On tough comps due to a banner 2022 for political advertising, Sinclair Broadcast Group widened its loss in the second quarter of 2023. That said, the company’s revenue beat the consensus estimate of analysts polled by Yahoo! Finance.
Total revenues slipped from $837 million to $768 million, as the net loss attributable to Sinclair widened from $11 million (-$0.17 per share) to $89 million (-$1.38).
Analysts had forecast a EPS loss of -$0.60 for the second quarter.
Meanwhile, the revenue narrowly bested the consensus estimate of $767.08 million.
Adjusted EBITDA dipped to $107 million from $183 million, while adjusted Free Cash Flow came in at $25 million, down from $100 million in the political dollar-fueled Q2 of 2022.
Total advertising revenues of $309 million decreased 16%, versus $366 million in Q2 2022. Core advertising revenues, which exclude political revenues, were down 3% to $303 million, from $312 million in Q2 ’22.
But, that cannot be viewed as a negative, given the apples-to-oranges comparisons to one year ago.
“Sinclair is continuing to see a solid start to 2023, meeting or beating guidance on all key financial metrics,” said Chris Ripley, Sinclair’s President/Chief Executive Officer. He noted how Sinclair is evolving to “a diversified content and data distributor,” and has finalized the process of reorganizing the company structure “to increase transactional flexibility and transparency around the value of assets being held in each business unit.”
The end goal: “to create an even more effective company, designed to use the breadth of our assets to identify and accelerate growth,” Ripley said.
Meanwhile, distribution revenue slipped to $418 million in Q2 ’23, from $430 million a year earlier.
With Sinclair’s Board of Directors declaring a quarterly cash dividend of $0.25 per share on the company’s Class A and Class B common stock, payable on September 15 to holders of record at the close of business on September 1, Sinclair offered Q3 2023 guidance.
As shown below, adjusted EBITDA of between $91 million and $109 million is forecast.
