Gray Media Q4 2025 Earnings Report

Gray Media EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$0.24
• Consensus EPS: -$0.28
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.04
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.59

Gray Media Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $792.00 million
• Expected Revenue: $780.50 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$11.50 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: -24.20%

Gray Media Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2025
• Date: 2/26/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, February 26, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 11:00AM ET

Gray Media (NYSE:GTN), Inc. (NYSE: GTN) is a media company that owns and operates local television stations and digital media properties across the United States. Its stations provide local news, weather, sports, investigative reporting and community programming, while also carrying programming from major broadcast networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and The CW.

The company’s operations include television broadcasting, digital publishing, video production and related media services. Gray Media also produces and distributes original content through its local stations and other media platforms, serving audiences in a range of metropolitan and regional markets.

Founded as Gray Television in 1946, the company expanded through acquisitions and organic growth before adopting the Gray Media name. Its portfolio grew significantly through acquisitions including Quincy Media’s television stations and Meredith Corporation’s local media properties. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, and has been led by Hilton H. Howell Jr., who has served as chairman and chief executive officer.

Gray Media Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Q4 results beat guidance — total revenue of $792 million exceeded the high end of guidance, operating expenses were below guidance at $618 million, and Adjusted EBITDA was $179 million.
• Positive Sentiment: Net Retransmission Revenue returned to growth in Q4 and stabilized at $547 million for 2025, with management guiding to modest net retrans growth in 2026.
• Positive Sentiment: Strategic M&A progress — the company closed the WBBJ acquisition for $25 million and expects other announced transactions to close early in 2026 to help reduce debt and leverage ahead of a strong political cycle.
• Neutral Sentiment: Balance sheet and capital actions included a $250 million add-on to 9.625% second‑lien notes and a $125 million call of first‑lien notes, leaving >$1.1 billion in liquidity but year‑end total leverage at 5.8x.
• Positive Sentiment: Content and digital strategy acceleration — renewed NBC and expanded Telemundo affiliations, expanded local sports rights, a Quickplay (Google Cloud) streaming rollout, and company‑wide AI tools aim to grow audiences and digital monetization.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, everyone, and thank you for joining us for this Gray Media Q4 2025 earnings release call. As a reminder, all phone participants are in a listen-only mode, but you are invited to signal for a question by pressing star, followed by the digit 1 on your telephone keypad. Also, today's meeting is being recorded. For opening remarks and introductions, I am pleased to turn the floor over to Chairman and CEO, Mr. Hilton Howell. Welcome, sir.

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. As the operator mentioned, this is Hilton Howell, I'm Chairman and CEO of Gray Media, and I want to thank all of you for joining our Q4 2025 earnings call. As usual, all of our executive officers are here with me in Atlanta. Pat LaPlatney, our President and Co-CEO, Sandy Breland, our Chief Operating Officer, Kevin Latek, our Chief Legal and Development Officer, and Jeff Gignac, our Chief Financial Officer. Joining us for the first time is Alan Gould, our newly appointed Vice President of Investor Relations, who many of you know from his prior role as a sell-side analyst.

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

Alan joined us in December, and we are thrilled to have him on board and believe his insights will help us better engage with investors at a time when much is changing in our business.

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

We will begin with a disclaimer that Alan will provide.

[Alan Gould, VP, of Investor Relations at Gray Media]

Thank you, Hilton. Good morning, everyone. I want to say how thrilled I am to join Gray and work with this outstanding team. After many years as a sell-side analyst covering the media industry, I have tremendous respect for what Gray has built and the strategic direction Hilton and the team are charting. Today, we filed with the SEC our Form 8-K, our Q4 earnings release and updated slides, and later today, we will file with the SEC our annual report on 10-K.

[Alan Gould, VP, of Investor Relations at Gray Media]

These materials are all available on our website, which is www.graymedia.com. Included on the call may be a discussion of non-GAAP financial measures and in particular Adjusted EBITDA, leverage ratio denominator, Net Retransmission Revenue, and certain leverage ratios. These metrics are not meant to replace GAAP measurements but are provided as supplements to assist the public in its analysis and valuation of our company.

