Media, broadcasting, and digital services company E.W. Scripps (NASDAQ: SSP) missed Wall Street’s revenue expectations in Q2 CY2025, with sales falling 5.8% year on year to $540.1 million. Its GAAP loss of $0.59 per share was significantly below analysts’ consensus estimates.

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Company Overview

Founded as a chain of daily newspapers, E.W. Scripps (NASDAQ: SSP) is a diversified media enterprise operating a range of local television stations, national networks, and digital media platforms.

Revenue Growth

A company’s long-term sales performance can indicate its overall quality. Any business can have short-term success, but a top-tier one grows for years. Unfortunately, E.W. Scripps’s 9.8% annualized revenue growth over the last five years was tepid. This was below our standard for the consumer discretionary sector and is a poor baseline 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 trend. E.W. Scripps’s recent performance shows its demand has slowed as its revenue was flat over the last two years.

This quarter, E.W. Scripps missed Wall Street’s estimates and reported a rather uninspiring 5.8% year-on-year revenue decline, generating $540.1 million of revenue.

Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to decline by 8.6% over the next 12 months, a deceleration versus the last two years. This projection is underwhelming and suggests its products and services will face some demand challenges.

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Operating Margin

E.W. Scripps’s operating margin has risen over the last 12 months and averaged 7.7% over the last two years. The company’s higher efficiency is a breath of fresh air, but its suboptimal cost structure means it still sports paltry profitability for a consumer discretionary business.

In Q2, E.W. Scripps generated an operating margin profit margin of 14.2%, up 4.5 percentage points year on year. This increase was a welcome development, especially since its revenue fell, showing it was more efficient because it scaled down its expenses.

Earnings Per Share

We track the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) for the same reason as long-term revenue growth. Compared to revenue, however, EPS highlights whether a company’s growth is profitable.

E.W. Scripps’s full-year EPS flipped from negative to positive over the last five years. This is encouraging and shows it’s at a critical moment in its life.

In Q2, E.W. Scripps reported EPS at negative $0.59, down from negative $0.15 in the same quarter last year. This print missed analysts’ estimates, but we care more about long-term EPS growth than short-term movements. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects E.W. Scripps to perform poorly. Analysts forecast its full-year EPS of $0.50 will invert to negative negative $1.10.

Key Takeaways from E.W. Scripps’s Q2 Results

It was encouraging to see E.W. Scripps beat analysts’ EBITDA expectations this quarter. On the other hand, its EPS missed and its revenue fell slightly short of Wall Street’s estimates. Overall, this was a weaker quarter. The stock remained flat at $2.82 immediately after reporting.

Should you buy the stock or not? What happened in the latest quarter matters, but not as much as longer-term business quality and valuation, when deciding whether to invest in this stock. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here, it’s free.