E.W. Scripps said that ratings for its WNBA games on Ion increased 133% in the league’s just-completed season, averaging 670,000 viewers per game.

Scripps pushed into women’s sports with the WNBA and the National Women’s Soccer League, and credited women’s sports for giving it a boost in upfront advertising sales.

Scripps added more than 20 new advertisers during Ion WNBA telecasts during the second year of its three-year deal with the league.

Women’s basketball got a boost from the Caitlin Clark effect as college basketball’s leading all-time scorer joined the WNBA as a rookie and her games attracted new viewers to the league. The Paris Summer Olympics also raised the profile of women athletes.

Ion had the largest share of female viewers of any network airing WNBA games this season, with women comprising 50% of viewers 18-to-49 and 45% of all viewers.

Male viewers in the 25-54 age demographic increased by 181%.

For the season, Ion’s games, presented by State Farm, attracted 23.4 million unique viewers across games and wrap shows. 

Ion also delivered more than 3.7 million hours of viewing this season on streaming platforms including Roku, Samsung TV Plus, LG, Vizio, Xumo, Plex, Amazon Fire Channels, Pluto, CW and Tablo.

“This season was a big step forward for the WNBA and its players in terms of exposure both in arenas and on television,” said Brian Lawlor, Scripps Sports president. “It was so fun to watch the momentum build throughout the season. Scripps is thrilled to have played a part in that.”

The WNBA in July reached new rights deals with The Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN, NBC and Amazon worth $2.2 billion over 11 years.

Scripps expects to be able to renew its deal with the WNBA beyond next season.

“We are incredibly pleased with the success of our partnership with Scripps Sports, which has played a pivotal role in amplifying the reach and visibility of the WNBA season,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said. “Through this partnership, we’ve been able to showcase great basketball with a broader audience, deepening the connection between the league, the players and our growing fanbase while delivering record-breaking viewership numbers.”

The WNBA is not just generating big ratings. Viewers are paying attention to the games, shoulder programming and the sponsors that support them, according to new data from TVision.

The Caitlin Clark effect has been well known. College basketball’s all-time scoring leader, now a rookie for the Indiana Fever continues to draw viewers.

TVision found that with Clark in the lineup, viewers are paying more attention to Fever games than other WNBA games.

After analyzing viewer attention across 70 WNBA games across multiple TV networks between May 14 and July 21,, TVision found that its Attention to Visible Index–which measures how well viewers pay attention while in the room–for all WNBA games in the time-period was 101.  

Fever games scored a 107 in the index. This means that Indiana Fever Games delivered approximately 6% more attention for advertisers than typical WNBA games.  

The average performing television program scores a 100 on the Index. 

TVision also found that regardless of which teams were playing WNBA games on NBA TV and the E.W. Scripps Co.’s Ion network scored 107 on the index, with games on ESPN also outperforming the average with a 103 index.

That’s good for advertisers on Ion. 

TVision's Ad Attention metric measures the proportion of viewers who pay attention to at least two seconds of an ad. The average linear Ad Attention is 55%, but WNBA games on Ion delivered 62% Ad Attention, in the time period, TVision said.

TVision said that studies show that every 1% of attention correlates to a 1% increase in brand recall, suggesting WNBA games on Ion are a significant opportunity for advertisers to reach engaged viewers.

“More viewers are tuning in, and more importantly, those viewers are paying attention,” said Brian Lawlor, president of Scripps Sports. “We have always thought, from the beginning of our relationship with the WNBA, that our broadcasts on Ion, including our studio shows, are great opportunities for advertisers to reach growing and highly engaged audiences.”

E.W. Scripps Co. said it is making its Ion Plus free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) network available over-the-air beginning July 1. 

Ion Plus will be available in 90% of the U.S. television homes over the air, enabling the channel to reach a bigger audience. 

It will continue to be streamed on FAST platforms including Samsung TV Plus, The Roku Channel, Vizio WatchFree Plus, LG Channels and Amazon Freevee. It can also be watched by subscribers to Fubo.

