The year-over-year results mark an improvement. But, in the eyes of analysts, the revenue growth seen in Q4 2024 for Sinclair Inc. may not be good enough. That’s what the company led by Chris Ripley has to contend with, as it is the first publicly traded local broadcast television company to present its fiscal report card for the last three months of last year.
In Q4, Sinclair saw its total revenue rise to $1.004 billion, from $826 million. This was fueled by media revenue of $992 million, rising from $821 million.
But, five analysts polled by Yahoo! Finance anticipated total revenue of $1.01 billion.
While that’s not that big of a difference, it still counts as a miss, and how investors react remains to be seen.
One analyst chimed in with an earnings per share estimate, and that was $1.83. Sinclair easily beat that guess, as the company swung to net income of $176 million ($2.61 per diluted share), compared to a Q4 2023 net loss of $341 million (-$5.35).
Key to Sinclair’s Q4 performance was a sharp reduction in expenses, which totaled $738 million, down from $1.21 billion in Q4 2023.
Adjusted EBITDA was up to $330 million, from $180 million. And, political advertising revenue totaled $203 million, compared to $24 million in the non-election year of Q4 2023.
The big takeaway for the company, however, is that Core Advertising Revenue is down. In Q4, it fell to $300 million from $330 million. Thus, Distribution Revenue — inclusive of carriage fees and retransmission consent dollars — is the biggest income generator for Sinclair. In Q4, it was $392 million, up from $373 million in the year-ago period.
“We are pleased to close out a strong 2024 and we have entered 2025 on a high note,” Chris Ripley, Sinclair’s President and Chief Executive Officer, said in prepared comments ahead of an earnings call with analysts and investors. “Our consolidated Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter exceeded our guidance range, along with various other key financial metrics. This performance underscores the continued dominance of broadcast TV as the leading platform for advertisers to reach broad audiences.”
And as Sinclair moves into 2025, Ripley says the company has “substantially completed a comprehensive refinancing, extending our debt maturities to over six and a half years, de-risking our balance sheet and providing greater financial flexibility.”
He continues, “Our balance sheet now has the longest maturity profile in the industry. Following the refinancing, we can turn our attention to deploying the Ventures cash balance in multiple ways, such as outside investments that we could consolidate in our financial results, as well as the potential for returning a portion of the cash to shareholders over time. Given our recent retransmission rate agreements with distributors in 2024, as well as coming to terms with our last network affiliation agreement expiration before 2026, we have greatly enhanced visibility on both our retransmission revenues as well as our reverse retransmission expenses for the next several years. We remain confident in the power of broadcast TV, including the new opportunities for our joint venture, EdgeBeam, which we expect to drive meaningful advancements for NextGen Broadcast in the years ahead.”
Speaking of what’s ahead, guidance for Q1 2025 and the full year was presented by Sinclair.
For 2025, the guidance was limited to costs and expenses, with Sinclair indicating media programming and production expenses; and media selling, general and administrative expenses; will come in between $2.498 billion and $2.513 billion.
Meanwhile, holders of “SBGI” shares are entitled to a quarterly cash dividend of $0.25 per share. The dividend is applicable to Sinclair Inc.’s Class A and Class B common stock. The dividend is payable on March 24 to shareholders of record at the close of business on March 10.
