But I am wondering if having two big distributors done kind of take some of the risk out of that. So, that’s the first one. And then, Mike, thank you for all the color on the ad market in the top 10 station ad market. We heard from Warner Bros. this morning that they are really not seeing any improvement. They are not necessarily expecting any in 2024. I am just wondering what your expectations are for the ad market from here. Are you seeing any green shoots, or do you think that those larger markets will remain where they are for the foreseeable future? Thank you very much.
Lee Ann Gliha: Yes. So, I will take that. So, I think on the distribution math that you have done, Steve, that’s spot on with what we are seeing. We feel like the deals that we have been able to achieve year-to-date are consistent with what our own internal expectations were. So, I think your math is good from that perspective. I think going into the remainder of our negotiations, we will just have to see how that plays out. I think we feel good about everything that’s happened to-date. It’s all been business as usual. I know there has been lots of questions about has that really truly been the case. And yes, it has really truly been the case. You can see that in our numbers. So, we expect more business as usual as we go forward, and we will just have to watch how that all plays out.
With respect to advertising, I think Warner Bros. doesn’t really have like sort of the local station business that we do. Obviously, that’s the lion’s share of our advertising revenue. I think as we have talked about, we are seeing some, I guess green shoots in the sense that we are – our rate of decline in terms of our overall business is moderating. We saw that sequentially from second quarter to third quarter. And we are seeing it again in a similar fashion in terms of the amount in the third quarter going into the fourth quarter. So, we are feeling somewhat positive about all of that and look forward to that, hopefully, rectifying itself even further in 2024.
Steven Cahall: Thank you.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Craig Huber with Huber Research Partners. Please proceed with your question.
Craig Huber: Thank you. First question, more of a housekeeping question. What was your re-trans sub decline year-over-year? I think in recent quarters, you guys have said it’s down mid-single digits. Wondering if that held again in the latest period or maybe it’s a little bit worse.
Lee Ann Gliha: Yes. So, as Mike said in his commentary, we talked about our sub declines being in the low-single digits. And that is really – and that’s for the current period, and that’s really positively impacted by a few things that we were able to achieve, which was we got carriage for all of our CW, MyNetwork and independent stations on YouTube TV. And we also added a number of new CW affiliates in large markets, which got carriage as well. So, that positively impacted our subscriber attrition figures.
Craig Huber: Okay. Great. And then also on the outlook for advertising, can you maybe touch on what your outlook is for the auto category, please, both at the national level as well as the local best you can?
Lee Ann Gliha: Yes. Look, I mean I think from an auto perspective, we are continuing to see that be a positive year-over-year growth. I think we are getting into the period of time where we are having some tougher comps because we saw some of that improvement starting towards the end of last year, but we continue to see it be a positive factor for us.
Craig Huber: And then in the quarter, Lee Ann, obviously, you had the blackouts. Did you get any reprieve on the network compensation side of the expense side going against that at all with your four – big four network contracts?
Lee Ann Gliha: Yes. There is some impact on that, yes.
Craig Huber: You had – so that dollar number was less than what it would have been if you didn’t have the blackouts, the network comp side. I just want to make sure there is some confusion out there about that, but thank you.
Lee Ann Gliha: Yes. No problem.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Nick Zangler with Stephens Inc. Please proceed with your question.
Nick Zangler: Hey guys. I was wondering if you could provide just any additional commentary on the upfront commitments that you mentioned in the press release. We have kind of just been hearing about weaker demand in general as advertisers have been looking for more flexibility this year. Curious if you are hearing the same thing or anything different? I know you guys have a bulk year offering this year. But – and just if so, if you are hearing that softness of that demand for flexibility, just whether or not that’s a leading indicator for into 2024 period?
Lee Ann Gliha: Yes. Look, I would say on the upfront side, we had a successful upfront. We added, I think, 47 new advertisers to the mix. We have the positive impact of News Nation being a very strong growing network from a ratings perspective. So, we had all of that from a benefit perspective. We sort of ended up on our upfront kind of where we thought we would be. Obviously, this is not a great overall upfront environment. You can just see all the reports about that. But that just means there is more of a scatter market, hopefully as the economy…
Perry Sook: Well, I will just add, we were selling growth this year. So we did show growth in – vis-à-vis our plan and probably the most gratifying was the new advertiser relationships we established not only through the upfront, but then on a follow-on basis with sports. But I just want to caution, the CW News Nation and our other ancillary properties are bit players in the upfront. We are not going to move the market one way or the other. But we were one of the few entities out there selling growth and new opportunities. So, we did quite well. We were pleased with where we ended up. And obviously, we had a conscious effort to hold back inventory, taking there will be a more robust scatter market than laying down the majority of our inventory in the upfront.
Nick Zangler: Understood. That’s helpful. And then just on the virtual MVPD commentary that you guys provided. I think effectively, what you are simply suggesting is that on a net basis going forward, we really shouldn’t look at MVPDs or vMVPDs differently. You guys can extract similar economics regardless of the distribution channel, is that right?
