Gray Media - Earnings Call - Q2 2019
August 7, 2019
Transcript
Speaker 0
Good morning. My name is Kelly, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Gray Television Second Quarter twenty nineteen Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session.
If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the pound I would now like to turn the call over to Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO. Please go ahead.
Speaker 1
Good morning, and thank you, Kelly. I want to thank all of you for joining us this morning for our second quarter twenty nineteen earnings call. I'm joined today by our President and Co CEO, Pat Laplatney our Chief Legal and Development Officer, Kevin Latek and our Chief Financial Officer, Jim Ryan. We will begin this morning with our usual disclaimer that Kevin will provide.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Hilton. Good morning, everyone. Certain matters discussed on this call may include forward looking statements regarding among other things future operating results. Those 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.
Such factors have been set forth in the company's most recent reports filed with the SEC and included in today's earnings release. The company undertakes no obligation to update these forward looking statements. Gray uses its website as a key source of company information. The website address is www.gray.tv. We will post an updated investor deck to the website within the next few weeks.
Included on the call will be a discussion of non GAAP financial measures and in particular broadcast cash flow, broadcast cash flow less corporate expenses, operating cash flow, free cash flow, adjusted EBITDA and certain leverage ratios. These metrics are not meant to replace GAAP measurements but are provided as supplements to assist the public in their analysis and valuation of our company. Included in our earnings release as well as on our website are reconciliations of the non GAAP financial measures to the GAAP measures reported in our financial statements. I'll return the call to Hilton.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Kevin. We're extremely pleased to report our results for the 2019 and for the much larger and much more diversified Gray Television. Our total revenue for the second quarter was $5.00 $8,000,000 an increase of 103% from the 2018 and obviously an all time record for our company. Our net income available to common stockholders for the second quarter was $31,000,000 and our net income per diluted common share was $0.31 Excluding transaction related expenses and non cash stock compensation, our net income available to our common stockholders would have been $0.34 per diluted common share. This figure represents a strong increase over the 2019.
Our broadcast cash flow was our best ever for the second quarter at $185,000,000 which was a 71% increase over the year ago quarter. We ended the quarter with a total leverage ratio as defined by our senior credit facility at 4.71 times on a trailing eight quarter basis, netting our total cash balance of $251,000,000 and excluding transaction related expenses. We continue to see improvement in our local advertising business from the first quarter, which itself reflected improvement from prior quarters. We began this year, as I said, as a much larger and much stronger company. With today's report, we are confident that you can clearly see why we had so long valued Raycom as the best single partner for Gray Television.
We are happy with how the company has performed through the first half of the year, and we're excited about the coming quarters and years ahead of us. The vast majority of our consolidation and integration efforts merging our operations, our management, and most importantly, our corporate cultures has been very successfully carried out so far. On our particular note, as Jim will discuss in more detail later this morning, we have raised our realized synergy number from the previously announced $80,000,000 to $85,000,000 and I personally believe there'll be more to come. I will now ask Pat to address a few operational milestones and further progress for our company.
Speaker 3
Thanks, Hilton. Good morning, everyone. As Hilton said, we continue to see improvement in general market conditions over the prior quarter, building on a trend that began last summer. And while we remain disappointed with the weakness in national ad revenue and especially the auto sector, we've been pleasantly surprised by the strength in other categories, notably legal and financial, as well as more and widespread demand for political advertising than we expected during this off year of the cycle. Next month, we will launch our first weekend political show, which will be called full full court press with Greta Van Sester.
This new weekend program will focus on how policy and national events impact local communities across the country. We've already reached commitments to clear the show in nearly 70% of the country. Meanwhile, we're equally excited about the progress made in recent weeks on the new premier linear multicast and SVOD service that we own with Opry Entertainment Group, which is a subsidiary of Ryman Hospitality Properties. The new team in Nashville is busy building out the programming, branding, and marketing plans for the channel, which will be dedicated to the country lifestyle. We're also having very positive discussions with numerous station groups and owners about clearing the new network on their multicast channels when it launches in early twenty twenty.
Turning next to political, we experienced stronger demand in the just completed quarter than we expected. Political spending from Democratic primary contenders has certainly started in The States with early twenty twenty contests. Although the numbers are not yet significant, we find it encouraging to see any spending this far out. We saw meaningful spending in the governor's races in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi, as well as two statewide issue campaigns in the special election for the house seat in North Carolina District 9. The q two political revenue, in other words, has been concentrated in markets other than the early presidential primary and caucus states, which is another encouraging sign.