[Alan Gould, VP, of Investor Relations at Gray Media]

Further discussions and reconciliations of the company's non-GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP financial measures can be found on our website. All statements and comments made by management during this conference call, other than statements of historical fact, should be deemed forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results in the future could differ from those described in the forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors that are contained in our most recent filings with the SEC. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. I now return the call to Hilton.

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

Thank you, Alan. Today, we are very pleased to announce that our results for the Q4 of 2025 compared very favorably to our previously issued guidance for both revenues and expenses. Total revenue in the Q4 of 2025 was $792 million, above the high end of our guidance for the quarter. Total operating expenses before depreciation, amortization, impairment, and gain or loss on disposal of assets in the Q4 were $618 million, which was $5 million below the low end of our guidance. Notably, within these results, our broadcasting expenses actually declined by $41 million in the Q4 as compared to Q4 2024. On a full year basis, broadcasting expenses declined by $78 million, or about 3% in 2025 as compared to 2024.

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

Net loss attributable to common stockholders was $23 million in the Q4of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA was $179 million in the Q4 of 2025. Political advertising revenue of $12 million finished above our expectations for an off-cycle period. There is one particular item I'd like to highlight from our Q4 financial results. Our Net Retransmission Revenue, which is our retransmission revenue, less our network affiliation fees, returned to growth in the Q4of 2025 as compared to the Q4 of 2024. You have heard us talk in prior quarters about the need to create a more sustainable model in light of subscriber trends. Returning to growth in net retrains is a clear sign of progress on this multiyear effort. On a full year basis, our Net Retransmission Revenue stabilized at $547 million in 2025, similar to 2024.

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

In addition to these operating results, we have now completed our recently announced acquisition of WBBJ-TV in Jackson, Tennessee, from for $25 million. We are continuing to work towards regulatory approvals and expect to close our other announced transactions in the next several months. We also continued to make progress in strengthening our balance sheet during the Q4 of 2025. We opportunistically issued a $250 million add-on to our second lien notes through a private placement. Now, I'll let Jeff provide additional details on that opportunistic transaction. We're entering 2026 poised to close our delevering M&A transactions, and we expect to both reduce our debt and leverage ratio through what we believe will be a fantastic 2026 political cycle for Gray Media. Operationally, we continued to enhance our local content offerings in the Q4 of 2025.

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

Our newscasts continued to attract, engage local audiences, and have won prestigious journalistic honors, including a total of 10 national Edward R. Murrow Awards, the most of any media company in the United States. This honor underscores the culture of journalistic excellence that is across our company. We have added a number of local and regional live sports broadcasts throughout our portfolio. InvestigateTV premiered its third season in September and also launched a multi-platform project to educate viewers about AI. Yesterday, we announced a new program called Aging Un-told, that will launch across our footprint next week. This new series features a panel of experienced industry professionals offering insight and solutions for people entering a new chapter of life, as well as their families and caregivers.

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

We believe the program addresses the most important lifestyle topics that nearly everyone faces now or will soon face, and yet no one is really covering honestly or as in-depth as this new program will do. We have also continued to renew and expand our local professional sports portfolio. We are thrilled to continue our broadcast partnership with the Atlanta Braves.

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

Another example, just yesterday, we reached an agreement to broadcast an additional 5 A's baseball games and will now broadcast 20 A's games in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, our digital team is now very busily rolling out the transition of all of our digital apps and websites to the Quickplay platform, powered by Google Cloud. This personalized streaming platform will revolutionize how our viewers find and connect with our content, and we are honored and excited to be Google's first broadcast partner for Quickplay.

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

In December, we renewed our affiliation agreement covering our 54 NBC markets for 3 additional years. Earlier this month, we renewed and expanded our Telemundo portfolio to include 47 markets, reaching 1.6 million Spanish-speaking households. This was a good timing, with NBC hosting a very successful Super Bowl, Winter Olympics, and the NBA All-Star events all this month, and with Telemundo providing the only Spanish language broadcast for both the Super Bowl and this summer's FIFA World Cup. We are continuing our efforts to bring in the right development partners to further monetize our investment at Assembly Atlanta. Our next capital investment in Assembly in 2025 was essentially 0, but we expect to have more announcements about the next phase of development as we move through 2026.

