COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES	6 Months Ended
Jun. 30, 2026
Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]
COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES	4. COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES: Litigation, Claims, and Regulatory Matters We are a party to lawsuits, claims, and regulatory matters from time to time in the ordinary course of business. Actions currently pending are in various stages and no material judgments or decisions have been rendered by hearing boards or courts in connection with such actions. Except as noted below, we do not believe the outcome of these matters, individually or in the aggregate, will have a material effect on our financial statements. FCC Matters On May 22, 2020, the FCC released an Order and Consent Decree pursuant to which the Company agreed to pay $48 million to resolve the matters covered by a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (“NAL”) issued in December 2017 proposing a $13 million fine for alleged violations of the FCC’s sponsorship identification rules by the Company and certain of its subsidiaries, the FCC’s investigation of the allegations raised in the Hearing Designation Order issued in connection with the Company’s proposed acquisition of Tribune, and a retransmission related matter. The Company submitted the $48 million payment on August 19, 2020. As part of the consent decree, the Company also agreed to implement a four-year compliance plan, which terminated on May 29, 2024. Two petitions were filed on June 8, 2020 seeking reconsideration of the consent decree. The Company filed an opposition to the petitions on June 18, 2020, and the petitions remain pending. On September 1, 2020, one of the individuals who filed a petition for reconsideration of the consent decree filed a petition to deny the license renewal application of WBFF(TV), Baltimore, MD, and the license renewal applications of two other Baltimore, MD stations: WUTB(TV), which the Company subsequently acquired from Deerfield Media in November 2025, and Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation (“Cunningham”) station WNUV(TV), with which the Company has an LMA. On January 18, 2024, a motion was filed to request substitution of the petitioner, who is deceased. On June 27, 2025, the FCC (i) denied the motion for substitution; (ii) dismissed the petition to deny; and (iii) granted the license renewal applications of WBFF(TV), WUTB(TV), and WNUV(TV). An application for review of the FCC’s decision was filed on July 28, 2025 on behalf of the individual who unsuccessfully sought to be substituted for the petitioner in the proceeding. The Company timely filed an opposition to the application for review and the matter remains pending. On April 14, 2025, the same attorney who filed the petition against the renewal applications filed a similar petition to deny, on behalf of a different client, against assignment applications filed by the Company seeking FCC consent to sell certain stations to a third party. On July 1, 2025, the FCC dismissed that petition to deny and granted the applications. An application for review of the decision to grant the assignment applications was filed on behalf of the petitioner on July 30, 2025. The Company timely filed an opposition to the application for review and the matter remains pending. On September 2, 2020, the FCC adopted a Memorandum Opinion and Order and NAL against the licensees of several stations with whom the Company has LMAs, JSAs, and/or SSAs in response to a complaint regarding those stations’ retransmission consent negotiations. The NAL proposed a $0.5 million penalty for each station, totaling $9 million. The licensees filed a response to the NAL on October 15, 2020, asking the FCC to dismiss the proceeding or, alternatively, to reduce the proposed forfeiture to $25,000 per station. On July 28, 2021, the FCC issued a forfeiture order in which the $0.5 million penalty was upheld for all but one station. A Petition for Reconsideration of the forfeiture order was filed on August 7, 2021. On March 14, 2022, the FCC released a Memorandum Opinion and Order and Order on Reconsideration, which reaffirmed the forfeiture order, dismissed (and in the alternative, denied) the Petition for Reconsideration, and stated that because the fines were not paid within the period stated in the July 2021 forfeiture order the FCC may refer the case to the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) for enforcement of the forfeiture pursuant to Section 504 of the Communications Act. Our understanding is that this matter remains pending. The Company is not a party to this forfeiture order. On September 21, 2022, the FCC released an NAL against the licensees of a number of stations, including 83 Company stations and several stations with whom the Company has LMAs, JSAs, and/or SSAs (or with whom the Company had LMAs, JSAs, and/or SSAs and has since acquired), for violation of the FCC’s limitations on commercial matter in children’s television programming related to KidsClick network programming distributed by the Company in 2018. The NAL proposed a fine of $2.7 million against the Company, and fines ranging from $20,000 to $26,000 per station for the other licensees, including the LMA, JSA, and/or SSA stations, for a total of $3.4 million. On October 21, 2022, the Company filed a written response