The E.W. Scripps Company has successfully fended off a hostile takeover bid from Sinclair Inc. It continues to grow its Scripps Sports arm, as its Scripps Networks now has greater distribution thanks to a fresh deal with Allen Media Group’s Local Now platform.
That said, its broadcast TV stations remain key revenue drivers — and are being blocked from Comcast’s Xfinity cable TV subscribers due to a lack of a new retransmission consent agreement. That “blackout” didn’t start until the beginning of the second quarter, however, as Scripps executives have announced when the company will release its Q1 2026 fiscal report card.
What can investors and analysts expect to hear from CEO Adam Symson?
The answers partially come on Thursday, May 7, with the release of the first quarter 2026 report after U.S. financial markets close.
Symson and other C-Suite executives will wait until 9:30am Eastern on May 8 to discuss the Q1 earnings report, giving all plenty of time to digest the digits.
What’s the expectation for Scripps, financially? For Q1 2026, five analysts offered revenue estimates, putting the consensus estimate at $516.86 million, down 1.44% from the same period last year. There is no EPS estimate for Q1 2026 offered by analysts polled by Yahoo! Finance. However, Schwab client data show 2 analysts covering “SSP,” and the consensus EPS estimate is -$0.52; the high and low estimates are -$0.48 and -$0.56, respectively.
With the release of Scripps’ Q4 and full-year 2025 results, CFO Jason Combs shared that the company expects Local Media division revenue to be up low to mid-single digits. “The big story here again is growth in core advertising revenue, which we expect to be up in the mid-single-digit range,” he remarked during the Scripps Q4 ’25 earnings call. “We expect Local Media expenses to be up low single digits.” However, when backing out new expenses for the Tampa Bay Lightning, its latest NHL play-by-play rights deal, Local Media expenses are down, Combs added.
For the first quarter, Scripps expects Scripps Networks division revenue to be down in the high single-digit range with expenses anticipated to be down in the low single digits. On the advertising front, Combs noted that home services-type categories may be “a little bit weaker” right now. Services, Scripps’ largest category, continues to be strong. “Gambling has been strong and automotive has showed some relative strength as well,” he said.
Symson added that Q1 “particularly in local, is starting off very strong as a result of the sports partnerships that we have and the upside we have to continue the growth we saw in the fourth quarter with those partnerships.”
With key institutional investors including Blackrock, Charles Schwab Investment Management, The Vanguard Group, Dimensional Fund Advisors, and Penn Capital Management Company, there’s a safe bet the Q1 report will be closely reviewed — especially as Scripps wants to reacquire stations sold to INYO Broadcast Holdings it was required to divest in early 2021 to comply with local ownership rules that are now ready for a big revision.