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

One additional issue I'd like to add is that we have struck a deal with Intense Tennis that will begin actually competing in June, and we will be carrying it here locally in Atlanta and on our Peachtree Sports Network. 2025 was a pivotal year for Gray. We're excited about entering 2026 on a firm foundation that will lead to enhanced value for all our stakeholders. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Pat to address our operations.

[Pat LaPlatney, President and Co-CEO at Gray Media]

Thank you, Hilton. Q4 core advertising revenue started strong in October, which was up low double digits versus a comp from 2024 that included significant political displacement. We finished the quarter slightly above the high end of our guidance, up 3% compared to the Q4 of 2024. In terms of our core advertising categories, we saw continued strength in services, including financial, health, and home improvement. Legal, again, showed strong growth in Q4, and that trend continues as we look ahead to our guidance for Q1 of 2026. There was also a nice pickup in gaming and lottery slash gambling in the Q4 that is also reflected in our Q1 2026 guidance. Automotive finished Q4 down low double digits. For the full year, core finished down 3%.

[Pat LaPlatney, President and Co-CEO at Gray Media]

Recall that in Q1 of 2025, we were down 8%, primarily on tariff uncertainty, and it's encouraging that the second half of 2025 finished in positive territory versus the second half of 2024. Digital continued its healthy growth in the Q4, up low double digits, and our new local direct business continued to grow low single digits over the same period in 2024. Our sales teams continue to perform admirably in a challenging environment. Political ad revenue exceeded our expectations in Q4 2025. Our guide for the Q4 of 2025 was $7 million-$8 million, and our actual results came in at $12 million. Once again, we saw some revenue from issue advertisers supporting the president's legislative priorities. We also saw good results in Virginia from the 2025 state governor and attorney general races.

[Pat LaPlatney, President and Co-CEO at Gray Media]

Our Q1 2026 guidance is for core ad revenue to be approximately flat with Q1of 2025. The Super Bowl generated $11 million on our 54 NBC affiliates and 47 Telemundo affiliates in 2026, compared to $9 million on our FOX affiliates in 2025. We will also benefit from the Winter Olympics on NBC in Q1 of 2026. We estimate that our net revenue from the games will contribute $15 million in the quarter versus $8 million during the 2022 games. Across categories in the Q1, as I mentioned before, legal services and lottery slash gaming are bright spots. We're also seeing signs of improvement in auto, which is currently flattish. We're excited about the upcoming midterm election season.

[Pat LaPlatney, President and Co-CEO at Gray Media]

OurQ1 2026 guidance for political is to be $25 million-$30 million, which compares to $26 million in the Q1 of 2022, which is a comparable period for the 2026 midterm elections. The map in 2026 looks to be very favorable for our TV station footprint, with all 10 competitive Senate races, nearly all of the 13 competitive gubernatorial races, and countless other competitive races in markets where we operate top-ranked local news stations. Jeff will now address the key financial developments.

[Jeff Gignac, CFO at Gray Media]

Thank you, Pat. As Hilton mentioned earlier, we made further progress on our balance sheet during the Q4. We completed a $250 million add-on to our 9.625% Second Lien Notes at 102 and used a portion of the proceeds to call $125 million of our 10.5% First Lien Notes at 103. This transaction is another step in our capital structure plan and matches long-term funding with long-term investment for M&A, while also reducing our interest cost. We finished Q4 with over $1.1 billion in liquidity and $232 million in availability under our open market debt repurchase authorization.

[Jeff Gignac, CFO at Gray Media]

Our leverage metrics at year-end 2025 were 2.43 times first lien leverage ratio, 3.65 times secured leverage ratio, and 5.8 times total leverage ratio, each using the calculation in our senior credit agreement. We expect that our de-levering M&A transactions, together with political revenue in 2026, will help us make significant progress on our leverage during 2026. Our expense reductions are once again reflected in our results. In Q4 of 2025, our broadcasting station operation, operating expenses, excluding network affiliation fees, were down $10 million, or 3% compared to Q4 2024. Let me elaborate a little bit more on net retrains, as this is important to understanding our financial picture. Hilton mentioned the return to growth in Q4 2025 versus Q4 2024.