seeking reduction of the proposed fine amount. On September 6, 2024, the FCC issued a forfeiture order imposing the fine as proposed in the NAL. The Company and all other affected licensees filed a joint petition for reconsideration of the forfeiture order on October 7, 2024. On June 27, 2025, the FCC adopted an Order and Consent Decree pursuant to which the Company agreed to make a voluntary contribution of $500,000 to resolve, without any admission of liability, the forfeiture order (with respect to Company stations), a closed captioning investigation of Company station WUHF in Rochester, NY, and matters relating to certain of the Company’s pending station renewal applications. As part of the consent decree, the Company also agreed to implement a two-year compliance plan relating to the FCC’s limits on commercial matter in children’s programming and closed captioning rules, and the FCC agreed to grant the license renewal applications of all Company stations involved in the matters resolved by the consent decree. The consent decree states the forfeiture order will be resolved by separate action with respect to the non-Company licensees named in the forfeiture order, and to the Company’s knowledge all but one of such non-Company licensees have entered into non-monetary consent decrees with the FCC and agreed to similar compliance plans with respect to the FCC’s limits on commercial matter in children’s programming. The Company made the $500,000 voluntary contribution on July 9, 2025. Other Matters On November 6, 2018, the Company agreed to enter into a proposed consent decree with the DOJ. This consent decree resolves the DOJ’s investigation into the sharing of pacing information among certain stations in some local markets. The DOJ filed the consent decree and related documents in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on November 13, 2018. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia entered the consent decree on May 22, 2019. The consent decree is not an admission of any wrongdoing by the Company and does not subject the Company to any monetary damages or penalties. The Company believes that even if the pacing information was shared as alleged, it would not have impacted any pricing of advertisements or the competitive nature of the market. The consent decree requires the Company to adopt certain antitrust compliance measures, including the appointment of an Antitrust Compliance Officer, consistent with what the DOJ has required in previous consent decrees in other industries. The consent decree also requires the Company’s stations not to exchange pacing and certain other information with other stations in their local markets, which the Company’s management had already instructed them not to do. The Company is aware of twenty-two putative class action lawsuits that were filed against the Company following published reports of the DOJ investigation into the exchange of pacing data within the broadcast television industry. The actions were consolidated in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (the “Court”) in October 2018. The plaintiffs allege that the Company and thirteen other broadcasters conspired to fix prices for broadcast television advertising and engaged in unlawful information sharing in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The plaintiffs seek damages, attorneys’ fees, costs and interest, as well as injunctive relief. The Court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss in November 2020. In December 2023, the Court approved settlements between the plaintiffs and four former defendants totaling $48 million, however the plaintiffs continue to pursue their claims against the Company and the remaining non-settling defendants. During 2025 and 2026, the Court issued various rulings concerning discovery, sanctions and privilege disputes. In November 2025, the Court imposed monetary sanctions on the Company for certain costs incurred by the plaintiffs in investigating the loss of certain cell phone data, while declining as premature the plaintiffs’ request for additional sanctions. In May 2026, the plaintiffs filed a notice of settlement with Griffin Communications, LLC, which remains subject to Court approval. Fact discovery closed on June 1, 2026, and a trial is scheduled for November 1, 2027. The Company continues to believe the lawsuits are without merit and intends to vigorously defend itself against all such claims. We have provided a guarantee that requires us to provide funding to Marquee under certain circumstances. On July 19, 2024, Marquee sent us a funding notice seeking $29 million under the Marquee guarantee by August 1, 2024 purportedly to make payments under certain agreements to affiliates of the Chicago Cubs, an affiliate of which is also a co-owner of Marquee. Based on the information provided to us by Marquee, Marquee has sufficient cash to make such payments without funding under the Marquee guarantee. For this and other reasons, we do not believe we are contractually required to provide funding under the Marquee guarantee at this time and have so informed Marquee. On August 2, 2024, Marquee sent us another letter claiming that our failure to timely pay the amounts subject to Marquee’s funding notice constitutes a breach of the Marquee guarantee and requesting payment of such amounts no later than August 17, 2024 at which time Marquee has stated