We expect political revenue will continue to grow in each of the next two quarters as we approach election day twenty eighteen and as we get closer to the start of the presidential primary contest to begin next February. In recent weeks, we've seen some very bullish estimates coming from ad agencies in the press about potentially significant increase in political ad spending coming in 2020. We're not prepared to make a guess today as the amount of political ad revenue we might see at our stations in 2020. Nevertheless, we believe that we have the right stations in the right markets to capitalize on the majority of the most competitive races that will take place next year. Finally, we continue negotiating with Fox on the terms of a new global affiliation agreement covering all of our Fox stations.
We've agreed on the reverse comp fees for 2019 and certain other issues. It's our hope that we'll conclude the negotiations in the next few weeks. I'll now turn the call over to Kevin.
Speaker 2
Great. Thank you, Pat. I'll take a few minutes to discuss retransmission. As most of you know, we do not disclose the terms or tenure of our retransmission consent agreements with our roughly 500 separate MVPDs. That said, I can confirm that we are not in negotiations with any distributor at this time.
The next round of agreement expirations occurs at year end and those negotiations will take place in the fourth quarter. At this time, we anticipate that retransmission revenue will range between $8.00 4,000,000 and $8.00 $7,000,000 in calendar year 2019. The revenue breaks down about $200,000,000 per quarter. The first quarter of this year was slightly ahead of that figure as a result of non recurring billing adjustments. To provide Q2 and full year retrans guidance, we underwent a complex month long process to combine legacy Gray and legacy Raycom retrans billing systems and to model various scenarios of estimated subscriber counts and rates across our 500 distributors.
Unfortunately, we had not fully integrated necessary inputs and we provided a Q2 retrans guide that was slightly higher than our actual results. We've taken these results into consideration when calculating our Q3 retrans guide. We do want to note, however, that our total subscriber numbers across the full universe of traditional and nontraditional distributors across our large and small markets were virtually unchanged from the start of the first quarter to the start of the second quarter, which exceeded our expectations. In the end, we are still anticipating percent year over year increase in retrans revenue. This is the same magnitude of increase that we estimated in our 2018 year end earnings call in late February.
The retrans revenue for this year therefore is consistent with our initial expectations when the year began as well as consistent with our synergy expectations underlying the Raycom merger. We turn now to retrans expense. For the past several years, the terms of our retrans and network affiliation agreements have extended far enough into the future to allow us to estimate our retrans expense, reverse compensation fees that we pay to the networks. We've also explained that at various points during 2019, we would reprice the retrans comp rates for all of our NBC affiliations, all of our FOX affiliations, most of our CBS affiliations, and many of our ABC affiliations. Up to now, we've not been able to provide a full year guidance on retrans expense due to the ongoing FOX renewal negotiations.
As Pat said, we have reached an agreement in principle with FOX on the reverse comp fees for calendar calendar year 2019. And we remain in negotiations with FOX and some other terms for the new affiliation agreements. Yet with the FOX numbers now set, we are able to estimate retransmission expense for calendar year 2019 will fall within a range of 4 and 22,000,000 and 426,000,000. Looking out beyond 2019, we still see a very significant gap between the extraordinary value delivered by our local broadcast stations and the compensation we receive for the right to retransmit our signals and use our brands and our programming to acquire and retain subscribers. Consequently, we continue to expect continued growth in our retransmission revenue as well as the amount of retransmission revenue retained net of our retransmission expense.
Finally, we remind you that we have 78% of our MVPD subs renewing over the next eighteen months. Thank you for your time. I will now turn the call over to Jim Ryan.
Speaker 4
Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, everyone. Our earnings release and the 10 Q that will be filed later today provide a great deal of information for the quarter. As always, we report results on a GAAP basis, which we call as reported basis. In addition, we present results and guidance in the earnings release on a combined historical basis, which gives effect to acquisitions and dispositions as if such transactions occurred on 01/01/2017.
We have revised some of our reporting format. In particular, we have tried to make our transaction related expenses, especially in 2019, more transparent and easier to see what our results would like if you excluded the transaction related expenses. I'll keep my comments on the results of operations for Q2 and our guidance for Q3 to a combined historical basis, which does include the two stations acquired from United Communications. In the next few days, we will update our combined historical information by quarter from Q1 'sixteen through Q4 'eighteen to reflect the United acquisition. We're generally pleased with the overall results for the second quarter.