[Jeff Gignac, CFO at Gray Media]

In Q4, our network affiliation expenses declined by 13%, while our Net Retransmission Revenue declined by 7%. Remember, the WANF moving to an independent station affected both the revenue and expense sides of the Net Retransmission Revenue equation starting in Q3 2025. That also means that our results are not comparable to our peers when you look at these numbers in isolation. Q4 2025 is the Q1 where the full impact of that change is reflected in our results. Our Q4 guide was for a slight decline in Net Retransmission Revenue. We ended up with growth in net retrains of about $4 million, which is largely attributable to better-than-expected subscriber trends.

[Jeff Gignac, CFO at Gray Media]

For the full year, Net Retransmission Revenue finished at $547 million in 2025 versus $550 million in 2024, which is essentially flat. Our Q1 guide of $148 million-$150 million, excuse me, indicates that we expect continued modest growth in Net Retransmission Revenue. Without giving a full year guide, our current expectation is that Net Retransmission Revenue will grow slightly for full year 2026 as compared to 2025. You will also notice that we are guiding Q1 broadcasting expenses to be down 3% at the midpoint versus the Q1 of 2025.

[Jeff Gignac, CFO at Gray Media]

This would be a similar decline to full year 2025, but less than the 7% year-over-year decline reported in Q4 2025, which is primarily due to the timing of certain annual expenses as well as normal inflationary adjustments at year-end. We finished 2025 at $74 million of CapEx, excluding Assembly Atlanta, which is in line with our revised guidance. Net of reimbursements related to public infrastructure at Assembly Atlanta, our net capital investment in Assembly Atlanta during 2025 was $1 million. We currently estimate that our 2026 company-wide CapEx will be approximately $140 million. For some context, we've historically invested about $25 million more during political years. For 2026, the increase will be a little more than usual as we take advantage of bonus depreciation under the OBBBA bill.

[Jeff Gignac, CFO at Gray Media]

We will also do several building-related construction projects within the TV business that we intentionally scheduled to coincide with our stronger cash position this year. This concludes my prepared remarks. I'll return the call back to Hilton.

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

Thank you, Jeff. Now, operator, we'll open up the call to any questions that anyone may have.

[Operator]

Thank you, gentlemen. To our audience listening today, a reminder that it is star 1 on your telephone keypad if you would like to join today's question queue. A reminder also, if you're joining today on a speakerphone, please return to your handset prior to pressing star 1 to be certain that your signal does reach our equipment. Initially, we ask that you limit yourselves to one question and one follow-up, if you have additional, you are invited to re-signal using star 1. Thank you, everyone. We'll hear first today from the line of Dan Kurnos at Benchmark.

[Dan Kurnos, Senior Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company]

Great, thanks. Good morning. Nice results, guys. Hilton, just first for you, I've been asking everybody this. Outside of Nexstar, I mean, if Nexstar, after the tweet, seems pretty confident they're going to get the deal, their deal done by the end of the Q2. We'll see, a lot of moving pieces there. If it does get done, does that change the way that you guys think assets become available? It takes some of the risk off the table. Does it change how you guys maybe approach anything either larger, more transformative, in addition to all of the accretive stuff you've already done? Jeff, just a quick one for you. Appreciate the color on net. You know, and understand no lack of specific guide, but-

[Dan Kurnos, Senior Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company]

...On a going forward basis, I mean, should we expect I know there's going to be timing delta with when you guys have renewals, but is like modest growth in net retrains the right way to think about the trajectory from, you know, kind of here on out with just some lumpiness in years when you don't have renewals? Thank you.

[Jeff Gignac, CFO at Gray Media]

I'll tackle that. I'll tackle the question for me first. Yes, Dan, we've talked about the multi-year effort to get to a sustainable model on the net retrains side, which would, you know, start to look maybe more like inflationary growth type of an arrangement. That's, I think, the right way to think about that.

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

You know, I will say, woman, I'm happy about I can reiterate Nexstar's optimism about our own transactions. We have all smaller than what they're doing with this mega module with Tegna, but maybe 5 different transactions before the FCC and the DOJ, and we're very optimistic about having those closed, hopefully very early in 2026. With regard to, you know, if Nexstar Tegna closes, you know, sure, that'll present a number of issues competitively, and it may put a little impetus on our company to get larger, but that's something that the whole industry is just gonna have to take a look at. I wish Nexstar all the best in getting that closed.

