Broadcasting and digital media company TEGNA (NYSE:TGNA) beat Wall Street’s revenue expectations in Q3 CY2024, with sales up 13.1% year on year to $806.8 million. On the other hand, next quarter’s revenue guidance of $855.9 million was less impressive, coming in 7.1% below analysts’ estimates. Its GAAP profit of $0.89 per share was also 6.6% above analysts’ consensus estimates.

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“I am thrilled to join TEGNA at this pivotal moment for the Company and for local journalism,” said Mike Steib, CEO.

Company Overview

Spun out of Gannett in 2015, TEGNA (NYSE:TGNA) is a media company operating a network of television stations and digital platforms, focusing on local news and community content.

Broadcasting

Broadcasting companies have been facing secular headwinds in the form of consumers abandoning traditional television and radio in favor of streaming services. As a result, many broadcasting companies have evolved by forming distribution agreements with major streaming platforms so they can get in on part of the action, but will these subscription revenues be as high quality and high margin as their legacy revenues? Only time will tell which of these broadcasters will survive the sea changes of technological advancement and fragmenting consumer attention.

Sales Growth

Examining a company’s long-term performance can provide clues about its business quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but the best consistently grow over the long haul. Over the last five years, TEGNA grew its sales at a sluggish 5.6% compounded annual growth rate. This shows it failed to expand in any major way, a rough starting point for our analysis.

We at StockStory place the most emphasis on long-term growth, but within consumer discretionary, a stretched historical view may miss a company riding a successful new product or emerging trend. TEGNA’s history shows it grew in the past but relinquished its gains over the last two years, as its revenue fell by 2.9% annually.

TEGNA also breaks out the revenue for its most important segments, Subscription and Advertising, which are 44.1% and 38.8% of revenue. Over the last two years, TEGNA’s Subscription revenue (access to content) averaged 1.6% year-on-year declines while its Advertising revenue (marketing services) averaged 5.1% declines.

This quarter, TEGNA reported year-on-year revenue growth of 13.1%, and its $806.8 million of revenue exceeded Wall Street’s estimates by 1.4%. Management is currently guiding for a 17.9% year-on-year increase next quarter.

Looking further ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 2.4% over the next 12 months, an improvement versus the last two years. While this projection shows the market believes its newer products and services will catalyze better performance, it is still below the sector average.

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Cash Is King

Although earnings are undoubtedly valuable for assessing company performance, we believe cash is king because you can’t use accounting profits to pay the bills.

TEGNA has shown robust cash profitability, giving it an edge over its competitors and the ability to reinvest or return capital to investors. The company’s free cash flow margin averaged 17.8% over the last two years, quite impressive for a consumer discretionary business.

Key Takeaways from TEGNA’s Q3 Results

It was good to see TEGNA beat analysts’ revenue, EPS, and EBITDA expectations this quarter. On the other hand, its revenue guidance for next quarter missed. Overall, this quarter was solid, but the outlook was unexciting. The stock remained flat at $18.05 immediately following the results.

Is TEGNA an attractive investment opportunity right now? The latest quarter does matter, but not nearly as much as longer-term fundamentals and valuation, when deciding if the stock is a buy. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here, it’s free.