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Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Scripps second quarter 2023 earnings call. At this time, all parties are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. The instructions will be given at that time. If you should require assistance during the call, you can press star and then zero. And as a reminder, this call is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to our host, Investor Relations Officer, Ms. Carolyn Michelli. Please go ahead.
Scripps
Thanks, Brad. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for a discussion of the E.W. Scripps Company's financial results and business strategies. You can visit Scripps.com for more information and a link to the replay of this call. A reminder that our conference call and webcast include forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ. Factors that may cause them to differ are outlined in our SEC filings. We do not intend to update any forward-looking statements we make today. Included on this call will be a discussion of certain non-GAAP financial measures that are provided as supplements to assist management and the public in their analysis and valuation of the company. These metrics are not formulated in accordance with GAAP and are not meant to replace GAAP financial measures and may differ from other companies' uses or formulations. Included in our earnings release are the reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the GAAP measures reported in our financial statements. We'll hear this morning from Scripps President and CEO Adam Simpson, Chief Financial Officer Jason Combs, and Scripps Chief Operating Officer Lisa Knutson. Here's Adam.
Brad
Good morning everybody. Today I'd like to provide you with a big picture perspective on this moment in the television landscape and how Scripps is executing on its plan to capitalize on our industry's evolution. The television industry is experiencing an era of volatility where the growth of streaming is upending a long successful business model. But as a wise and very successful investor recently reminded me, just because everything is moving towards streaming doesn't mean it in and of itself is a good business. For most in the industry, the math on streaming alone doesn't work. And as media investors are well aware, the path to value creation is far from certain. Content creators are rebelling against the new model, sparking the most significant strikes in Hollywood's history. Experts have said the strikes are fueled by existential worries over the industry's future, and it's no doubt that the end result will make the economics for streamers worse. In this chaotic climate, Scripps has carved out its own valuable niche, linear television viewing driven by entertainment, live sports, news, and the consumer proposition of free TV. And despite a temporary hurdle driven by inflation and a soft ad market, we see a return to growth ahead fueled by our aggressive all of the above distribution strategy as we attack our opportunity to increase yield from pay TV, expand upon our leadership in free over the air television, and create new incremental value through a profitable approach to connect to TV. To be sure, linear TV audiences are declining. consumers are spending less time watching traditional television and turning increasingly to subscription services. Under pressure from sub-declines, the cable programmers are eroding the quality of their product and shifting attention to still questionable ambitions in D2C. That's probably because they simply don't have what we have, that all of the above distribution strategy. Scripps' linear business makes use of both pay TV and the growing over-the-air ecosystem, so it's no wonder that in the midst of this carnage from consumer preferences, our portfolio of networks is growing share reviewing. We expect free OTA TV to play an even more significant role in the new bundle ahead. One factor we forecasted many quarters ago is now coming to fruition, the shift of sports rights to broadcast television. By our count, at least six major professional rights deals announced over the last six months went to broadcasters, from NASCAR to college football to our own WNBA on ION. And, of course, regional deals like the one we announced that is bringing the Stanley Cup-winning Vegas Golden Knights to Scripps' local broadcast stations in Nevada, Utah, and Montana. The teams and owners understand well that D to C will be a lucrative opportunity for the future, but that the reach from broadcast distribution in parallel will be the price of admission to get there. While we expect more live sports to be a catalyst for growth, we will continue to educate consumers on the benefits of free over-the-air television as a way to grow our viewership and audience reach. Our scale and linear distribution underpinned by our network of 109 television stations across this nation, is a core asset for us. At the same time, we understand that American television viewers will continue to consume and demand more from connected TV. So to tackle that opportunity, we have aggressively claimed territory in that space as well. As of this year, our national network's brands are widely distributed across streaming, smart TV, virtual MVPV, and other connected TV platforms, and