Craig Huber: Okay. Good. And then your other revenue line in the EBITDA there, can you maybe, Jason, help us how should we think about that line EBITDA and revenue for the full year? Have you — what are you budgeting there, please?
Jason Combs: Yes. And so that other roll-up includes a bunch of different things, including Tablo, which Adam talked about, where we’re continuing to invest as we launched that. So we guided to a loss of about $7 million in the first quarter. I would say, in general, that will likely be somewhere between $7 million to $10 million each quarter this year, revenue growing as the year moves forward.
Craig Huber: Okay, very good. That’s all I have for right now. Thank you.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] We’ll now go to the line of Jeff Peskind with Phoenix. Please go ahead.
Jeffrey Peskind: Yes, thank you for your time here. Just one quick question. It sounds like you’re going to defer the Berkshire preferred payout. What’s the plans for reducing the bank debt and pushing those out? And is there a plan for also going out past 2027?
Jason Combs: Yes. So the decision to defer the Berkshire dividend, that’s a decision that we make sort of on a quarterly basis. We did elect this quarter to defer that payment to really allow us to focus on maximizing the paydown of our traditional bank debt. And it really gives us more perspective, more flexibility in terms of debt paydown and refinancing our upcoming maturities. We also are very focused on the fact that we do have a maturity coming up in 2026 that we’re keeping a very close eye on the debt markets right now, which have improved over the last couple of months to determine at what point in time we want to go ahead and take action and look to refinance that debt, which the goal would be to have that refinanced at least 18 months in advance of maturity.
Jeffrey Peskind: Great. Thank you.
Jason Combs: Thanks, Jeff.
Operator: We’ll go to the line of Michael Kupinski with NOBLE Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Michael Kupinski: Thank you. Thanks for taking my question. Just a quick one. It seems like the Network business, the OTA business is getting more competition. A couple of your peers have indicated that they’re crossing certain hurdles in terms of distribution across the country. And I know that you’re seeing some improving trends there. But I was just wondering if you can kind of give us a taste of what advertisers are seeing in terms of maybe shifting some dollars to some of the competition that’s out there and whether or not you’re hearing anything like that and if you could just kind of give us a state of just the business in general for the OTA market.
Lisa Knutson: Yes. Mike, it’s Lisa. We’re not seeing really any competition from, I think, the expanding OTA multicast networks. In fact, we’re seeing strength in our DR ad rates. We’re also seeing strength in demand for DR advertising. Typically, when those other networks are launching OTA, they’re primarily DR advertising, and it’s very sort of bottom-of-the-barrel advertising. And we really — our networks are premium programming, and we’re competing in both really the hybrid DR and the premium DR ad rates. So we’re not seeing any — or worried about any of that competition.
Michael Kupinski: Got you. And in terms — in general, in terms of core advertising on the local level, I mean, are you seeing much variance between local and national and the core level outside of political, of course?
Lisa Knutson: Yes. I think some of the trends that we’re seeing both on the local level, which I included in my prepared remarks, sort of the categories that are up year-over-year, we have different categories, certainly in the national ad marketplace and the local marketplace. But I would say the — certainly, the momentum is equal across both segments.
Michael Kupinski: Got you. Okay, that’s all I had. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. We will return to the line of Craig Huber with Huber Research Partners. Please go ahead.
Craig Huber: Thank you. For auto advertising, I’d be curious to hear your updated thoughts there, both on a national level and local for auto advertising outlook there, please, for the full year.
Lisa Knutson: Yes, I will give you a little bit of fourth quarter and then full year and then some remarks that take us into Q1. So fourth quarter, auto was up, as we said, 9% versus Q4 of 2022. The full year 2023 auto was up 10%, which is really strong. This marks really the sixth consecutive quarter of growth, and we saw — really, each quarter last year was — we saw great growth. Q1 of 2024, so far in January, we finished up 3% and pacing to be up — potentially up to 7% in February. And it’s just a little too early to say about March. So we’re seeing that momentum continue. Domestic dealer auto groups were up year-over-year last year. Foreign dealer groups were up, but it was really barely up. It was 1%. And we’re continuing to see where things are lagging as manufacturers, from a domestic perspective, were down year-over-year last year by 9% and foreign manufacturers were up about 24%.
So again, automotive, last year, a great story and continuing really that momentum into 2024.
Craig Huber: Then also, Jason, how you calculate it or your banks, your net debt-to-EBITDA ratio at trailing 8-quarter basis, what was that at the end of the year we just finished? And what do you project it to be at the end of this year, please?
Jason Combs: Yes. So it was 5.7 at the end of last year. We’re focused — as I said in my prepared remarks, really focused on paying down debt and delevering. We’re not giving a year-end leverage target right now because of sort of the wide range of outcomes when you talk about, for example, the political guide we gave, which can really swing that number as well as some uncertainty in the timing of the advertising rebound, which again can really move that number as well. So we’re not giving a specific guide. But as I said, we’re focused on delevering this year and using the cash flow we’re going to get through the political cycle, through growth — continued growth in connected TV and the benefits of our expense restructuring to pay down the maximum amount of debt possible.
Craig Huber: My final question, if I could ask, on the CapEx side, you mentioned a onetime project or two. If you take that out, what would your underlying CapEx be for the year, please? More the maintenance-type level trying to get to.
Jason Combs: It would be around $60 million. We’re guiding for $70 million to $80 million.
Operator: And with that, we have no further questions in queue at this time. Please continue.
Carolyn Micheli: Thank you very much, Rich. Thanks to everyone for joining us today. Have a great day.
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