E.W. Scripps Co. has renewed its contract with CEO Adam Symson through 2029.
Symon’s new contract includes a large one-time $10 million performance-based cash award tied to Scripps’ target of boosting adjusted earnings by between $125-150 million over the next three years.
The longer-pact announcement came during the company’s quarterly earnings call Thursday, when Symson briefed analysts on Scripps’ plans for major cost-cutting moves, as well as its pending $54 million reacquisition of 23 ION-affiliated TV stations, which it originally divested in 2021 to INYO Broadcast Holdings. Scripps sees that deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, as being “immediately accretive” to its networks segment profit.
“Several weeks ago, we gathered more than 200 Scripps employees together to begin executing this transformation plan. And in the weeks since, the circle has been steadily expanding,” Symson said. “Our colleagues across the country are engaged in this work and are excited by the opportunity to drive this important company farther, faster and into the future. And so am I. The next few years will be pivotal as we accelerate our momentum. So I’m grateful that the Scripps board has decided to extend my contract until the end of 2029. I have the collective creativity and talent of nearly 5,000 colleagues behind me. I believe deeply in our ability to execute yet another Scripps transformation, and I am committed to seeing it through. And now, operator, we’re ready for questions.”
During the call Thursday, Symson and other Scripps execs declined to confirm the exact number of layoffs that are expected across the company, but noted that workforce reductions are not the only cost-saving move planned. Leadership reiterated that cost savings and revenue growth initiatives will “leverage technology including AI and automation” and increase revenue yield for its existing businesses.
“Over the last couple of years, as fragmentation has proliferated and people have turned to more and more platforms for the news and information, we have continued to ask our employees to do more with less, and that has diminished the quality of our product,” Symson aid. “AI opens up the opportunity for us to actually ensure that our reporters, our field journalists, are spending their time doing that which they got into the business to do: actually report. To ensure that they are connecting with the communities that they serve, to ensure that they are speaking directly to our consumer, to ensure that they are actually able to attend the news events and not have to rush off in order to then post something on the web, and then immediately put something on social media, and then do four live shots. And so using AI in order to care for some of those things is already opening up opportunity for our journalists to spend more time doing journalism and less time doing what I would characterize as some of the performative aspects, or the distribution or production aspects of their job.”
Symson added: “We want them creating the content. That’s where the value is. That’s what differentiates us from the commodity news and information that’s out there. We don’t want them spending their time rewriting broadcast scripts into an AP Style story that can go on the web. There’s technology that can care for that, and we’re already using it.”
English (US) ·