In general, our second quarter revenue were toward the higher side of our guidance. Our local revenue showed some modest sequential improvement over the first quarter. Our retrans revenue of $2.00 $1,000,000 was about 4,000,000 to $5,000,000 below our guidance due to some forecasting adjustments on our part and for which I apologize for. As Kevin mentioned, our total sub counts are stable. Overall our retransmission revenue increased quarter over quarter by a very healthy $37,000,000 or about 23%.
As Kevin mentioned, we expect our retrans revenue for the year to increase 20% over 2018. Second quarter broadcast operating expenses were better than expected with overall quarter over quarter increase of $16,000,000 which included an increase in retransmission expense of 20,000,000 consistent with the increase in retransmission revenue, that $20,000,000 increase was partially offset by a decrease of about $5,000,000 in overall compensation expenses. Our production companies and corporate expenses were both within our expectations. In the 2019, we had a total of $2,000,000 of transaction related expenses, of which $1,000,000 was recorded as a broadcast expense and the remaining $1,000,000 was recorded as a corporate expense. As a reminder and as discussed in our Q1 call, in Q1 we had approximately $68,000,000 of one time only costs of transaction related expenses, of which $36,000,000 was included in the broadcast expense line and $32,000,000 in our corporate expense line.
To update you on our Raycom merger, estimated annual net retrans revenue improvements in various cost savings we have now identified have allowed us to take the $80,000,000 of initially predicted first year annualized synergies and raise it an additional $5,000,000 to $85,000,000 Those synergies can be divided into two categories. Payroll synergies will reflect approximately $42,000,000 contractual arrangements which include our net retrans synergy and savings from contract revisions or contract terminations such as our national rep contract and elimination of various other duplicative costs will produce synergies of approximately $43,000,000 On a realized synergy basis, we estimate that we actually realized about $16,400,000 of synergies in the quarter. And on a six month year to date basis, we have realized approximately $28,000,000 of synergies. Turning to the balance sheet, our leverage ratio net of all cash at June 30 was 4.71 times. Our operating cash flow as defined in our senior credit facility was $788,000,000 Our outstanding debt was $3,963,000,000 and our cash on hand was $251,000,000 Turning to our third quarter guidance, we currently anticipate that local broadcast revenue to be approximately even with 2018 results.
National Broadcast revenue, while still challenged especially with auto, is expected to show modest improvement over the results for the first six months. And our retransmission revenue is expected to grow in Q3 30,000,000 to $32,000,000 over 2018. While not in our Q3 political revenue guidance, we are cautiously optimistic that political advertising for twenty twenty elections will pick up as we move through the third quarter. For broadcast expenses, we're anticipating an 18,000,000 to $19,000,000 increase. And that is explained entirely by increases in reverse retransmission expense, again driven by the strong growth in our gross retransmission expense.
As we look for the full year, we currently anticipate that full year revenue will approximate 2,100,000,000.0 Our release today includes a full year 2019 guide for grocery transmission revenue of $8.00 4,000,000 to $8.00 $7,000,000 Total operating expenses for the year before depreciation, amortization, and gain and loss on disposal of assets, which would include approximately $80,000,000 of transaction expenses, are estimated to approximate 1,500,000,000.0 Our full year non cash stock compensation is currently estimated to be approximately $13,000,000 Our operating cash flow for 2019 will be nearly 700,000,000 Our CapEx excluding repack will approximate $80,000,000 Cash taxes are currently expected to approximate $10,000,000 to 12,000,000 as we benefit from a larger than initially anticipated NOL acquired from Raycom. Finally, we anticipate that free cash flow for 2019 on a full year basis will comfortably exceed $300,000,000 And I'll remind everyone that free cash flow in 2018 was approximately $522,000,000 So on a two year blended average we are anticipating a blended average free cash flow per share on an 'eighteen-'nineteen basis above $4 At this, I'll turn the comments back to Hilton.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Jim. And Kelly, if it's alright, would like to open up the call for any questions that there may be.
Speaker 0
Certainly. At this time, I'd like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star and the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from line of Erin Watts from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Your next question comes from the line of Marci Ryvicker from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Speaker 5
Thanks. Have a couple of questions. Just to confirm, the retrans step down is not due to any hit from CBS being off of DIRECTV NOW. Is that correct?
Speaker 2
Hi, Marcy. Hi. Step down from q one to q two, had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 5
Guide for q two to q three, because that happened in q three.
Speaker 2
Yeah. The the q three guide is consistent with where we came out in q two. So we're we we do not expect we do not expect a significant hit there.
