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E.W. Scripps

SSP on Nasdaq. E.w. Scripps sells television stations, networks, and streaming channels to viewers and advertisers. Market value $183m.

Watch this stockFree. We tell you when something changes.

Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.

Should I look at this?

Not a fit for our list right now

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

See Media & telecom stocks that passed both tests

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
past 12 months to June 2026
13.6%very high

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $13.63 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
past 12 months to June 2026
n/a

The filings do not give us enough to work this out.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
6.2%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 6 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 69 of 100. Price score: 33 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$2.92 a share, 92% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $1.52 to $5.39.

Pays no dividend

Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.2
0.3
0.1
0.3
0.0
0.0
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26

Spare cash swings from quarter to quarter here: $35 million in the past 12 months, $7 million in the year to December 2025.

Revenue
$2.3bn$2.5bn$2.3bn$2.5bn$2.2bn
Operating margin
17.5%17.5%-32.9%16.4%8.6%
Debt to equity
1.631.382.582.002.11
Shares outstanding
0.09bn0.09bn0.08bn0.09bn0.09bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive5 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Nothing unusual
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)4 of 8 checks we could run
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt2.11× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 3.0% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesRoughly flat

The quarter to June 2026

How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

  • Sales: $490 million last quarter, down 9% on a year ago.
  • A loss of $1.2 billion, compared with a loss of $36 million a year ago.
  • It loses 50 cents on each $1 of sales, after keeping 17 cents a year earlier.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $35 million, down from $243 million.
  • 5% more shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit less of the company.
  • Debt is $2.5 billion more than cash, down from $2.6 billion a year ago.
  • Sales did not grow on a year ago in any of the last 4 quarters.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$646m
December 2024$728m
March 2025$524m
June 2025$540m
September 2025$526m
December 2025$560m
March 2026$517m
June 2026$490m
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$48m
December 2024$95m
March 2025-$3m
June 2025-$36m
September 2025-$33m
December 2025-$29m
March 2026-$2m
June 2026-$1.2bn

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
27 February 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
6 November 2026

Who owns it

1 long-term investor we follow owns it, unchanged from 1 last quarter. 148 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26
Largest holders overall

From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.

Big holders and activists

5 investors own more than 5%.

  • Eaton M. Scripps
    Insider or founder
    at least 14.2%0.0 pts
    (filed with 82 related holders)
    Since 11 March 2026
    What they said

    Item 4 of the Original Schedule 13D is hereby amended to add the following: On March 11, 2026, in accordance with the Scripps Family Agreement, the Reporting Persons held a meeting to, among other things, determine how the Common Voting Shares held by the Reporting Persons would…

    Read the filing
  • Sinclair, Inc.
    Strategic holder
    9.9%0.0 pts
    Since 16 January 2026
    What they said

    Item 4 is supplemented to include the following: On January 16, 2026, the Reporting Person issued a press release in which it disclosed that it has continued to reinforce to the Issuer the Reporting Person's willingness to engage with the Issuer on a proposed combination, and…

    Read the filing
  • BlackRock, Inc.
    Passive investor
    6.0%
    Since 31 March 2025
  • at least 5.2%
    (filed with 2 related holders)
    Since 2 October 2026
  • GAMCO Asset Management Inc.
    at least 3.4%+0.2 pts
    (filed with 8 related holders)
    Since 2 February 2026
    What they said

    The Issuer maintains a dual-class capital structure. As of September 30, 2025, the Issuer had 76,869,408 shares of Class A Common Stock outstanding and 11,932,722 shares of Common Voting Stock outstanding. Holders of Class A Common Stock are entitled to elect the greater of…

    Read the filing
  • Sold down below 5%
    Since 31 March 2026
  • TETON ADVISORS, LLC
    Passive investor
    Sold down below 5%
    Since 30 December 2025
    What they said

    Each of the Reporting Persons has purchased and holds the Securities reported by it for investment for one or more accounts over which it has shared, sole, or both investment and/or voting power, for its own account, or both. The Reporting Persons file the long form Schedule 13D…

    Read the filing
  • The Vanguard Group
    Passive investor
    Sold down below 5%
    Since 13 March 2026
  • Teton Advisors, Inc.
    Passive investor
    Sold down below 5%
    Since 5 August 2025

From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.

What insiders did

In the last 12 months, 4 insiders bought $344,580 of shares on the open market.

  • Granado Raymundo H. Jr.
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    10 March 2026
    Shares
    4,984
    Price
    $4.59
    Value
    $22,877
  • Granado Raymundo H. Jr.
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    9 March 2026
    Shares
    8,280
    Price
    $4.43
    Value
    $36,680
  • Holcomb Monica
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    3 March 2026
    Shares
    7,500
    Price
    $3.91
    Value
    $29,325
  • Barmonde Charles L.
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    3 March 2026
    Shares
    40,000
    Price
    $3.91
    Value
    $156,400
  • Symson Adam
    President and CEO, Director
    Bought
    Date
    3 March 2026
    Shares
    26,910
    Price
    $3.69
    Value
    $99,298

From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.

What could go wrong

  • It carries a lot of debt: 2.1× its equity.

Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.

The deep dive

Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.

  • What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
  • Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
  • The three things that would make this a mistake
  • Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
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What a finished deep dive looks like

Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.