Tribune Second-Quarter Revenues Slip

Revenues Decrease

Amidst controversy surrounding its takeover by SINCLAIR BROADCAST GROUP, TRIBUNE MEDIA COMPANY announced that its second-quarter 2017 consolidated operating revenues fell 2% year-to-year to $469.5 million but would have increased 2% if political ad revenue and real estate revenues were excluded. 

The Television and Entertainment division, which includes the company's only radio property, News-Talk WGN-A/CHICAGO, saw revenues fall 7% to $312.9 million; the radio station's results are not reported separately. Consolidated operating profit, including $20 million of additional expenses resulting from a strategic change at cable network WGN AMERICA, fell from $56.2 million to $18.3 million, and consolidated loss from continuing operations narrowed from $152.6 million to $29.8 million ($1.66 to 34 cents/diluted share). Net loss also narrowed from $161.6 million to $30.4 million.

"Our financial results for the second quarter reflect our focus on continued expense management and positioning the company for long-term profitable growth," said CEO PETER KERN. "We saw strong sequential growth in retransmission revenues during the quarter, which helped offset some softness in core advertising at the national level.  While our overall performance was significantly affected by non-recurring expenses and accelerated amortization related to the shift in programming strategy at WGN AMERICA, those changes are now behind us, and we expect a much more profitable 2018 with more original hours than the network has ever carried.

"We continue to aggressively manage expenses across the business; adjusted for the non-recurring costs at WGN AMERICA, total consolidated cash expenses were flat despite the continuing increases in network affiliate fees and the increased level of original programming amortization. We also continued monetizing non-core assets, as we sold several real estate properties in the first half of the year, and more recently participated in the sale of CAREERBULDER and received a significant portion of our spectrum proceeds. Finally, we remain on track to close our previously announced transaction with SINCLAIR."

The acquisition of TRIBUNE by SINCLAIR has drawn several objections in filings at the FCC in the just-closed comment period; reports that FOX is in talks with ION to assign operations of FOX O&O television stations to ION and move FOX broadcast network affiliations from SINCLAIR/TRIBUNE stations to ION stations in those markets have arisen as well.

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