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

They like, we believe that consolidation is important for the industry because it is critically important that we maintain local news in all of the markets, all the 210 markets across the United States. As our industry faces broader competition from the massive companies, from Google to Meta to all the rest, getting larger is an absolute requirement. You know, we're delighted that they're optimistic and, you know, I am personally looking forward to clarity in terms of what the rules are, because, you know, you hate to launch a deal and then not be able to get it to completion. We've got new optimism on that potential.

[Dan Kurnos, Senior Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company]

Great. Thanks, Hilton. Thanks, Jeff.

[Operator]

We'll move forward to the line of Steven Cahall at Wells Fargo.

[Steven Cahall, Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Thanks. A couple of questions pertaining to leverage. You know, Jeff, you said significant progress to leverage in 2026. I think the M&A deals you've announced are about a quarter turn of deleveraging. I think about something that sort of rounds to 4x is like the big key to unlocking your equity value. Could you give us any sense of, you know, what significant progress means and if it maybe could get you towards that zip code? Sort of a bigger picture follow on, you know, you've done a lot to bring down leverage, but it is gradual. You know, an equity merger with synergies could do that in a much shorter amount of time or to a greater extent.

[Steven Cahall, Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo]

I know you're being very patient and deliberate in terms of looking at those types of transactions, but could you just give us an update on the state of industry conversations between maybe yourselves and other levered broadcasters and how we should just think about that continued opportunity?

[Jeff Gignac, CFO at Gray Media]

Steven, we're not going to talk about private conversations. you know, we have consistently said that we are, you know, we will look at any transaction that we think makes sense for us and our, and, you know, whoever the partner is. you know, to your question about leverage, yes, about a quarter turn from the announced M&A. There could be more of that out there once we, as Hilton said, once we know what the rules are. That is another avenue to help us accelerate that deleveraging. If you could tell me exactly what the political number is going to be this year, I could give you a pretty good direction on exactly where we'll land.

[Jeff Gignac, CFO at Gray Media]

When I say progress, we know it's, you know, we know the longer-term objective is to get back towards that 4x. You know, once we know exactly we've been pretty clear in our actions about what we're doing on the leverage side, managing the top of the capital structure, making sure we're proactive in having the runway that we need. Now we have this political cycle plus the next one before our next maturity, so we will continue to be judicious in lowering the quantum of debt outstanding and proactively addressing maturities, as we have in the past.

[Steven Cahall, Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo]

If I could squeeze in a quick follow-on. I certainly get the constructive direction of Net Retrans. Just to help us understand, since WANF is in there right now, you know, would it look even better if the WANF noise wasn't in there in the first half of 2026?

[Jeff Gignac, CFO at Gray Media]

Look, WANF is in there, so I can't speculate about what it would look like if it were, you know, it was all part of a broader negotiation, and, you know, you're seeing the results of not just that, but a whole bunch of other negotiations that are out there, and importantly, the improving subscriber trends. It's hundreds of contracts, like we've talked about, that all result in that number, and part of the reason we went to giving that number is both, you know, the gross and those sides create a lot of noise for us relative to peers. The point here is that our Net Retransmission Revenue is getting back to growth, which is critically important.

[Jeff Gignac, CFO at Gray Media]

Look, on the leverage point, too, just to follow up on that piece, part of what we've been doing is chasing the denominator because of the drag from net retrans. That's also why we are pointing people to that, because that will also help us as the denominator flattens out and hopefully returns to growing here in the not too distant future.

[Jeff Gignac, CFO at Gray Media]

All of that will help us get to a better spot from a leverage point of view.

[Steven Cahall, Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Great.

[Operator]

Our next question today comes from the line of Aaron Watts at Deutsche Bank.

[Aaron Watts, Equity Research Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Hey, everyone. Thanks for having me on. I had two questions, if I may. The first on advertising. Can you just talk a bit more about the health of the core ad backdrop based on what you're seeing so far in the year? What optimism do you have that core ads can grow as you move through 2026, acknowledging, you know, your first Q guide and the robust political that's going to roll through?

