In its first report as a pure-play company, Tegna on Tuesday reported media revenues rose 5% to $489 million during the second quarter of 2017.
The company attributed the increase to new initiatives and subscription revenue, a new category that includes revenue from carriage deals.
Tegna’s overall revenue rose 3% during Q2, during which the company completed the spin-off of Cars.com. The company completed its sale of CareerBuilder.com on Monday.
In Tuesday morning’s earnings call—the first since Dave Lougee became CEO—Lougee said the company is well-positioned for M&A and will likely “opportunistically” pursue options once the FCC clears the way for a range of options.
“These are exciting times and we expect to leverage scale and innovation,” Lougee said. He said Tegna, when it comes to consolidation, could play an “active role in vertical, horizontal, or both.”
With Tegna’s large-market portfolio, in-market consolidation would be a particularly attractive option should the FCC ease restrictions, which it is expected to do in September, Lougee said.
Highlights of the quarter include:
- GAAP earnings per diluted share from continuing operations of $0.23; non-GAAP earnings per diluted share from continuing operations of $0.29
- Net income from continuing operations was $49 million; Adjusted EBITDA excluding corporate totaled $186 million
- Completed successful spin-off of Cars.com in the second quarter; received tax-free distribution of $650 million, most of which was used to reduce debt in the second quarter
- Completed sale of CareerBuilder for gross proceeds of $250 million in cash and retained 12% ownership stake and two board seats
- Finalized OTT distribution deals with all of the company’s major network partners and multiple OTT streaming services at per-subscriber economic terms equal to or better than per-subscriber economics of traditional MVPDs
- OTT ad network Premion surged to 1,965 campaigns, 372 advertisers across 190 markets, from a base of zero since launching less than 9 months ago
