Gray Media Announces Third Quarter Financial Results

Hilton Howell, Jr., Executive Chairman and CEO of Gray Media

“Our third quarter results exceeded expectations across the board, highlighted by exceptionally strong political revenue of $198 million, which topped all prior third quarters for election years. With the election now behind us, we currently expect full-year 2026 political advertising to finish between $630 million and $640 million, with a midpoint 28% ahead of our $497 million in 2024 and 23% ahead of our $515 million total 2022, respectively. The expected political advertising crowd out was more than offset by the contribution from our acquisitions, resulting in core advertising revenue growth of 1% compared to the third quarter of 2025. Underlying non-political demand was stronger than we anticipated in our late September revised guidance. During the third quarter and into October, we extended approximately $2 billion of our debt maturities, including our revolving credit facility, and reduced our outstanding 10.500% first lien notes due 2029 by almost $1 billion through refinancings and repurchases, lowering our future annual interest expense by over $30 million. We currently expect to use our incremental political cash to reduce our outstanding debt by $175 million to $200 million during the fourth quarter of 2026, which will further reduce our interest expense going into 2027. We continue to be recognized for our excellence in journalism. In August, we followed up our industry-leading 93 Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards with nine National Edward R. Murrow Awards, more than any other broadcast television network, cable television network or local television group. WANF in Atlanta, which became an independent station last fall, made us particularly proud recently by winning a highly prestigious National Edward R. Murrow Award for Overall Excellence and for hosting Georgia’s first Senatorial debate and only Gubernatorial debate, proving again how Gray and WANF excel at providing valuable public service to local communities. In fact, Gray stations hosted more than 100 candidate forums and/or debates for the 2026 midterms. We remain focused on continuing to grow the company by building on the significant financial, operational, and strategic progress achieved during the third quarter.”