Scripps operates a number of digital multicast over-the-air networks, including Grit, Laff, Court TV and Scripps News and it has expanded their distribution by creating FAST versions.

At a time when cord-cutting is reducing the number of pay TV subscribers, Scripps has been promoting over-the-air to viewers (via antennas) and advertisers trying to reach viewers no longer available on cable.

Scripps is among the leaders in the amount of broadcast spectrum it has available between its local network affiliated stations and the stations it acquired with Ion Media in 2020.

The purchase of Ion Media boosted Scripps national networks business, but since the acquisition, the ad market has tightened and revenues have been down.

Also Read: E.W. Scripps Takes $686 Million Charge Against National Networks

In the second quarter, Scripps reported that segment profit for its national network unit dropped to $49.7 million from $51.5 million the prior year as revenue dipped 3.3% to $209 million. 

Programming on Ion Plus features off-network series including MacGyver, Scorpion, Murdoch Mysteries, Leverage, Hudson & Rex and Private Eyes.

Scripps rebranded Ion earlier this year and has been adding sports and live events to the network, making deals to air games from the WNBA and the National Women’s Soccer League.

Scripps also has Ion Mystery, which is currently available as a FAST channel.

It’s a good time to be in the women’s sports business, and during the upcoming upfront, the E.W. Scripps Co. will be pushing its WNBA and NWSL franchise nights as a way to get more advertisers spending more money on Ion and its other television properties.

“Scripps is all in with what matters right now,” Brian Norris, chief revenue officer for Scripps, told Broadcasting+Cable.

Better known as a local station owner, Scripps in addition to sports provides national advertisers with its Scripps News and Court TV channels, as well as entertainment networks like Bounce, Grit and Laff that are available both over digital broadcast and free ad-supported streaming television (FAST). 

“I believe that our upfront will be focused and led by our women's sports offering that live sports offering and giving advertisers to an opportunity to be first movers with us from a sports standpoint and and using that as a foundation for for everything else that we transact ,” Norris said.

The new Scripps will have its first splashy upfront events in New York and Chicago this week and the theme the company has chosen is  “The Power of Connection.”

“Our audience is strong and they continue to fuel growth in our portfolio despite the most significant headwinds in our industry’s history,” Norris said. “Against the marketplace backdrop of double-digit losses, the Scripps portfolio is growing and this is fueled by growth on Bounce, Grit and Ion Mystery.”

Scripps says 95% of its linear viewers watch live — that’s 7% higher than the average cable network among adults 25 to 54.  

Those viewers are engaged, according to TVision, which measures how long viewers are paying attention during each commercial break in a show. The attention-to-duration index for Scripps network programming is 40% higher than the competition, TVision said, with Laff coming in first.

“We're connecting with our audiences and our viewers. We're connecting with our fans. We're connecting with our communities,” Norris said. And during the upfront it will be connecting with media buyers and their agencies.

Media buyers and advertisers are stepping up to support women’s sports and Scripps is there to help them.

“Marketers are flooding the zone to meet this increase in demand, and early movers are seeing major returns on their ad spend,” he said. “Investing in women's sports is just good business and it's so much more than that.

Scripps women sports sponsors already include State Farm, DoorDash, Ally and Adobe.

Demand should only increase once record-setting college scorer Caitlin Clark is drafted by the Indiana Fever of the WNBA.

Ion will have eight Fever games on Friday nights during the WNBA’s 14 week season, starting with a game against the Los Angeles Sparks on May 24.

Beside women’s basketball and soccer, Ion will continue to air the popular off-network series that have already made it a Top 5 broadcast network, outperforming every cable entertainment channel, Norris noted.

The addition of sports should bring more advertisers and ad dollars to Ion, Norris said.

“For years Ion has provided incredible efficiencies for advertisers. Now I think we can still provide those efficiencies for advertisers, but we also have something that differentiates us from the competition with women's sports,” he said.

“The benefit for us is going to be to expose advertisers–new advertisers in particular–to the entire scripts portfolio,” Norris said.

