TEGNA saw an influx in political advertising against its more than five dozen local broadcast stations and websites during 2024, lifting overall revenue by 7 percent to $3.102, the company revealed on Thursday.
Political advertising clocked in at $187 million during the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2024, which partially covered the tail end of the 2024 presidential election cycle and helped boost the company’s overall quarterly revenue by 20 percent. Spots for campaigns and causes helped fully offset an 11 percent decline in core, non-political advertising revenue, which raked in $314 million.
Subscription revenue — or fees charged to cable and satellite companies — rose to $357 million during Q4, up 5 percent when compared to Q4 2023. Then, TEGNA’s local TV channels were not available on DirecTV’s satellite and streaming platform, which the company affirmed hurt its overall distribution revenue.
That has long been resolved, and TEGNA said it was able to reach new deals during Q4 that covered 20 percent of its audience who prefer to watch local TV stations and other programming over broadcast, cable and streaming pay TV services. Total corporate revenue was up 20 percent, ending Q4 with $870 million in earnings.
For the year, TEGNA’s distribution revenue was down 5 percent and accounted for $1.45 billion of the company’s $3.102 billion in total earnings. Core advertising revenue was 5 percent lower in 2024, earning $1.227 billion, while political revenue grabbed $373.3 million in 2024.
“As TEGNA enters its next chapter, we are reinventing how we create and monetize content to capture the full opportunity in both linear TV and digital,” Mike Steib, the CEO of TEGNA, said in a statement.
Steib noted that a presumed relaxed regulatory environment in Washington will help unlock “tremendous potential in broadcasting” moving forward.
“Backed by industry-leading brands, top talent, and a strong balance sheet, we are well-positioned to seize transformative moments in media and build a sustainable future for local news,” Steib affirmed.
On a conference call Thursday morning, Steib reaffirmed TEGNA’s belief that the regulatory and legal landscape have long made it difficult for local broadcasters to compete against companies and products backed by major technology firms like Google and Facebook.
While broadcasters are limited to owning stations that reach no more than 39 percent of the American television audience, streaming services backed by major tech corporations are largely unregulated, and are allowed to grow larger with few safeguards or checks.
“We are up against enormous unregulated tech companies like Meta and Google, leaving an uneven playing field for broadcasters,” Steib said. “To compete, we need the ability to get bigger and stronger.”
Steib affirmed that the broadcaster was “best-positioned for any outcome, with a strong balance sheet affording us optionality towards the best opportunities for value creation.”
“If the right opportunity presents itself, we will be part of the discussion,” he said.
When asked by an analyst if TEGNA viewed itself as a buyer or seller of other broadcast or digital assets, Steib was reluctant to specify.
“I can’t tell you more about deals until we know deals and prices, which is going to create the most value for our shareholders,” he answered. “We know that we have really attractive assets in great markets, great teams, and a terrific financial profile, and we know that we have a great balance sheet.”
“What I’m excited about for us and for the industry is, if this much overdue deregulation comes through, the value unlocked through synergies for the industry broadly is really substantial,” he concluded.
TEGNA is likely the broadcaster with the most to gain in the new regulatory environment — and the firm with the biggest gripe over how things were handled in the past. The company’s blockbuster merger with Standard General was effectively blocked by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) after the agency under President Biden chose to defer a decision to approve or reject the matter, sending the case instead to an administrative law judge and creating significant delays that ultimately caused the deal to collapse.