Speaker 5
Okay. And then for Fox, you're talking about 2019 in principle. So is this a one year deal?
Speaker 2
No. We are negotiating a multiyear deal, but we have agreed on some terms and not, and we are negotiating other terms. The term that has been resolved in principle is the fees for 2019, and that's what allowed us to provide the retrans guide a reverse retrans guide for this year.
Speaker 5
Okay. So based on the numbers you gave for retrans and reverse, it looks like your margins would fall out to about 47% if I take the midpoint of both for 2019. But I assume that that that's from a timing issue given that you had your all your reverse or most of your reverse come up this year versus your retrans. So maybe margins would be higher next year?
Speaker 2
Well, we haven't looked at next year. And, Fox, we've not discussed we don't have an agreement, with all of our networks on fees for next year. So Fox, again, is still outstanding. You're right. The math for this year works out to about 47% and that we renewed, certainly the majority of our network affiliate deals, or I should say, majority of our network, affiliate deals repriced in 2019 at different points.
Speaker 5
Okay. And then just, Jim, going back to the $5,000,000 of incremental, synergies from Raycom, I know you broke out $42,000,000 payroll and then $43,000,000 from net retrans and contract revisions or terminations. But for that $43,000,000 it's hard to believe that any of that's gonna come from net retrans if you just redid all of the numbers, including Raycom. Right? So that 4 that extra 3,000,000 would really come from terminations more than net retrans.
Speaker 4
Not necessarily. It's a mixture of all those things.
Speaker 0
Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Marcy.
Speaker 0
Your next question comes from the line of Kyle Evans from Stephens Inc. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Speaker 2
Hi. Thanks. I was hoping you
Speaker 6
guys could dive down into the trends that you're seeing in both your local and national core, and then I've got some follow ups as well.
Speaker 4
In general, Kyle, local is doing obviously better as anticipated, as we always expect. National is more impacted by auto. We have seen, as other people have commented, some of the services categories, and we probably break it out a little bit differently than others, but financial and some other legal has been doing relatively well in the first six months. So obviously we're pleased with that. As I've commented, I guess, on the last two calls in general, looking at whether it's local or national, and especially at auto, but you can look at it in other categories too.
Some of this can be attributed to a couple of main accounts. We've commented about Jeep, Chrysler and Dodge several times. But also it still seems to be a case where up and down the line of our in total advertising base proportionally more people are taking a little bit more off the table than putting money on the table. There's always a mix of both. But we're not seeing what I would describe as wholesale flight.
I mean, you get ins and outs which are routine in any given quarter, and you would expect it. But it's not like everybody's moving large amounts of money to the sidelines. It's just it feels like people are just putting some stuff in their pocket for somewhere down the road.
Speaker 6
It seems like auto's been shrinking for a while now, and you've had some of your other verticals showing some strength. What is the overall contribution to core of auto now?
Speaker 4
Given our very, very strong news footprint, in the overall strength of the stations with being number 1s and number 2s, we still skew pretty high, with auto. It's still up, probably in q two, was around 24, 23, 24 ish percent. On a year to date basis, it's probably, again, 24 ish percent. 22
Speaker 6
Okay. And you've got some larger stations now with Raycom added to your footprint. Do you see any material difference in either retrans or core between those large and small markets? One of your peers has been pretty vocal about that.
Speaker 3
Yes. So this is path of platinum. Our larger markets, just from a straight performance perspective, grown in the last couple of years. But it's really you know, a bit of a mixed bag in terms of, you know, you can't say, hey. Smaller markets in general are are underperforming larger markets.
We just happen to have a a fair number of of our the bigger properties in our portfolio performing well at the given you know, at at the So I don't really think you can make that assumption.
Speaker 7
Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 0
Your next question comes from the line of Dan Kurnos from Benchmark. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Speaker 8
Great. Thanks. Just two quick housekeeping questions for Jim. Just if I kind of back out the accounting adjustment or whatever it was and retrans, does that mean that the trend is basically just stable throughout the year? Does that smooth everything out?
Speaker 4
On the growth side, yes. I think you can take the Q3 guide and expect that the Q4 number is in that same range.
Speaker 8
And then just on the outlook in the back half of the year, either Jim or Kevin, you called stable subs, said it was a bit of a surprise or outside of your upside to expectations in the front half, but you're still calling for what effectively equates to flat retrans in the back half of the year sequentially without any material renewals. So is that sort of a similar outlook embedded in there when factoring in your escalators?