Ion has also become one of the most popular FAST channels, which ranks in the Top 5 on Vizio and Samsung in its first year streaming.

Ion, Ion Mystery, Ion Plus, Scripps News and Court TV all run simultaneous feeds across linear and streaming television.

Scripps viewing on fast was up 93% in 2023

“It's almost impossible to find quality professional live sports in the fast environment,” Norris said. “And so we made the decision to make our live sports, fully available in a simulcast within the FAST environment and advertisers are enjoying that.”

Scripps clients benefit because ads that run in both FAST and broadcast deliver 68% more reach than linear alone, Norris said.

Scripps will be launching a new on-air look for Ion (that will be reflected on Ion Mystery as well.) The new look will be supported with a year-long marketing campaign.

Norris also said Scripps has three of the top six networks for delivering African-American audiences, with Ion at No. 2, Bounce at No. 3 and Grit at No. 6

“We have a proven track record of authentic connection with African-American audiences anchored by our Network bounce,” Norris said.

Bounce will be adding a new original series Mind Your Business on June 1 and returning its popular show Johnson on August. 3

Scripps has also be ratcheting up Scripps News, which Norris said was built on Scripps’ 140-year-old bedrock of journalistic Integrity, connected to local communities through 39 local stations newsrooms and 14 national news bureaus the country.

“It's never been more important to support trusted objective journalism, but who can Brands trust? Key industry observers have independently rated Scripps News at the very top of the industry in terms of trustworthiness reliability and brand safety,” Norris said.

Scripps is also selling the 100th anniversary edition of the The National Spelling Bee in the upfront.

"The Bee is one of the most flexible and established partnership platforms, delivering real results for our partners," Norris said. Last year’s Bee generated a 26% increase in perceived value for Scripps’ consumer packaged goods client and a 48% lift in brand favorability for its quick service restaurant client.

In the end, Scripps has a simple upfront message for advertisers.

“Simply put we are planting a flag as a champion for women's sports. We're thrilling viewers with TV's most watched dramas. We're inspiring and empowering multicultural audiences,” Norris said. “We're informing with objective context-driven news, and we're reaching viewers on every TV platform.”

Scripps Sports said that State Farm has signed a new multi-year agreement to continue as the title sponsor of Ion’s Friday night WNBA telecasts.

State Farm has also signed up for Ion’s National Women’s Soccer League Saturday Night Soccer. The insurance company will have primary brand positioning and in-game sponsorships.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

“State Farm is a champion for women’s sports, and this sponsorship is one way we’re committed to bringing more awareness and visibility,” said Kristyn Cook, Chief Agency, Sales & Marketing Officer, State Farm. “We believe that few things in today’s world capture our attention, ignite our passion and connect our communities like sports.”

 Also Read: GroupM To Double Ad Spending on Women’s Sports Programming 

State Farm has had an 11-year relationship with the WNBA, dating back to 2013, when it became presenting sponsor of the WNBA Draft. Caitlin Clark, the all-time college basketball scoring leader for Iowa was the first collegiate and female athlete State Farm signed to its Team State Farm athlete roster,

“State Farm is a fantastic sponsor and a brand that shares our belief that women’s sports and female athletes deserve the same high-profile recognition and opportunities as their male counterparts,” said Tony Lamerato, VP of revenue and sponsorships for Scripps Sports. “State Farm doesn’t just talk about it. It shows its commitment with actions.”

Scripps Sports said that it will be producing studio shows on Saturday nights when its Ion network airs National Women’s Soccer League doubleheaders, starting March 16.

There will be a 30-minute prematch program, halftime shows, wrapup/preview shows between games and a post-match show, time permitting.

“We made a commitment to the NWSL, the teams, players and fans,” said Quinn Pacini, VP of broadcast operations for Scripps Sports. “With that in mind, we’ve assembled a first-class team of soccer minds, voices and experts to showcase our Saturday night NWSL franchise. It’s a deep, talented, versatile group that will entertain and inform fans all season.”

