Nexstar reduced the year-over-year losses at The CW by $50 million in the first quarter of 2024 — a trend the company said it is plans to build on for the remainder of this year.
The television station giant said it expects to further chip away at The CW’s losses for a total of more than $100 million for the full year, Lee Ann Gliha, Nexstar executive vice president and CFO, said on Thursday morning when Nexstar announced its earnings.
“You’re starting to see the benefit of our programming plan coming into fruition,” Gliha said. “Some of that’s just due to timing of content and when those different programming expenses hit over the course of the quarter. That’s why we have a little bit more in the first quarter than we will have through the rest of the year on a quarterly basis.”
Nexstar will no longer be disclosing The CW’s numbers separately. However, Gliha noted that The CW has seen two sequential quarters of growth in primetime, even though the asset is being driven by the national advertising market, which is “not in a positive place.”
“We think it will continue to do well for the rest of the year because some of the sports programming that we’ve announced but hasn’t yet gotten on the air will be on later this year,” Gliha said.
The CW has invested heavily in live sports, securing more than 500 hours of live sports content through several multi-year agreements. So far, only one season of ACC football, one season of ACC basketball and the second season of LIV golf have premiered on the channel. The brand’s other live sports deals include a seven-year deal with NASCAR Xfinity Series, which will begin in 2025, and a five-year broadcast deal with WWE NXT, which will start in October.
Nexstar, which owns more than 190 U.S. television stations, reported net income on Thursday of $175 million, a 58% improvement from the year-ago quarter, and revenue of $1.28 billion, up 2.1%.
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