[Pat LaPlatney, President and Co-CEO at Gray Media]

Look, I think Aaron Watts, it's Pat LaPlatney. I think given the large expected political, you know, looking for growth in this kind of year is, you know, can be challenging. In Q1, we're calling it flat, and, you know, obviously the month of February for us has been pretty strong. You know, we have a lot of NBC affiliates, you know, with the Olympics and the Super Bowl. You know, that's helpful. You got to remember that we also have non-NBC affiliates, too, so that isn't as beneficial for those guys.

[Pat LaPlatney, President and Co-CEO at Gray Media]

You know, we're optimistic about the market, but I, you know, we have to be, you know, fully aware that political is gonna get really, really heavy, you know, once you get into August, September, and so that's gonna impact the core numbers.

[Aaron Watts, Equity Research Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Okay, that makes sense. If I could just ask one more. The potential for the NFL to reassess its TV rights this year has raised some concerns around economics and also potential dilution of content to digital platforms. Do you still view this potential renegotiation as an overall positive for the space and for Gray? I guess specifically on the economic side, you just renewed your affiliation agreement with NBC, who's in the midst of their first season with the NBA. Any learnings from that renewal that can be informative of how sports rights price increases absorbed by the networks might trickle down to the local affiliates like yourselves?

[Pat LaPlatney, President and Co-CEO at Gray Media]

Yeah, look, It's a negotiation at the end of the day. I mean, there's gonna be You know, there's a lot of speculation around the platforms coming in, picking up a package. You know, I'm not gonna comment on that, but there is a lot of speculation out there. You know, in general, extending the NFL contracts is a big, big positive for the industry. The NFL is a huge driver of audience for our TV stations, and ultimately there'll be dialogue around who pays for it, but it'll work its way through the ecosystem like it always does. You know, to say that I'm not sure you can compare, you know, the NBC, NBA deal with anything else that's out there.

[Pat LaPlatney, President and Co-CEO at Gray Media]

We'll just, you know, we'll take it one day at a time, but net-net, keeping the NFL on broadcast is critical, and we're, you know, we fully believe that'll happen.

[Aaron Watts, Equity Research Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Okay. Appreciate the time, as always. Thanks.

[Operator]

Craig Huber with Huber Research Partners, your line is open for our next question.

[Craig Huber, Equity Research Analyst at Huber Research Partners]

Great, thank you. Just a housekeeping question. You've said a few times here that your subscriber trends for retrans has improved. Can you just quantify that for us? I mean, how much better was the year-over-year that impact your revenues in the Q4 versus how it was trending a year before? How much better is it, please?

[Kevin Latek, EVP, Chief Legal and Development Officer at Gray Media]

Hi, Craig. This is Kevin. We have not disclosed subscriber numbers, I think ever, but we have said is our trends, given that we are fairly well dispersed from large markets to small markets, are similar to what is reported publicly for the ATV industry. We said in the last call, and reiterating here, we are seeing some improvement in the rate of decline. There's still declines in traditional MVPDs. There are still increases in virtual MVPDs. The net result is that there are still declines overall in our pay TV subs, but the rate of decline has slowed. We're not gonna provide more detail on that, and I don't think I'm not sure any other company is providing much more clarity than that.

[Kevin Latek, EVP, Chief Legal and Development Officer at Gray Media]

Again, we have markets from Atlanta, Georgia, to North Platte, Nebraska, so we are pretty well dispersed with the U.S. population.

[Craig Huber, Equity Research Analyst at Huber Research Partners]

Okay, the second question: on Atlanta assembly, just update us, if you would, the overall net cost of that project has cost you so far. How much money have you put into it on a net basis? As I typically like to ask you, how much further out do you think until you'll start to get a real proper return off that in terms of leasing out the space, et cetera, that you'll be happy with versus that overall cost? How much further out is that, do you think, at this stage?

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

This is Hilton. We actually will have a number of transactions that we will likely be announcing through the course of 2026. Right now, we've got 80 plus or minus acres that are not producing, you know, that we purchased when we bought the General Motors plant. We've got a lot of potential joint ventures that will be opening up there soon, and we will be announcing. Right now, we can't say too much about that one way or another.

[Craig Huber, Equity Research Analyst at Huber Research Partners]

Okay. Thank you.