Speaker 2
Our escalators and our sub counts have been virtually unchanged, and our escalators kick in on January 1. So we're seeing a pretty steady state run through the year with the exception of the billing adjustments we saw in Q1.
Speaker 8
Great. And then just one kind of high level question. You're already getting upside to synergies. We've now got a net retrans number that's probably better than what people were expecting. Just how do we think about when you first bought Raycom, sort of factoring this all in relative to sort of the free cash flow or OCF that you talked about?
Like how do we think about the magnitude of delta now in guide going forward? It seems like you guys have some pretty meaningful upside. And I'm going to assume, Jim, that your free cash flow statements were I I don't know if those were as reported, but I think CHB would be higher.
Speaker 4
They were they were no. Those those were CHBs. And I mean we always knew that the Raycom transaction would be extremely highly free cash flow accretive to us. It is proven to be exactly that. That's probably slightly better than what we would have said a year ago or even six months ago, given slightly a little bit better improved synergy.
There may be a little upside in the synergy number by the time we get to December. As you know, we always work hard to try to be as efficient as possible. And as I mentioned, this year in free cash flow, given our NOL is starting off a little bit bigger than we anticipated. It's allowed us to bring our cash tax number down to the 10,000,000 to $12,000,000 I threw out for the full year. So overall, we are extremely pleased with the transaction and how it's been playing out over the first six months, and our expectations on how it's going to play out over the remaining six months.
Speaker 8
Got it. Thank you very much.
Speaker 7
Thank you, Dan. Your
Speaker 0
next question comes from the line of Jim Goss from Barrington Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Speaker 7
Alright. First, Kevin, last quarter, you were arguing persuasively that like a retrans has continued upside from the standpoint of the broadcast stations. But with the development of some examples of impasse since that time, I'm just wondering if that's suggesting more pushback from distributors and if the notion is foolproof as you seem to be implying at that time.
Speaker 2
Hi, Jim. Hi. Our our the all broadcasters combined are taking have somewhere between seventeen, eighteen, maybe 19% of the total programming pie. Our ratings are significantly higher than that as a group. The intensity of our viewership is significantly, stronger than, non broadcast channels.
So yeah, think there is still a huge way for us to go. There are generally, drops occurring with one big, MVPD who's gotten a lot bigger in the last, year or two. While we're seeing and hearing that other people are getting deals done with other distributors. So we've always had impasses in the programming space. They don't just include broadcasters.
The press likes to talk about, the broadcast, impasses, but there are plenty of impasses that do not involve broadcasters that do affect all two ten markets in the country. These are tough negotiations. They're they're not getting any easier, but these deals are still getting done. You know, again, we we did 500 deals in the last three years without a single drop. And our peers are doing, you know, an equal number of negotiations without drops and maybe there's one or two impasses here or there.
The overall percentage of deals that broadcasters get done versus those that result in an impasse is is extremely high. So I I don't see although there's some noise right now, this summer, I don't think there's anything dramatically different, in our expectations for grocery trends over the over the future. Okay.
Speaker 7
I figure it's always good to revisit those things. And on the flip side, retrans expense seems to be edging to 52.5% to 53%. Do you feel that captures much of the existing pressure? Or do you think are you expecting the network clawback share to continue to edge higher?
Speaker 2
Well, I mean, I'll say the same thing I've said for years. We we kept 100% of $20,000,000 in 2008 retrans revenue. The margins will continue to come down, and we are managing the company for the money that we deposit in the bank, not the margin. So we are unconcerned in not running the company to to hit a particular margin. We are concerned about, the dollars that we bring in.
And our net retrans is has been growing, you know, for all the last several years, and we see it growing going forward. To us, that's the important matter. The networks need to spend more money to secure programming in a more competitive programming environment. We get that. At the same time, we all need to get compensated better for the programming and the value that we're delivering.
And at the end of the day, the network broadcast affiliate margins are going to change, because they have changed every single year since 02/2008. So, again, there's nothing new, here, certainly nothing that is unexpected. I think across our entire peer group, we've all been saying the same thing. Markets are going down, but now it's going to continue to grow.
Speaker 7
Okay. And with the Full Court Press, you said I think you indicated there was a 70% sell through so far. And I'm wondering if you're getting takers in the bigger markets as part of that.
Speaker 3
Yes. It's Pat Laplatin again. Yes. We are getting takers in the bigger markets. And and it's, yeah, it's roughly cleared in 70% of US, and we think it'll exceed that number.