particularly on the rapidly fast-growing fast channels. We acted quickly to establish a first-mover advantage and now are building audience and seeing significant growth in ad revenue. That's high-margin revenue because our fast networks open up a new opportunity for us to monetize some cost, relying mostly on our linear programming streams or original content we already own, as with our two latest fast channel launches, Core TV Legendary Trials, and last more. In the meantime, linear advertising remains a very large and lucrative marketplace, projected by Magna to be $54 billion this year, enormous even in the midst of an anemic macroeconomic conditions. In that linear marketplace, Scripps has continued to garner profit margins that far surpass those of D2C streaming businesses, at least the ones that have profit. Like all industries, we're subject to economic fluctuations. So the current ad industry recession is affecting our growth rates. And as a result of that climate, we recognized an impairment in our Scripps Networks business. Our Networks business remains strong. And as I said, we expect its revenue growth and profitability to rebound along with the national ad marketplace. The networks come together with our local stations to form the foundation of the linear viewing, connected TV, and free TV strategies I've been discussing. The WNBA deal with Scripps Sports could not have been executed without our acquisition of ION. And at the local level, we were able to redeploy Ion Spectrum in two markets to launch independent stations that will become the home of the Vegas Golden Knights. We have preserved Ion's reach in those markets through other channels, and at the same time, we created two new local station duopolies. It's another good example of how the Ion acquisition has enhanced our economics. As we pursue the best and highest use of our spectrum, for enhanced shareholder value through television, I'm enthusiastic that we'll be able to add data casting through ATSC 3.0 to the list of strategies that make use of our massive distribution platform. We continue to make progress on the work we are doing with Nexstar, HPE, and Sony with a core network live in four markets, a necessary first step as we bring this business to the mobile wireless data marketplace. Our latest company reorganization was designed to position us for future growth in all of these distribution areas. Rather than being exclusively focused on the local station group or the Scripps Networks portfolio, our leaders are now charged with executing on opportunities that encompass all of our assets. This repositioning has already proven effective in sports and in news and created efficiencies in distribution, marketing, and operations. and we are on track to realize at least the $40 million in annual savings we had projected. The media business is changing dramatically, as it has done many times over our company's 145-year history. Our aggressive but steady approach to navigating the convulsions has proven to create value time and again for our shareholders, just as I'm confident it will this time around. Over the last five years, the company's moves to dramatically enhance our scale in television have more than doubled revenue, more than tripled segment profit, and expanded margins, leaving us well-positioned to benefit from the inevitable return of the ad market. I'm sure shareholders along for the ride will benefit too. Now here's Jason.
Scripps
Thanks, Adam. Good morning, everyone. For the second quarter, we reported financial results that nearly all met or exceeded the expectations we set in May, with a significant beat on segment company profit. Our segment profit over performance was driven by our Scripps network segment, which delivered stronger than expected revenue because of higher ratings and increased demand in the scatter market. The network's portfolio grew connected TV revenue by 18% from Q2 of last year. While a very strong growth rate, it is less than we had projected for network CTV. We're sunsetting a low margin legacy programmatic advertising product because it's no longer in line with our evolution of CTV advertising. Backing out the impact of that product, CTV revenue was up about 80%. In total, Scripps Network's revenue was $231 million, down 3%. Scripps Network's segment expenses were $171 million, up about 3% from the prior year quarter because of higher employee costs and distribution fees, as well as the incremental expenses for the WNBA on ION. Segment profit for networks was $60 million. In our local media division, revenue was down just 1% from the prior year quarter. And core advertising was down 5% as local and national businesses continued to deal with ongoing inflationary pressures on consumer spending. Local distribution revenue in Q2 was up 14% to $195 million, fueled mainly by contractual rate step-ups. Local media expenses declined by 1.4%, aided by our Move to Calm score and by tight expense management in this economic environment. Local media segment profit was $81 million. In other, we reported a loss of $6.3 million. Shared services and corporate expenses were $23 million. The loss of tributable shareholders of Scripps was $682 million, or $8.10 per share. A non-cash goodwill impairment charge and restructuring cost for the quarter accounted for $8.01 per share. Despite