Unidentified Analyst: Great. Thank you.
Jason Combs: Thanks, Steven.
Operator: And we’ll go to the next line, Michael Kupinski, NOBLE Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Michael Kupinski: Good morning. I know in the past, you’ve been kind of reticent to raise expectations for political. I know you have a person dedicated to political, so might offer you some insights there. And you have identified some hot races and ballot issues. But I’m wondering, are you seeing political being booked into the second half already? I’m just wondering how much visibility you actually have into the second half.
Lisa Knutson: Mike, its Lisa. I think that why we were comfortable with increasing our guide here now is because we’re seeing those bookings into third and fourth quarter. And so that gave us the confidence. As Adam mentioned and I think Jason mentioned in the prepared remarks, the Senate races in Montana and Ohio as well as the abortion issue in Florida. Remember in Florida, we cover 85% of the eyeballs, the households in Florida, so that’s another reason we were able to increase guide. And then I think there are a number of things in the back midyear that we’re keeping an eye on in terms of other issues, certainly abortion issues in other states where we do business that we are anticipating will also be good money in the back half of the year, so to speak.
I think the Senate races in terms of – obviously, I said Ohio and Montana, but there are certainly other states that we expect to see spending starting midyear and into fourth quarter and really ramp up there as well. But we are booking for sure and have great visibility into the back half of the year, including, I think, CTV, which is going to be a real great story for us, which is included in that guide.
Adam Symson: Just one other point, just to reiterate, we expect our first half of this year to be better than our first half of 2020, which I think is a pretty significant statement. So we are seeing the bookings for first and second quarter. Obviously, we have the confidence enough to raise the guide based on what we’re seeing in the third and fourth quarter. Just one other sort of point I’d make about the ballot referendums, the sort of conventional wisdom that abortion on the ballot is likely to motivate the electorate in a way that potentially – and even the Democratic electorate that potentially Biden on the ballot does not. And so there’s some notion that abortion has the opportunity to even create a more competitive environment for additional down-ballot races, opening up the opportunity for additional spending on those down-ballot races that might have otherwise been too wide or too far apart.
But if abortion motivates the Democratic electorate to come out, there is some view that has the potential to obviously impact the broader races on – and that should change – we hope will change the spending picture as well. So that’s, I think part of the enthusiasm we’re reflecting in our guide change.
Michael Kupinski: That’s a good point, Adam. And I hope that you can exceed your expectations and raise it again. Another question I have, typically, advertisers buy across platforms and you may sell some of your weaker networks with some of your stronger ones. And I’m just wondering in terms of the prospect of selling Bounce, do you have a sense of how much of an impact you might have on the sale of Bounce on advertising on your other networks?
Adam Symson: Yes. I mean I – look, I think you’re pointing out an important point about our sales strategy. I would say that’s one element of it. The other element of it has been an omni-channel approach in which we’ve been focused on selling across platforms, not just across networks. And then finally, I’d say, ION is by far the biggest driver in general. And ION itself does very well with the multicultural audiences. And the moves we’ve made with sports have diversified audience – ION’s audience even further. When we’ve looked at the WNBA from last year, for example, the WNBA audience was significantly more diverse. ION was already a diverse audience, and the WNBA audience opened up additional opportunities for us to sell younger audiences and more multicultural audiences.
So I’m not particularly concerned about the bundling effect or losing the bundling effect because it’s generally ION that drives that. And we’re now looking in the upfront as well as the scatter market to use that to drive also additional direct sales value for CTV.
Michael Kupinski: Got you. Okay. Well that’s all I have. Good luck. Thanks.
Adam Symson: Thanks Mike.
Operator: Our next question will be from the line of Craig Huber, Huber Research Partners. [Operator Instructions] And we will now go to Craig Huber. Please go ahead, sir.
Craig Huber: I’ll just take them one at a time, if I could. I think you said scatter was up 40% versus the upfront a year ago. Can you maybe talk about how that 40% number compares to, let’s say, the year before or something, where it was tracking at before? And then also, what is scatter versus scatter the pricing? And how is that tracking right now?
Adam Symson: Yes. Just to clarify, we were up – our scatter pricing is up 40% over upfront pricing from last year. It’s not that scatter is up 40% over a year ago.
Craig Huber: Yes. Understood.
Adam Symson: Okay. So what – can you repeat…
Craig Huber: What was that a year ago? What was the scatter at that point versus the prior upfront? So is that trend pretty similar or was that a better trend?
Lisa Knutson: I would say it’s a slightly better trend than last year in terms of – because we’ve seen certainly the upfronts over the last two years have been weaker. And so this trend is slightly better than last year.
