Media, broadcasting, and digital services company E.W. Scripps (NASDAQ: SSP) met Wall Street’s revenue expectations in Q1 CY2026, but sales fell by 1.4% year on year to $516.9 million. Its GAAP loss of $0.20 per share was 55.6% above 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

Reviewing a company’s long-term sales performance reveals insights into its quality. Any business can have short-term success, but a top-tier one grows for years. Over the last five years, E.W. Scripps grew its sales at a weak 1.6% compounded annual growth rate. This was below our standards and is a rough starting point for our analysis.

Long-term growth is the most important, but within consumer discretionary, product cycles are short and revenue can be hit-driven due to rapidly changing trends and consumer preferences. E.W. Scripps’s performance shows it grew in the past but relinquished its gains over the last two years, as its revenue fell by 4% annually.

This quarter, E.W. Scripps reported a rather uninspiring 1.4% year-on-year revenue decline to $516.9 million of revenue, in line with Wall Street’s estimates.

Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 7.4% over the next 12 months. While this projection suggests its newer products and services will catalyze better top-line performance, it is still below average for the sector.

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Operating Margin

E.W. Scripps’s operating margin has been trending down over the last 12 months and averaged 12.5% over the last two years. The company’s profitability was mediocre for a consumer discretionary business and shows it couldn’t pass its higher operating expenses onto its customers.

This quarter, E.W. Scripps generated an operating margin profit margin of 4.8%, in line with the same quarter last year. This indicates the company’s overall cost structure has been relatively stable.

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.

Sadly for E.W. Scripps, its EPS declined by 20.6% annually over the last five years while its revenue grew by 1.6%. This tells us the company became less profitable on a per-share basis as it expanded.

In Q1, E.W. Scripps reported EPS of negative $0.20, up from negative $0.22 in the same quarter last year. This print easily cleared analysts’ estimates, and shareholders should be content with the results. We also like to analyze expected EPS growth based on Wall Street analysts’ consensus projections, but there is insufficient data.

Key Takeaways from E.W. Scripps’s Q1 Results

It was good to see E.W. Scripps beat analysts’ EPS expectations this quarter. We were also excited its adjusted operating income outperformed Wall Street’s estimates by a wide margin. Zooming out, we think this quarter featured some important positives. The stock remained flat at $4.64 immediately following the results.

E.W. Scripps may have had a good quarter, but does that mean you should invest right now? When making that decision, it’s important to consider its valuation, business qualities, as well as what has happened in the latest quarter. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).