The studio shows will feature former players. Lisa Carlin, who also hosts and analyzes soccer for CBS Sports, will host with analysts Darian Jenkins and Jessica McDonald. Nicole Denne is the executive producer.

Branding for NWSL was developed with Drive Studio. Promotional assets, which will appear on TV, social, digital and maid media, were developed with Game Day Creative and STN Digital.

Matches are co-produced by Scripps Sports and the NWSL.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee semifinals and finals drew 9.2 million viewers appearing on all six of Scripps’ entertainment networks: Ion, Bounce, Defy TV, Grit, Laff and Ion Mystery.

The total  this year, up 22% from 2022, the first time the Bee appeared on Ion after years on ESPN.

The finals on June 1 drew 6.1 million viewers live and on immediate encore telecasts– up 60% and the highest since 2012.

“This year’s fantastic growth further proves the power of over-the-air television, the promise of the Scripps Networks to connect with its diverse audiences and the special place this nearly 100-year-old competition holds in the hearts of Americans,” Scripps CEO Adam Symson said. 

Also Read: Scripps Names Former Competitor Executive Director of Spelling Bee

Streaming added significantly to the overall audience. Bee programming was watched for nearly 5.6 million hours, up double digits from last year

Dev Shah, a 14-year-old speller from Largo, Florida, won the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee in the 15th round of onstage competition. 

The E.W. Scripps Co., which is pushing into the sports business, said it signed State Farm as the title sponsor of its upcoming WNBA Friday NIght Spotlight on Ion.

Scripps and the WNBA announced in April that WNBA games would appear in primetime on  Friday nights on Ion. The first games air Friday. 

State Farm has had a 10-year relationship with the WNBA, going back to 2013, when it became presenting partner of the WNBA Draft. 

“State Farm is a longtime supporter and sponsor of the WNBA,” said Kristyn Cook, chief agency, sales and marketing officer, State Farm. “We are constantly looking for ways to elevate women in sports, and WNBA Friday Night Showcase on Ion will bring the excitement of women’s basketball to even more people.”

Financial terms were not disclosed.

“State Farm has set the pace once again as we partner to raise the WNBA’s profile,” said Tony Lamerato, VP of revenue and sponsorships for Scripps Sports. “They are the perfect fit to title our new Friday night franchise on Ion.” 

Frndly TV, the low-priced, family-friendly streaming TV service, said it made a deal with Scripps Networks to bring Ion, Ion Mystery and Grit to its customers .

The Scripps channels increase the number of live channels Frndly TV offers basic subscribers to 45.

The price for Frndly’s base tier remains $6.99 a month.

Also: vMVPD Frndly TV Grows 40% To Top 700,000 Subs

Scripps Networks has been working to maximize distribution of its channels over the air, via FAST (free, ad-supported television) channels and with virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs) like Frndly TV.

Last month Scripps reached a deal with Alphabet that includes getting three of its networks — Scripps News, Ion and Bounce — on YouTube TV. ■

With the regional sports network business model broken, the E.W. Scripps Co. sees an opportunity to step up and play hardball with the big boys.

Brian Lawlor, who was named president of the new Scripps Sports division, told Broadcasting+Cable that cord-cutting has become a "massive problem" for teams and leagues. That makes his company's broadcast stations and linear networks attractive to rights holders looking to reach a bigger share of fans and potential fans.

TV sports started on broadcast. Now, "what's old is new again," Lawlor said.

Before launching its sports division, Scripps consolidated its news assets into a Scripps News unit, focusing its efforts on two key forms of content that still drive linear viewing.

"Probably 95% of all the revenue inside of our company is attached to linear," Lawlor said. "There are no better assets on linear television than sports. I believe we have an expertise in local and an expertise in sports. We’re bringing an acute focus to maybe our two most valuable areas."