the better-than-expected Q2 performance, the implications of the ongoing economic downturn and resulting impact on the national advertising marketplace has led to the impairment charge in our Q2 financials. The restructuring charge in the quarter was $8 million. We announced in January a company-wide reorganization and restructuring costs are related to that work. As of quarter end, cash and cash equivalents totaled 39 million. Our net debt at quarter end was 2.9 billion and our net leverage was 5.3 times per the calculations in our credit agreements. That has run a bit higher for the last two quarters because in our trailing eight quarter calculation, we've begun to lose the benefit of several quarters where the economy was bouncing back after the pandemic. Effective July 31st, the company decided to increase the size of its revolver to $585 million and used the revolver to pay down its term loan B-1, which was scheduled to mature in October of 2024. The new revolver better aligns with the company's current scale and provides additional financial flexibility. Looking ahead to the third quarter of 2023, in the Scripps Networks division, we expect revenue to be down in the 10% range and expenses to be up low single digits. Our revenue guidance compares against a very strong third quarter last year when Networks revenue was up 4%. we expect total local media revenue to be down in the mid single digit range and Q3 local core ad revenue also to be down mid single digits. By later this quarter, we expect to have renewed nearly all the pay TV households we are resetting this year. We continue to expect full year gross distribution revenue to be up in the mid teens range and net distribution dollars to increase by more than 40%. For Q3, we expect local media expenses to be up in the low single digits. That includes the cost of pay increases for key news gathering roles at our local stations aimed at attracting and retaining top journalists to serve our communities. Third quarter shared services costs are expected to be about $22 million. We expect an $8 million loss and other in Q3. Please see today's press release guidance tables for updates on a few below the line items. For the full year, we continue to expect our free cash flow to fall in the range of $50 to $100 million. We continue to place our highest capital allocation priority on paying down debt. We are on track with our expectations of realizing at least $40 million in annual savings from our company reorganization. We expect those savings to be mostly operationalized by the middle of next year, and we still expect to reach a year-end 2023 run rate of around $20 million in savings. Now, here's Lisa to share some highlights from both local media and Scripps Networks operations.
Adam
Thanks, Jason, and good morning, everyone. We were very pleased with the Scripps Networks segment exceeded our expectations for second quarter financial performance. Scatter market advertising was the largest we've seen since late 2021, and we also outperformed our expectations for audience ratings in several key areas. Despite outperforming on revenue, our network's business still faces headwinds in the national advertising marketplace. We do see a few bright spots, however, including premium live sports, which have become the new prime time in terms of advertising rates, and continue to attract younger viewers. I'll talk more in a moment about our script sports strategy, which is designed to take advantage of that marketplace. And we continue to benefit at Bounce from advertisers who want and need to reach multicultural audiences. Bounce provides high-quality programming created specifically for black viewers, and we're seeing nice CPM growth for those shows. In fact, in the midst of a challenging upfront for the industry, bounces commanding low to mid-single-digit rate increases. Turning to the upfronts more generally, in the past years, we've seen that a softer upfront season has led to a rebound in scatter as advertisers get a better read on consumer spending. So we are cautiously optimistic about the outlook for the scatter market in Q3 and Q4. Overall, during the quarter, general market ad categories were down, although we did see increases in consumer packaged goods as well as the entertainment and media category. In direct response, we continue to expect weakness until inflationary pressures ease and consumer confidence returns. As Jason mentioned, our connected TV advertising revenue is being impacted by a change in strategy that led us to sunset a legacy CTV advertising product. Although this product in the past has accounted for a significant amount of revenue, it is low margin and out of step with the evolution of the CTV advertising landscape. So we are focused on more profitable efforts around our network's nearly ubiquitous CTV distribution. In fact, the launch of our networks across these platforms over the last year drove nearly 300% year-over-year increase in total hours of viewing. We expect network CTV revenue, excluding the low margin programmatic product, to be up about 50% in third quarter. Turning to the local media segment, I'd like to hit some highlights in our local core ad performance. We were pleased to realize for the fourth consecutive quarter of growth in automotive, which was up 13% in Q2 and made