Sinclair Broadcast Group has made a preliminary tally of its Q4 revenues and told Wall Street that the results will be better than the company’s previous guidance. In fact, Sinclair says that while Q4 was down from a year ago, the decline was a single digit one, not double digits.
Back in November Sinclair advised that Q4 revenues were likely to be down 11-12.8%, which was a range of $143.3.3-146.3 million. The better news now is that Q4 revenues are expected to be approximately $153.6 million. That’s a decline of only 6.5% from a year earlier. The official, final figure will be released February 17 as part of the company’s quarterly financial results.
“Advertising revenues from the auto sector has been a major driver of the revenue improvement due to increased spending by dealers and domestic manufacturers. The Company now expects the auto category to be down by approximately 4.0% in the fourth quarter versus its prior estimate for auto to be down by high teen percents,” Sinclair said in its updated guidance.
RBR-TVBR observation: That’s the kind of announcement that other broadcasters like to see, along with investors. It’s been a while now since anyone issued a guidance update going the other way – a bigger drop in revenues. Things are clearly moving in the right direction at last.