Two-Pronged Strategy

Scripps has a two-pronged sports strategy as it takes its swings at the sports business. It will seek national deals with leagues to turn Ion network into a channel that looks like TNT, with a combination of entertainment and sports. Ion, though, will aim to showcase the leagues it does business with, rather than simply programming different sports on different nights, Lawlor said.

Scripps focused on sports after acquiring Ion Media for $2.65 million last year. "We own the fifth-largest broadcast network in America," he said. "The first four have a lot of sports rights. There are a lot of other sports rights out there. ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox can only absorb so much of it."

Scripps will also look to make local deals, particularly in markets where it has two stations, like Detroit, Phoenix and Denver.

Also: Fubo TV Deal with Altitude Sports Makes Denver One of the Nation's Most Interesting RSN Regions

"Big markets with big sports and RSNs with problems provide an opportunity for us," he said. "I think our portfolio is unique. I think our proposition is unique."

Costly Rights

Lawlor said Scripps would be "interested in looking at everything" when it comes to national and local sports rights, including the NBA, and that it has "been engaged in many conversations with leagues and teams over the past year."

Blitzing costly sports rights will put a scare into Wall Street — Scripps stock fell 8.1% to $13.50 on (a selloff day overall) Thursday — so the company "will be very selective and figure out where we can create the most value for a league and for ourselves," Lawlor said.

Lawlor said Scripps doesn’t have a specific budget for sports rights. "It will all be case-by-case and we will run models and develop P&Ls and ROIs and figure out what make sense and what doesn’t," he said. "And again, every deal isn’t going to be right for us."

The problems Sinclair Broadcast Group in particular has been having with its Bally Sports RSNs have been well-chronicled. It paid more than $9 billion to The Walt Disney Co. for what were then known as the Fox RSNs, and now is burdened with debt as sports rights costs rise and subscribers fall.

Rights for regional sports networks will be coming up for renewal and "I would certainly expect in the next couple of months that we’ll start chipping away at some deals," he said.

In the current environment, Scripps won’t be trying to pay more than the RSNs are currently paying.

"The RSNs aren’t going to pay what they used to pay," Lawlor said. "Their next deals are going to look completely different than the last ones. It’s more of a conversation about what is the value to their franchise and brand if they’re reaching 100% of the audience versus 40%."

The new strategy might put Scripps in competition with the networks its local stations are affiliated with — networks that Scripps pays "reverse compensation" fees that help the networks pay for sports rights. 

"We have great relationships with our networks and we’re very comfortable with what we pay," he said. "I think live sports is the primary foundational part of the network-affiliate model."

On the local level, having both live news and live sports would demonstrate that its stations are local community stations.

The shrinkage of RSN distribution means that "teams can’t even reach 50% of all the households in their home viewing market," Lawlor said. "That’s not a good business model if you can’t reach half of your potential customers" and that people who aren’t hard-core fans can’t stumble onto games, either by flipping through available channels or through search.

New Model

Lawlor said a new local sports business model might entail having a broadcaster work with a streamer, with a station’s broad reach helping to funnel direct-to-consumer opportunities. Deals with teams and leagues would take advantage of revenue streams from merchandise, ticket sales generated and sports betting, he added.

The company will be looking at deals that involve full seasons worth of games, partial seasons, or even a handful of games, as Nexstar Media Group did in Los Angeles with the Clippers.

Scripps already does some sports business. It has the right to the college Big Sky Conference. Some of its stations show NFL Monday Night Football or Thursday Night Football when a local team is involved. Scripps stations also have preseason partnerships with NFL teams and air coaches’ shows.

"Now there’s an opportunity to just go a little deeper with more elaborate rights," Lawlor said. "The RSNs are in trouble and I think linear television will be the savior and the solution for many teams and leagues." ■

Scripps Networks-owned Ion and Bounce are reaching for the holidays with five original films that will appear in November and December.

The films, featuring Billy Baldwin, Vivica A. Fox, Jackée Harry and Tom Arnold, are part of nearly 200 hours of holiday programming that will appear on the multiplatform channels.

Ion’s movies kick off with The Case of the Christmas Diamond on November 20, starring Billy Baldwin.