up 16% of our core revenue. Home improvement was up 8%. And we benefited from the Denver Nuggets appearance in the NBA finals this year. Average unit rates for premier sports in our markets can be more than 10 times the average unit rate when we don't have a local team competing. This dynamic is an important driver in our script sports strategy. Our largest category, services, was down 12% as it continues to be hit by inflationary factors. In addition, we continue to see local advertisers exercise caution and book advertising closer to airtime, giving us less visibility into our outlook. Also in local, we're continuing to grow our connected TV audience. Scripps local stations delivered a 29% increase in hours of viewing from Q2 of 22 to Q2 of 23. Today we are getting about a half million hours of CTV viewing a week across our local station group. One more note about our local stations. We were proud to have won 98 regional Emmy and Murrow Awards, as well as a Gold Telly. And on the network side, Scripps News won awards from GLAAD, SPJ, and the Telly Awards, and has been nominated for two national Emmys. And ION won three prestigious Promax Marketing Awards. We appreciate this recognition of our employees' hard work and audience impact. Turning to our reorganization, our focus is on collaboration and centralization. By bringing leadership from Scripps Networks and local media together into one enterprise-level management team, we are creating efficiencies and cost savings. And equally important, we're creating new business growth opportunities that leverage the power of all of our assets. Our Scripps News Network and our Scripps Sports Division provide two great examples of how this is working. Scripps News is part of our Scripps Network's portfolio. As of late June, its programming also appears on 31 of our 42 news-producing local stations. Scripps news shows, including Morning Rush and In Real Life, are running daily on these stations. They are performing well with the local audiences and are offsetting local programming expenses. In addition, Scripps news reporting is appearing frequently on our local news programs. For example, Scripps News and local teams have been working together to tell the story of this summer's weather extremes. We've covered warming waters off the coast of Florida, sustained high temperatures in the southwest, and the impact of the Canadian wildfires on our air quality here. Leveraging the strengths of our local market depth with our Scripps News broad national reach is resulting in stories with greater context and impact. In addition, we are freeing up local resources to concentrate on high-quality local news production, and we're building the Scripps News brand with local audiences across the country. At Scripps Sports, we're looking ahead to the premiere of the Vegas Golden Knights on our second station in Las Vegas and Salt Lake City, as well as seven other Scripps markets. We have converted our ION signals in Las Vegas and Salt Lake into independent stations that air live local sports, and we are still broadcasting ION in these markets keeping our national reach intact. This is a great example of how Scripps drives value through a strategy to best monetize our large-spectrum holdings by taking a broad view of all of our assets. And through our new approach, we are creating incremental cash flow, growing our over-the-air audience, and increasing our value through live local sports. Also in the sports division, today marks 10 weeks of WNBA Friday Night Spotlight on IONS, Ratings for these games have grown 42% since our first broadcast on May 26th. Advertising demand is strong, and sports premium average unit rates are running 70% above those of our typical ION programming, delivering younger and more diverse WNBA fans. As we move through our reorganization work and into operationalizing our changes, we are on track to realize the $40 million-plus in savings we previously outlined. and we remain focused on both aggressively tackling the near-term challenges in the media marketplace and creating a more efficient, cost-effective, high-performing business, one that is well-positioned for long-term value creation. And now, operator, we're ready for questions.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question, please press 1 and then 0 on your telephone keypad. You can withdraw your question at any time by repeating the 1-0 command And if you're using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset before pressing those numbers. Once again, if you have a question, press 1-0 at this time. One moment. We'll first go to Dan Kermos with Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.
Dan Kermos
Great, thanks. Good morning. Adam, two high-level questions for you. One, obviously, and given these comments around live sports and CPMs and where all the dollars are flowing We know historically what your view has been about license acquisition. Obviously, some of your peers have decided to move upstream in terms of AAV for some of those deals. I'm just curious, given the landscape right now, sort of what your appetite is for maybe potentially being a little bit more aggressive if you think that you can monetize better or more effectively some of those licenses that may be available out there that might be a little bit more costly.
