The first of the broadcast media industry’s quarterly earnings reports surfaced on Thursday morning, as Meredith Corporation, which is in the final stages of the sale of its Local Media unit to Gray Television, released its fiscal 2022 first-quarter results.
With Barry Diller’s IAC purchasing the National Media arm, and all other assets, of Meredith, this will be the final Q1 report television industry observers and financial analysts will see from Meredith. And, as is typical in non-political years, tough comparisons are at play, explaining a 7% Local Media revenue decline.
As expected in a non-political year, political spot advertising revenues dropped to $5 million, from $52 million. Non-political spot advertising revenues grew 24%, reflecting a lack of political advertising crowd out, and were driven primarily by gaming, professional services, and home categories.
Then, there was the always-controversial retransmission revenue growth, which Meredith says was driven primarily by annual escalations.
Still, the huge political bump in fiscal Q1 2021 results in a 7% year-over-year revenue decline to $209 million for Meredith Local Media.
Breaking out the revenue in the Local Media arm, advertising-related revenue declined to $108.8 million from $131.1 million. “Consumer related” revenue, which includes retransmission consent revenue, rose to $96.9 million from $91.6 million.
Put the two together, and operating profit was down to $46.6 million from $63.8 million in an exceptional fiscal Q1 ’21. Adjusted EBITDA fell to $53.6 million from $79.9 million.
Meredith’s Local Media Group portfolio includes 17 television stations, in such markets as Atlanta, Phoenix, St. Louis, Nashville, and Portland, Ore.
With spin-off deals finalized, as they were required for Meredith and Gray to meet regulatory approval, the latter Atlanta-based company expects to close on its Meredith Local Media acquisition within the next eight weeks.
Overall, Meredith Corp. saw non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.86, which surpassed Street estimates by $0.18 per share. Revenue of $708.6 million, up 2% from fiscal Q1 2021, was better than forecasts by $26.76 million.
Stronger digital performance offset softer political revenue.
