Nexstar Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NXST) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Barton Crockett: Okay. And is there anything you can elaborate at the local level? You said things were — I guess for–

Lee Ann Gliha: Local has been pretty resilient. I mean I think that we saw a little bit of weakness in the first quarter and — but it’s not anything to count, and that’s why we haven’t counted it, because it’s been a very stable sort of environment on the local side. In the face of the economic issues in terms of the advertising market.

Barton Crockett: Okay. And then switching gears on the distribution revenue. One of the things underlying your commentary there is that you talked about low single-digit growth in homes. And which is partly some new carriage. How sustainable is that? I mean is there 3 or 4 quarters where we comp that and you’ll revert to the industry trend? Or just thoughts about the sustainability of that would be interesting.

Lee Ann Gliha: Yes. No, you’re absolutely — I mean, you’re right. I mean we’re going to comp it. I think you saw that we put out some press releases as we’ve acquired stations. We put our best releases as we got carriage on the VMVPDs for RCWs, our [indiscernible] And our independents. And so you can kind of look at the timing of those releases and see when those are going to roll off in terms of a year-over-year comp. But Look, I think as we’ve said before, at the end of the day, we — as the market goes, we kind of go because the lion’s share of our revenue is really tied to kind of the overall pay-TV market. and just the trends. The organic trends in that part of the business.

Operator: We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Perry for closing comments.

Perry Sook: Thank you, operator. Nexstar’s consistent record of operating execution, cash flow growth and capital allocation, prioritizing strong shareholder returns continues to differentiate Nexstar from its peers and it’s largely diversified media companies. And as I mentioned earlier, we were recently recognized by the Investor Relations service provider quarter ranking the 15 best stocks over the last 15 years for companies in the European Union and North America with a market cap of over $500 million. Nexstar was ranked #3 on that list with more than 300x return. Obviously, the only media and telecom company on that list. So while we look to the past to focus our goals for the future, it is one step at a time. We expect to build momentum through the second half of fiscal ’24, and we remain excited about the many opportunities ahead of us to deliver long-term value to our employees, partners and shareholders.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you again when we report our second quarter results.

Operator: This concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.