Brad
Thanks, Dan. I think we've been appropriately aggressive. I still think it's necessary to bring discipline to these discussions. I can tell you we're about two months out from the start of the NHL season and sales for sponsorships and ads in Las Vegas for the Vegas Golden Knights has gone exceptionally well. I think that gives us a better understanding of what the opportunity is like with additional rights negotiations, both locally and nationally. We've also been very pleased, as Lisa described, I mean, we're seeing at this point with the WNBA, every ION WNBA telecast in July has been rated higher than ESPN's best WNBA telecast. So our thesis around bringing these sports events to over the air and a broader audience, I think, is bearing fruit. And as Lisa described also, that led to a 70% premium in AURs or average unit rates for prime time with WNBA over ION's traditional prime time audience. So we definitely see the payback there. But what we aren't going to do is irrationally invest. That's what got... the RSNs into the position they're in. And what's necessary is both an aggressive play for us to move towards sports, but also the understanding that we are bringing something of incredible value to the teams and leagues. Linear distribution that reaches almost all of the households in a market or across the nation. And so that's key to our strategy. The other thing I would say that we've seen great success with is that when we've distributed our linear broadcasts with ION on CTV, we're bringing a product into the CTV marketplace that nobody else is bringing to FAST, and that's live sports. And the feedback we've gotten from our distribution partners there too has been very, very positive. So we definitely think we're positioned to continue to play aggressively, but we will also play prudently.
Dan Kermos
Got it. That's helpful. And it's kind of a good segue into sort of the high-level thought I wanted to ask. I mean, obviously, there's a lot of noise out there with the writer's strike, the actor's strike, et cetera. I think you guys have been pretty savvy in your own content rights aggregation, especially on that fast topic, Adam. And I just wonder, as we head into more unscripted programming, if you could just sort of give us your thoughts on what's happening in the ecosystem around outside of just dollars driving to live sports and the fact that you guys have a bunch of available content in the can, as it were, if people need an outlet for advertising?
Brad
Yeah, I'm actually looking forward to the fall premieres because there won't be very many fall premieres. And the audience on ION, I think, is used to what they tune in on a nightly basis for. ION is Already, you know, the fifth-ranked broadcast network, oftentimes fifth on cable as well when you discount or take out live sports and news. So from our perspective, that consistency, I think, is going to bode well for us from an audience share perspective as we head towards the fall, which typically, you know, can be disrupted by premieres on network television. I think ultimately the strike, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, is going to lead to higher costs for streamers. There's clearly going to be progress made with respect to residuals on streaming platforms. Our strategy has long been to take the content that we are already paying for and to negotiate for the FAST rights and to move that content with those linear streams into FAST with no additional cost, as I said, for high margin revenue. The other thing I think that will happen will be that as the streamers end up with higher expense structures, even than they have today, they will continue to look for new ways to offset that expense or to monetize their own sunk cost. And I think that will open up additional programming opportunity for linear broadcasters like us. I think it's now becoming... recognized by the streamers that having distribution on Lanier, particularly over the air, is not cannibalizing their D2C products. It actually can represent a significant opportunity to be a Barker channel for their D2C products. And so, you know, we expect to benefit on the content acquisition side in that way too.
Dan Kermos
Got it. And just if I could squeeze one last one in, I don't know for Adam or Lisa, just on the network or the network's guide, we've heard that National has been improving sequentially. You had a really strong quarter, relatively speaking. You've been taking share. I know you guys are up against a tough comp. There's some elements, obviously, of the sunsetting of that legacy CTV product that's in there. but is there any other noise that's going on in Q3? Because it sounds like, you know, based on your upfronts and everything else, like Q4 should be, you know, substantially better. It feels like things are getting better from an overall perspective, and the guy's just a little bit sort of just trying to reconcile this all.
Adam
Thanks for that question. Certainly some of the noise is the CTV product that we're sunsetting and offsetting some of that low-margin revenue, so that certainly is a factor here. I would also say the DR marketplace continues to be really, you know, hampered by the fact that inflationary pressures are keeping folks from being able to spend. And so we do see a little bit of green shoots in the DR space. And certainly the fourth quarter is typically third, late third and fourth quarter are typically the higher quarters for DR advertising. We continue to see strength in the scatter market. I think we're With this being the last quarter of a broadcast calendar upfront, certainly there are cancellations in third quarters that we have to then rewrite in the quarter, and so you may see some of that being masked by the cancellations that we're rewriting in the scatter market. Remember, scatter typically is about 30% higher than anything that we sell in the upfront, so that could bode some upside potential losses. for us in third and certainly as we move into fourth quarter. So hopefully that helps clear it up a little bit, but I know, you know, with half of our revenue sort of in the upfront and scatter market, we do see some real potential, I think, over the next several quarters for that to continue to improve.
Dan Kermos
Got it. Yeah, that was super helpful. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Adam. Thanks, Dan.
Operator
And next, we'll go to Stephen Cahill with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Stephen Cahill
Stephen Cahill Good morning. Lisa, I just wanted to maybe dig into those comments just a little bit more. So, if we think about the Q3 guide, which does imply that the revenue growth rate at networks gets worse quarter on quarter, can you maybe help us back out what that transition in the CTV product does to that? I know that there's, you know, some risks and opportunities from what you're saying in the third quarter, and you want to be a little bit conservative. But, you know, are you trying to imply that the ad market is worse in Q3 than it is in Q2, or is it just kind of the mix of all that that's getting to that guidance number?
Adam
Yeah, I think it's the mix of all of that. I am not implying that it's getting worse. In fact, you know, as I said in, I think, my prepared remarks, we are cautiously optimistic about third and fourth quarter scatter. I think advertisers continue to book later and later in the cycle, and even the upfronts, you know, reported on this with some of our national peers, even the advertisers were waiting longer and longer in the upfront negotiations to really book the dollars. And so some of that is the visibility that we see into third and fourth quarter, and some of it is certainly the DR comments that I made earlier. The CTV piece of this, again, is really about a decision strategy that we are employing in terms of really looking at all of our products and making sure that we have high margin products and those that we believe are not as profitable. We're certainly taking a hard look at those over the course of both on the local and national side for sure.
Stephen Cahill
Thanks. And then, Adam, I think you've tried to remain at the forefront of free TV and getting a lot of your broadcast content into connected TV, too. So I'm just wondering how you envision getting a lot of this network content onto CTV going forward, especially as you start to add more sports into the portfolio and maybe in this period where there is less content, making sure it shows up on folks' home screens when they log into a connected TV and so they know it's there and can find it.
Brad
Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. We've been particularly active over the last year and a half since we acquired ION. First, very quietly acquiring the rights to the programming for the fast marketplace, which was essentially relatively nascent at the time, and now obviously growing very quickly. I think there's ample evidence that audiences appreciate free which I think will continue to benefit our holdings and our streams on CTV as well as OTA. With respect to sports, I mean, part of what we negotiate for is the right to ensure that nationally, when we are acquiring national sports rights, as we did with the WNBA, we have the right to distribute that into the vast marketplace. We then have worked with our distribution partners to ensure that it's accretive to the overall deal. I would tell you the fast marketplace itself has become very competitive. So I'm really, really glad that we had that first mover advantage and are in where we are. At this point, our brands are garnering significant hours of viewing and the content is premium. So I think it puts us in a really good position. from a operating leverage perspective as we work with those distribution partners. They want brands that are well-known, they want content that is well-loved, and that's what they get with the Scripps Networks brands. So it feels a little bit like the early days of even like YouTube, right, when everything was sort of a pile of stuff and then they became the culling down where more premium content got better positioning. What we see today is that, you know, given that ION, for example, is the only broadcast network in the fast marketplace because we have those rights and no other broadcast network can do that. And given that we've been so aggressive moving our multicast channels, which is monetization of sunk cost into the fast marketplace, we think we've got really good placement on these platforms. So between OTA and CTV, we expect to continue to see significant growth in the consumer's adoption of free television supported by advertising.
Stephen Cahill
Great. And then maybe lastly for Jason, just as you're doing the big year for retrans with the net number up, I think, 40%, as you said, Is there anything that's different than what you expected, better or worse? And within that, what's your expectation for subscriber attrition this year? Thank you.
Scripps
Yeah, so subscriber churn for us continues to be down in kind of that mid-single-digit range. It has been for a while and continues to be. In terms of the progress we're making, so as of the end of the second quarter, we've renewed about two-thirds of the total subs who are up for renewal. And by the end of the third quarter, we'll be north of 90%. You know, I'd say generally we're really pleased with the progress we're making. And, you know, we talk often about maximizing our opportunity and pay TV ecosystem. And when you look at the progress we're making on both gross and net distribution dollars, I think you can really see that kind of coming to fruition. Thank you.
Operator
And next we can go to Michael Kopinski with Noble Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Michael Kopinski
Thank you for taking the questions. I appreciate that. So mine is more of kind of a macro issue. This cycle seems somewhat unusual given that there's been such a prolonged national advertising weakness and that there hasn't been a follow-up of weakness or extreme weakness in local. And I was just wondering if you had some thoughts given the past cycles, how this cycle is different and what, and you're kind of telecasting that you think that national advertising is starting to show some sort of visibility or some sort of It was just wondering if you feel that local is going to kind of come back as well, or do you feel like we might see local drag for some period of time?
Adam
Hey, Mike. It's Lisa. A couple of things to unpack there. One, I think we're seeing one of our largest ad categories, automotive, come roaring back certainly over the last several quarters. And second quarter, you know, auto was up 13% over Q2 of 22. And that was, you know, we had a strong April, May, and June, and we're continuing to see that same trend, you know, as we move into third quarter. So that has certainly helped to buoy the local ad space in particular. Home improvement has also been a category that has really bounced back in the last couple of quarters. for local, and I think that you're going to continue to see that as well. And that's one of our top five categories. One of the areas that certainly has taken a hit a bit in the local side is the services category, which is made up of several different things, medical, financial, legal, so on and so forth. And that's really, I think, tied to discretionary spending, inflationary pressures, people's pocketbooks. that kind of thing. So I think it's a little bit of a mixed bag, you know, even in automotive, for example, the national ad marketplace, I think there was some stories saying that it was down in the high teens over the course of the summer versus us seeing, you know, increases on the local side. And that's really being driven, I think, by trying to get cars off the lots. The domestic dealer groups were up like 35% in the quarter. Foreign dealer groups were a little bit down, but domestic manufacturers in terms of the automotive space were up 26%. So I think you're seeing some resiliency in the local space, especially as automotive has rebounded as well as home improvement.
Michael Kopinski
Lisa, I appreciate the comments on the auto. And so in terms of the percentage growth, is it coming more so from the dealerships or is it coming from manufacturers in It's interesting that some have said that in terms of moving cars off the lot, others have said that maybe there's just not enough cars. And so maybe it's a function of different markets. Are you seeing auto rebounding differently in certain markets? And then if you could just kind of go back and then tell us whether or not it's more promotional advertising or is it more manufacturers versus dealers?
Adam
Sure. I would say we're not necessarily seeing any trends geographically that I would point to. I would say it's generally up across the country. Local dealer groups, just to unpack sort of second quarter, local dealer groups were up 6%, and we see this really as a great opportunity in the coming months, especially as they're clearing last year's models off the lots and then bringing new next year's models onto the lot. The domestic dealer groups, as I said, were up 35% year over year. So that gives you some insight into the dealer groups and local dealer groups. As I said, foreign is still a bit down, you know, down about 5% year over year. And then manufacturers were up 26% year over year, and foreign manufacturers were up 58%. I think that gives you a little bit more insight, not necessarily a geographic issue or a geographic play here. It's really, I think, strength across the board in our local markets.
Michael Kopinski
And, Lisa, can you remind me what – I think you already mentioned this, but what was the percent of auto as a percent of total advertising, and then what was it at the peak?
Adam
This quarter it was 16%, and I think at its peak it was probably – Low 20s, yeah.
Michael Kopinski
Okay, great. All right, thanks for the color. I appreciate that.
Adam
Sure.
Operator
And again, it is 1-0 for questions. I'll move now to Craig Huber with Huber Research Partners. Please go ahead.
Craig Huber
Great, thank you. Maybe we start, I'd love to hear your comments on the Hollywood strike. Obviously, part of it's been going on for three months here. Do you view that it's going to end up being a significant headwind for you guys, or is or beneficial or neutral impact if this thing keeps dragging on and on?
Brad
I don't see it as a significant headwind for us, certainly not near term. Like I said, I actually think it could benefit us with respect to audience in third quarter. Longer term, depending on what the deal ends up being, I also think it could benefit us because recall, you know, we benefit when companies creating programming look to offset those costs through distribution deals. And as I said, I do believe that the streamers in particular have recognized the value, both economic and from a marketing perspective, of doing deals with their content in the linear marketplace. It not being both, it's not cannibalistic. And I also think it the Barker channel that everybody has long believed D2C probably needs. So I don't necessarily think it's much for us. Obviously, for our local stations, it's not ideal for us not to have the kickoff of the season. But to be frank, some of the networks have continued to move some of that content you know, to drop the exclusivity and move some of that content to their streaming platforms. So, you know, I know that we'll be programmed well. I know we'll have compelling content, and I expect it to be mostly a neutral issue for our company. I know it's not going to be neutral for others, but it's certainly in the near term, you know, neutral to positive.
Adam
Hey, Craig, it's Lisa. You know, one of the theories that I have is After this is over, and as Adam said, as studios need to monetize, recoup perhaps some of the increase in costs, I think that there may be a proliferation or a flooding of the market of new content and shows available to us, which I would assume, given the amount of supply, may also drive costs down. So that's something that we're keeping definitely an eye on.
Craig Huber
Do you worry at all that this strike with the lack of original content, scripted content, could help accelerate cord cutting? Do you think it's a significant issue for you at all?
Brad
No, I mean, I don't think this strike is going to be beneficial to the streamers. And so people still want to be entertained. They still want to watch television. And so ultimately, I don't see this as driving... cord cutting any further. I think there are other questions in the marketplace right now about cord cutting that abound, but I don't necessarily see the lack of new content this fall season, or I would even say beyond this fall season, because much of it's already locked and loaded as existential for cord cutting.
Craig Huber
Then also at your local TV stations, I guess that down 5% core advertising performance in the second quarter in a rocky environment out there. Can you just break apart, if you would, how local did versus the national categories?
Adam
Certainly, when we take a look at the local versus national, certainly local or national over the course of the last several quarters has has been hit a bit harder, similar to what we're seeing in the network side. It's the same national macroeconomic trends that have played out in the local side. So certainly it's been hit a bit harder. I would say, similar to my comments about Scripps Networks, we are starting to see some, I would say, green shoots on the national side, less less declines certainly than what we've seen over the last several quarters.
Craig Huber
My last nitpick question, this sunsetting of the CTV product, can you quantify that for us, either a percentage or dollar basis, how much that's impacting the revenues in the coming quarter?
Scripps
We did, I think, within the script for Q2, we talked about sort of our growth with and without it. We're not breaking it out as we kind of move forward, but, you know, we said we were up 17% inclusive of, or 18% inclusive of the sunsetting, we would have been up 80% in PTV revenue without, but we're not providing any detail beyond that.
Craig Huber
Okay, great. Thank you. Thanks, Brad.
Operator
And currently no further questions in queue.
Scripps
Thank you, Brad. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. Brad's going to go over the replay information now. Have a good day.
Operator
Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, this conference will be available for replay after 1130 Eastern this morning and running through September 3rd at midnight. You can access the AT&T playback system by dialing 1-866-207-1041 and entering the access code 787-2133. International parties may dial 402-970-0847. Those numbers again, 1-866-207-1041. International parties, 402-970-0847 with the access code 787-2133. That does conclude our call for today. Thanks for your participation and for using AT&T Teleconference. You may now disconnect.
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