Speaker 7
Okay. And finally, I know Jim and Jim and I have talked about this over the time, but the shape of the political and Olympic revenues over the course of 2020, is there anything different from past times this time? Or will it be mostly a little bit in the first and mostly in the late third quarter and early fourth quarter? Or any other variants you're expecting?
Speaker 4
I mean, in general, in a very broad sense, yes. Historically, and I've said this for many, many years, it seems like half of the total political revenue usually falls in the fourth quarter, half or more. That being said, given we've got more exposure in 2020 to the early primary states than we've ever had before, We're all cautiously optimistic that we'll see more activity in first quarter than we have seen historically. But again, we believe 2020 will be a very significant political spend for the TV industry, the broadcast industry, and a very strong year for us. And we're not going to put a number out, all signs say it will be a good year.
We would expect, as you said, the spending will be heaviest September through Election Day.
Speaker 7
Okay. Thanks very much.
Speaker 2
Thank you.
Speaker 0
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Kupinski from NOBLE Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Speaker 9
Thank you. Thank you for taking the questions. One other broadcaster indicated that they're already seeing a very small amount, already seeing presidential, money being booked. And your political is trending better than what I would, expected in an off election year. Are you seeing any of that at this point?
Speaker 4
Yes. We've seen some I would characterize it as relatively small dollars, but we actually mentioned this on our Q1 call that we had already seen some small relatively small orders in Iowa as early as if I recall. That came in February. In May it was March, but it extraordinarily early. And so we take that as a very good sign for as we move through the latter part of this year as well as all through 2020.
And as Pat commented earlier, we've also seen very good spend in the non presidential races already this year in several gubernatorial races as well as a special election in North Carolina. We're pleased with the early trends.
Speaker 9
Yeah. It seems like the political dollars being raised are significantly more than the last cycle, certainly on the presidential side. Also, Gray has very deep and long relationships in the broadcast industry with potential sellers. Can you talk a little bit about the M and A environment currently? Are you seeing the sellers potentially coming to the market at this point?
Obviously, you still have a nice large cash position and able to execute on M and A if you need to. Just kind of give us the thoughts on what you're seeing out there.
Speaker 2
Michael, it's Kevin. Honestly, it's pretty quiet in the M and A front. There's a little activity. There's not a lot going on.
Speaker 9
Gotcha. That's all I have. Thank you.
Speaker 2
Sure. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Michael.
Speaker 0
Your next question comes from the line of Devinis Lebowitz from Actu Partners. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Speaker 10
Yes. Thank you. You said, Jed, that the full year will comfortably exceed $300,000,000 this year in free cash flow, and it was $522,000,000 in twenty eighteen million So on a blended basis, it's like $4.1 a share. From everything you've said with political and an acceleration in retrans contracts and synergies above guidance, I would assume that 2020 will be higher than 2018. So is I mean, is there anything wrong with that analysis which would indicate that the free cash flow per share would be well over $4 We
Speaker 4
have consistently said for a while that our expectation is that 2020 will look better than what 2018 looked like on a combined historical basis in free cash. And our 2018 and 2017 numbers are published on page five of our current investor presentation. It's on the website. So we've obviously put out some general numbers now for 2019. And we've been saying for it feels to me like about a year now that we do expect '20 to be better than 2018, yes.
Speaker 10
If I could just follow-up, I mean, what your stock price has done today, I know that your focus on free cash flow is in debt repayments given the leverage. But the free cash flow yield now is close to 30%. Is there any point at which you would take advantage of that in terms of share repurchase?
Speaker 4
I don't think we wanna comment explicitly on on, you know, whether we would be opportunistic or not. There is just shy of $50,000,000 available on our repurchase authorization, and that authorization is good until the end of this year. And I understand what free cash flow yield on any given day may or may not be. And we certainly, you know, certainly think it's an extraordinary yield period. But you are right, we've just done a lot of M and A.
We do want to bring leverage down. So we'll have to be very thoughtful on our allocations over the near term.
Speaker 2
Thanks.
Speaker 0
And there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Hilken Howard for closing remarks.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much for all of you joining us this morning. We're very excited about the balance of the year and particularly looking forward to political in 2020. As you know, Gray Television has one of the best footprints in the presidential swing states of any company in the broadcast business. And so, we look forward to the future with a great deal of optimism. Thank you for joining us today, and, we'll talk to you next quarter.
Speaker 0
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.