Dognapped: Hound for the Holidays premieres on Ion November 28, The Search for Secret Santa gets unwrapped December 4 and A Prince and Pauper Christmas has its debut December 11.

Bounce will premiere Faith Heist: A Christmas Caper on November 26. The movie is a sequel to Faith Heist, with Jonathan Langdon as Pastor Benjamin. ■

Leverage: Redemption, an original drama on Amazon’s Freevee streaming channel, has started to run in syndication, making its broadcast debut on E.W. Scripps’s Ion network.

The drama will air on Monday nights on Ion with a double-run starting at 9 p.m. on July 11. 

 Scripps pitched the show as part of its upfront presentation in the spring.

Amazon brought back Leverage, which ran on TNT from 2008 to 2012. It starred Timothy Hutton as the leader of a group of crooks who team up to get justice for people abused by the government and big business.

The series was revived in 2021 by IMDb TV, which has been renamed Freevee. Leverage Redemption picks up where Leverage left off, with Noah Wyle replacing Hutton as the leader of the team.

In addition to Wyle, Leverage: Redemption stars Gina Bellman, Christian Kane, Beth Riesgraf and Aleyse Shannon with special guest star Aldis Hodge. 

Kate Rorick served as co-showrunner and executive producer, alongside co-showrunner and executive producer Dean Devlin, and executive producers Marc Roskin and Rachel Olschan-Wilson of Electric Entertainment. John Rogers and Chris Downey served as consulting producers.

Scripps acquired Ion last year.  ■

The FCC's Media Bureau has extended the comment period for those weighing in on a challenge by TV station owners ION Media and Trinity Christian Center to the FCC's decision to eliminate the UHF discount.

The commission historically counted only half the reach of a UHF station in terms of the national audience reach cap of 39%, dating from the analog era when UHF signals were weaker and less desirable than UHF, a table that was turned in digital.

FCc Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated an item eliminating the discounts back in the summer. It was approved in September.

ION and Trinity filed their petition to reconsider that decision Nov. 23 and the FCC set the comment deadlines for due Dec. 27 and Jan. 6 (reply comments).

Related: ION Has Its Eye on Keeping UHF Discount

Last week, Free Press, Common Cause, the Media Alliance and the United Church of Christ jointly filed a motion for an extension of those deadlines to Jan. 10 and Jan. 23, respectively, citing the holidays and the difficulty counsel Andrew Schwartzman would have consulting with clients to develop a full and complete record, as well as the timing given the transition to a new Administration.

The bureau said that developing a complete record was good cause for granting the extension.

ION and Trinity used the UHF discount to build their portfolios beyond what VHF owners could accumulate.

The FCC had already sunset the discount for the Big Four broadcast groups but not for other groups.

The commission did grandfather existing combos as well as any deals in the works.

ION Media Networks said its investment in off-network procedural series has boosted ION to top-10 cable-network status and helped successfully launch a new original series, The Listener, in April.

ION said The Listener, about a telepathic law-enforcement consultant, played by Craig Olejnik, debuted April 1 to more than 1 million total viewers, 403,000 adults 25-54 and 849,000 households. Over its first three weeks, the series has averaged more than 1 million viewers and 872,000 households and is delivering among key demos, including adults 18-49 (376,000) and 25-54 (451,000) and women 18-49 (235,000) and 25-54 (279,000) over the same span.

The Listener airs Tuesday at 10 p.m., after a lead-in from Criminal Minds, which has become a mainstay for ION. The network’s acquisition of Law & Order: Criminal Intent also has given the Saturday night primetime lineup a 20% lift in the first quarter of 2014, it said. This fall, ION is launching CBS cop hit Blue Bloods, holding exclusive weekday off-network primetime broadcast rights, and ABC’s Rookie Blue on an off-network basis.

ION released the ratings figures as part of an overall programming release that also included adding five new original holiday movies this year and new content coming to ION's other networks, kids-focused Qubo and ION Life.