Gray Television reported a second-quarter loss as revenues fell in a non-political year.
The net loss of $9 million, or 10 cents a share, compared to net income of $86 million, or 92 cents a share, a year ago.
Revenue fell 6% to $813 million. The company said total revenue was up 49% from the last non-election year, including acquisitions.
Broadcast cash flow fell 23% to $251 million.
Gray said that core advertising revenue, not counting political spending, was $379 million, up 4% from a year ago.
“We saw continued improvement in the automobile advertising category with a 20% year-over-year increase, which was fueled by even larger increases year-over-year in the national segment of that category,” the company said. “Given these solid performances across our television stations’ in the first half of 2023, we anticipate that our television station operations will grow advertising revenues during the remainder of 2023, as well as future years.”
Gray said construction of the Assembly Studios portion of its Assembly Atlanta development was substantially complete, along with much of the infrastructure for the project. Key tenant NBCUniversal has started moving in and Gray expects to start to generate revenue from long-term and short-term leases of soundstages and other facilities later this year.
Looking ahead, Gray said it expected core advertising revenue to be flat to up low-single digits and for retransmission revenue to be between $370 million and $380 million.
Political advertising revenue is expected to be between $15 million and $16 million.
Gray noted it will record a non-cash charge of between $33 million and $43 million in the third quarter because of Sinclair’s bankrupt Diamond Sports unit’s decision to give up rights to certain ACC football and basketball games, sublicensed from Gray’s Raycom Sports unit. The renegotiated rights now belong to Nexstar’s The CW.
