman & CEO; Nexstar Media Group, Inc. Thomas E. Carter; President & COO; Nexstar Media Group, Inc. Barton Evans Crockett; MD & Senior Internet Media Analyst; Rosenblatt Securities Inc., Research Division, Craig Anthony Huber; CEO, MD & Research Analyst; Huber Research Partners, LLC, Daniel Louis Kurnos; MD & Senior Equity Analyst; The Benchmark Company, LLC, Research Division, James Charles Goss; MD; Barrington Research Associates, Inc., Research Division, Nicholas Todd Zangler; Analyst; Stephens Inc., Research Division, Steven Lee Cahall; Senior Analyst; Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division, Joseph N. Jaffoni; Founder & President; JCIR. 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