[Jeff Gignac, CFO at Gray Media]

Yeah, to answer the other part of your question, Craig, it's around $630 million as of the end of 2025.

[Craig Huber, Equity Research Analyst at Huber Research Partners]

That's the net number, right?

[Jeff Gignac, CFO at Gray Media]

Net of, yeah, net of all of the reimbursements that we received through the end of the year.

[Craig Huber, Equity Research Analyst at Huber Research Partners]

Okay, great. Thank you.

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, we'll pause for just another moment to allow everyone in the audience the opportunity to signal for a question with star and one. All right, Mr. Huber, do you have a follow-up, sir? Your line is open.

[Craig Huber, Equity Research Analyst at Huber Research Partners]

I do have a follow-up. Thank you. On the AI front, can you just give us some examples of, how AI is helping you from a cost efficiency standpoint, on the speed of what you guys provide on your services, news, advertising, et cetera? Just what's the benefits of AI so far? What's the examples that you're most excited about, what you're implementing so far?

[Sandy Breland, EVP and COO at Gray Media]

We're seeing benefits really across the company. We unveiled our own sort of Ask Gray AI, sort of our own ChatGPT, if you will, and we're really finding it allows us to be much more efficient for time-consuming tasks, things that can be automated. For journalists, for example, you know, helping condensing a broadcast story to a story that will air on other or run on other platforms. Things that previously would take hours can literally be done in a matter of minutes. That allows our journalists to spend more time on their important work of reporting and enterprise reporting. One thing to note, though, I do want to add, is that, you know, our internal policy is any final product is signed off on by a human. That's really important to us.

[Sandy Breland, EVP and COO at Gray Media]

It's certainly allowed us to be much more efficient. Even in things like as sales, right? Prospecting, I mean, the opportunity is there. It's allowed us to really focus on the important core work and free up time for that work.

[Craig Huber, Equity Research Analyst at Huber Research Partners]

I assume it's too hard to figure out how much potential cost savings that it may have at this stage on an annual basis, AI?

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

Little, little early.

[Sandy Breland, EVP and COO at Gray Media]

Yeah, it is. Quite honestly, we've really been using it. At this point, it's more about how to make us more efficient, more productive, more responsive to our communities.

[Craig Huber, Equity Research Analyst at Huber Research Partners]

If it's not, it's not replacing human beings, or how would you categorize that?

[Kevin Latek, EVP, Chief Legal and Development Officer at Gray Media]

Yeah, listen, the way we are using Gray AI across news, sales, marketing, administration, is like having 1,000 extra interns that we're not paying for. There are a lot of mechanical tasks, like building a sales pitch or converting a story for the web, building, adding information databases that people do that takes away from their creative energies, and if we could offload that to an intern or 1,000 interns, we would do that. Just like our intern policy, everything gets reviewed by a Gray employee before it becomes final. This, if you want to talk about expense savings, it's like saving the cost of 1,000 interns. It's making us more productive, we are thinking about this as efficiency to provide better, faster, more, and not about saving money.

[Kevin Latek, EVP, Chief Legal and Development Officer at Gray Media]

If you want to quantify a cost, it's, you know, we would get to this point, it's like saving the money on 1,000 interns.

[Operator]

We thank each of our audience members who shared their questions and comments today. Mr. Howell, I'm happy to turn the floor back to you, sir, for any additional or closing remarks that you've got.

[Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO at Gray Media]

Thank you. In closing, like the rest of 2025, our Q4 was very busy. We accomplished numerous objectives. That will have long-term benefits for our company. We will continue to take actions to enhance our value for our advertisers, our investors, and for the communities we serve. We thank everyone for joining the call today. We look forward to our Q1 call coming up soon. Thank you.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's Gray Media Q4 2025 earnings conference call. We thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.

Participants

Executives

• Alan Gould, VP, of Investor Relations
• Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO
• Jeff Gignac, CFO
• Kevin Latek, EVP, Chief Legal and Development Officer
• Pat LaPlatney, President and Co-CEO
• Sandy Breland, EVP and COO

Analysts

• Aaron Watts, Equity Research Analyst at Deutsche Bank
• Craig Huber, Equity Research Analyst at Huber Research Partners
• Dan Kurnos, Senior Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company
• Steven Cahall, Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo