The E.W. Scripps Company (SSP): Marketing Mix Analysis [Dec-2025 Updated]

You're looking at The E.W. Scripps Company right now at a pivotal time, where strategic cost control and a defintely smart sports push are driving margin expansion, and frankly, that changes how we value the whole operation. Honestly, when you see their Product-local news plus national brands like ION-being pushed across OTA and streaming (Place), and their Promotion focused on live women's sports to justify premium ad rates, you need to see the numbers behind the Price. For instance, distribution revenue hit $186 million in Q3 2025 while core advertising was $132 million, all while management is laser-focused on hitting that 4.6x leverage target; let's dive into the four P's to see if this strategy holds up.

The E.W. Scripps Company (SSP) - Marketing Mix: Product

The product element for The E.W. Scripps Company centers on its dual focus: delivering essential local information and providing broad-reach national entertainment and sports content across multiple platforms. This product suite is designed to capture viewers wherever they consume media.

The Local Media component is built on a foundation of local presence and journalism. The E.W. Scripps Company operates a portfolio of 61 television stations across 41 markets. A significant portion of this portfolio consists of 42 Big Four network affiliates. The core product here is objective local journalism, serving as a watchdog and source of community information.

The Scripps Networks division offers a suite of national brands, extending the company's reach beyond local DMA boundaries. These national brands include the general entertainment network ION, along with Court TV, Scripps News, Bounce, Grit, Laff, ION Mystery, and ION Plus. The core product for this segment is national entertainment content, complemented by specialized news and legal programming.

Scripps Sports is a strategic product extension, leveraging live programming to drive advertising revenue across both national and local platforms. This includes live programming for the WNBA and NWSL on the ION network and local stations. The WNBA on ION saw linear and connected TV revenue grow by 92% over the 2024 season. Furthermore, demand for women's sports in the WNBA upfront cycle was strong, with sports volume up 30%.

The most dynamic product growth area is in Connected TV (CTV) content. This high-growth product line, which includes the distribution of national networks on streaming platforms, saw revenue increase by 41% in the third quarter of 2025. Management projects full-year CTV growth to exceed 35%.

Here is a look at the key product segments and their recent performance metrics:

The E.W. Scripps Company's product strategy is clearly weighted toward maximizing reach through its owned spectrum and digital distribution, ensuring its core journalism and entertainment assets are accessible everywhere.

The E.W. Scripps Company (SSP) - Marketing Mix: Place

You're looking at how The E.W. Scripps Company gets its content-from local newscasts to national entertainment-into the hands of viewers. Place, or distribution, is about making sure their broadcast signals, cable carriage, and streaming apps are everywhere the audience is, which is critical given the shift in how people watch television.

The distribution strategy for The E.W. Scripps Company is multi-pronged, covering legacy broadcast infrastructure alongside aggressive digital expansion. As one of the nation's largest local TV broadcasters, The E.W. Scripps Company operates a portfolio that, as of late 2025, includes more than 60 television stations in over 40 markets across 22 states. This physical footprint is the bedrock for local advertising revenue, which saw the Local Media division report revenue of $1.67 billion in 2024. The company is also the nation's largest holder of broadcast spectrum.

Over-the-Air (OTA) Broadcast and Local Market Presence

The core of The E.W. Scripps Company's local distribution is its over-the-air (OTA) broadcast capability. This is supported by the company's ongoing Free TV Project, aimed at increasing awareness and adoption of OTA viewing, including the rollout of the fourth generation of its Tablo device for digital video recording and whole-home wireless antenna access. The local station group is structured to serve communities with local journalism and advertising sales across its footprint.

The scope of their local market operations can be summarized by their station count and network affiliations:

Traditional Pay TV: Cable and Satellite Carriage

For its national networks-ION, Court TV, Bounce, Grit, Laff, and others-The E.W. Scripps Company relies on Multi-Video Platform Distributors (MVPDs), which include traditional cable and satellite systems. This ensures carriage across the legacy pay TV ecosystem, even as that industry shrinks. While specific subscriber reach numbers for all networks via MVPDs aren't public, the strategy is to maintain presence wherever viewers subscribe to linear packages. This is a key component for the Scripps Networks segment, which aims to reach every U.S. TV household through OTA, cable/satellite, and streaming.

Digital/Streaming: Connected TV Platform Saturation

The digital distribution strategy is aggressive, focusing on maximizing reach across Over the Top (OTT) and Free Ad-supported Streaming Television (FAST) platforms. This is where you see significant growth, with the Scripps Networks division reporting connected TV revenue up 41% in Q3 2025. The goal is broad distribution on all major Connected TV (CTV) platforms.

Distribution channels for various Scripps Networks brands include:

• ION: MVPDs, OTT/FAST
• Court TV: MVPDs, OTT/FAST, Audio
• Scripps News: OTT/FAST, Audio, OOH (Out-of-Home)
• Bounce, Grit, Laff: MVPDs
• ION Mystery, ION Plus: MVPDs, OTT/FAST
• Brown Sugar: SVOD (Subscription Video On Demand)

Specific FAST/OTT platforms used for distribution include YouTube, Pluto TV, Roku Channel, Xumo, Samsung TV Plus, and Vizio WatchFree+.

Strategic Station Swaps for Market Optimization

The E.W. Scripps Company actively manages its local station portfolio to optimize market presence and achieve operational efficiencies, often through strategic trades rather than cash purchases. A prime example is the July 2025 agreement with Gray Media, an even trade involving no cash consideration. This move was explicitly designed to create new duopolies and bolster regional presence in key growth geographies.

The Gray Media deal specifically involved The E.W. Scripps Company acquiring assets that strengthen its position in the West:

• Acquired Gray's KKTV (CBS) in Colorado Springs, Colorado (DMA 86).
• Acquired Gray's KKCO (NBC) and KJCT-LP (ABC) in Grand Junction, Colorado (DMA 187).
• Acquired Gray's KMVT (CBS) and KSVT-LD (Fox) in Twin Falls, Idaho (DMA 189).

These transactions, alongside recent sales of stations like WFTX and WRTV for total proceeds of $123 million, are part of a strategy to improve operating performance and pay down debt. You can see the resulting market adjustments here:

These portfolio adjustments are intended to generate efficiencies that allow for further investment in local sports and news coverage, which is a key differentiator for their local stations. Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.

The E.W. Scripps Company (SSP) - Marketing Mix: Promotion

You're looking at how The E.W. Scripps Company communicates value to its audience and advertisers as of late 2025. Promotion here isn't just about ads; it's about strategic positioning, especially around high-growth areas like sports and digital distribution, all while managing the balance sheet.

Aggressive Cost Management and Expense Reduction to Improve Margins

The company has been clear that expense discipline supports margin expansion, even when top-line revenue is pressured by the absence of political advertising. This focus on internal efficiency is a key part of the promotional narrative to investors about operational control.

Here are the expense reduction figures from the third quarter:

• Local Media division expenses were down more than 4% year-over-year.
• Scripps Networks division expenses were reduced by 7.5% in the quarter.
• The Networks division successfully expanded its profit margin to 27%.

This operational tightening helps offset the revenue drop from the non-election year. For instance, Local Media segment profit was nearly $53 million in Q3 2025, down from $161 million in the prior year's political cycle, showing the underlying core business profit before that major revenue source.

CEO Messaging Emphasizes Debt Reduction and Leverage Improvement to 4.6x (Q3 2025)

CEO Adam Symson's communications heavily feature progress on the balance sheet, which is a critical promotional message to the financial community. Reducing leverage signals stability and future financial flexibility. The company executed significant debt management activities in the period.

The key leverage and debt metrics as of September 30, 2025, are:

Net leverage improved significantly from 4.9 times at the end of Q1 2025, and from 6 times in Q2 of the prior year. The company used cash flow and proceeds from new debt issuance to pay off its 2027 senior notes and reduce its 2028 term loan.

Promoting Live Women's Sports to Attract a Premium Advertising Audience

The Scripps Sports strategy, focusing on properties like the WNBA and NWSL, is a core promotional driver to attract specific, valuable advertising dollars. This is about delivering appointment viewing to diverse audiences.

The success of this sports push is quantifiable:

• The WNBA season on ION saw a 92% revenue increase over the 2024 season.
• Sports volume in the upfront cycle was up 30%, commanding premium ad rates.
• Connected TV (CTV) revenue, which carries much of this content, grew 41% year-over-year.
• The CTV distribution strategy is projected to generate an advertising revenue stream of more than $120 million in 2025.
• Streaming now accounts for 20% of all Scripps Networks viewing.

This focus on women's sports is explicitly credited with bringing new advertisers into the fold.

Sales Execution Drove a 1.8% Increase in Core Advertising Revenue (Q3 2025)

Despite the overall Local Media revenue being down 27% due to the political cycle absence, the underlying sales performance in non-political categories was a bright spot. This demonstrates effective execution by the sales teams.

Core advertising revenue in the Local Media division reached $132 million in Q3 2025, marking a 1.8% increase. This growth was specifically driven by strength in the services category and national advertising.

Investor Relations Highlights Exceeding Wall Street Expectations on Key Metrics

A consistent theme in investor communications is the pattern of outperformance relative to analyst consensus. This builds credibility for management's guidance and strategy execution.

The E.W. Scripps Company has now reported results that met or exceeded Wall Street expectations for three consecutive quarters as of Q3 2025. This track record is used to promote confidence in the ongoing strategic shift toward sports and CTV monetization.

The E.W. Scripps Company (SSP) - Marketing Mix: Price

You're looking at the pricing structure for The E.W. Scripps Company as of late 2025. This isn't about consumer-facing sticker prices; it's about the B2B revenue streams that form the foundation of their pricing power, specifically retransmission fees and advertising rates.

The pricing model is a mix of B2B retransmission fees and B2B advertising rates. This dual approach means The E.W. Scripps Company prices its content access to distributors while simultaneously pricing its audience access to advertisers. The overall pricing strategy must reflect the perceived value of their local and national programming portfolios.

Here's a look at the key revenue components that define the pricing realization for Q3 2025:

The pricing for advertising inventory is clearly segmented by platform and content type. For instance, the Scripps Networks division, which includes ION, is capitalizing on specific, high-demand content. ION network commands premium ad rates for its exclusive live sports inventory. Demand for the WNBA and other women's sports on ION in the upfront cycle was strong, with sports volume up 30% and commanding premium ad rates. The linear and connected TV revenue for the WNBA season on ION grew 92% over the 2024 season.

Furthermore, the pricing power extends to their digital distribution strategy. Connected TV revenue for the Scripps Networks division was up 41% in Q3 2025. This streaming distribution is projected to generate more than $120 million in advertising revenue for the full 2025 fiscal year, creating a significant new nine-figure revenue line.

To manage the cost of capital supporting these operations, The E.W. Scripps Company actively manages its debt pricing. Refinancing transactions closed in 2025 at a 9.875% rate to manage debt cost. Specifically, on August 6, 2025, The E.W. Scripps Company closed on the placement of $750 million in new senior secured second-lien notes, which mature in 2030, carrying an interest rate of 9 7/8% (or 9.875%).

The pricing strategy for securing distribution and managing debt involves several key financial levers:

• Securing distribution revenue of $186 million in Q3 2025 from pay TV providers.
• Achieving a 1.8% increase in core advertising revenue to $132 million in Q3 2025.
• Commanding premium ad rates for sports inventory, evidenced by WNBA/NWSL upfront sports volume up 30%.
• Issuing new debt in August 2025 at a rate of 9.875% to extend maturity and manage overall cost of capital.
• Driving Connected TV advertising revenue toward a projected 2025 total of more than $120 million.