it will pursue any and all available remedies pursuant to the Marquee guarantee. As of January 1, 2025, we determined we had no further obligations under the guarantee agreement. Marquee disputed this position, and on June 9, 2025, we entered into a binding term sheet to settle the matter. As part of the settlement, the parties agreed that the guarantee would be in effect through 2029; however, the maximum obligation under the guarantee agreement was reduced. As a result of the execution of this binding term sheet, we have concluded that our obligation to pay under a portion of the guarantee is probable and the loss related thereto could be reasonably estimated, thus recorded an estimated obligation related to this arrangement during the year ended December 31, 2025. See Note 3. Notes Payable, Finance Leases, and Commercial Bank Financing for further information. Because loss contingencies are inherently unpredictable and unfavorable developments can occur, the assessment requires judgment about future events. Moreover, there is no assurance that contingencies will be satisfied and the ultimate loss may differ materially from the estimated obligation we have recorded. On June 30, 2026, one of the Company's customers, Dish Network L.L.C. ("Dish"), commenced a bankruptcy case under Chapter 11 of Title 11 of the United States Code. Although Dish has announced its intention to continue normal business operations during the Chapter 11 process and to satisfy all general unsecured claims in full, Dish’s bankruptcy case remains ongoing and there can be no assurance regarding the ultimate recovery or timing of collection of amounts outstanding as of the petition date. Management continues to monitor the bankruptcy proceedings and assess the recoverability of the outstanding receivables associated with Dish. Based on the information available as of the date these financial statements were filed, the Company expects amounts due from Dish to be collected in the ordinary course, although this assessment may change as additional information becomes available or as bankruptcy proceedings progress. The Company continues to provide retransmission services to Dish under its existing contractual arrangements and continues to receive payments from Dish related to these services, which Dish has obtained authorization to continue to pay in the ordinary course as the bankruptcy proceedings progress. However, the outcome of the Chapter 11 proceedings remains subject to court approval and other uncertainties that could affect the ultimate collectability and timing of the Company's accounts receivable from Dish.

On May 22, 2020, the FCC released an Order and Consent Decree pursuant to which the Company agreed to pay $48 million to resolve the matters covered by a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (“NAL”) issued in December 2017 proposing a $13 million fine for alleged violations of the FCC’s sponsorship identification rules by the Company and certain of its subsidiaries, the FCC’s investigation of the allegations raised in the Hearing Designation Order issued in connection with the Company’s proposed acquisition of Tribune, and a retransmission related matter. The Company submitted the $48 million payment on August 19, 2020. As part of the consent decree, the Company also agreed to implement a four-year compliance plan, which terminated on May 29, 2024. Two petitions were filed on June 8, 2020 seeking reconsideration of the consent decree. The Company filed an opposition to the petitions on June 18, 2020, and the petitions remain pending.

On September 1, 2020, one of the individuals who filed a petition for reconsideration of the consent decree filed a petition to deny the license renewal application of WBFF(TV), Baltimore, MD, and the license renewal applications of two other Baltimore, MD stations: WUTB(TV), which the Company subsequently acquired from Deerfield Media in November 2025, and Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation (“Cunningham”) station WNUV(TV), with which the Company has an LMA. On January 18, 2024, a motion was filed to request substitution of the petitioner, who is deceased. On June 27, 2025, the FCC (i) denied the motion for substitution; (ii) dismissed the petition to deny; and (iii) granted the license renewal applications of WBFF(TV), WUTB(TV), and WNUV(TV). An application for review of the FCC’s decision was filed on July 28, 2025 on behalf of the individual who unsuccessfully sought to be substituted for the petitioner in the proceeding. The Company timely filed an opposition to the application for review and the matter remains pending. On April 14, 2025, the same attorney who filed the petition against the renewal applications filed a similar petition to deny, on behalf of a different client, against assignment applications filed by the Company seeking FCC consent to sell certain stations to a third party. On July 1, 2025, the FCC dismissed that petition to deny and granted the applications. An application for review of the decision to grant the assignment applications was filed on behalf of the petitioner on July 30, 2025. The Company timely filed an opposition to the application for review and the matter remains pending.

On September 2, 2020, the FCC adopted a Memorandum Opinion and Order and NAL against the licensees of several stations with whom the Company has LMAs, JSAs, and/or SSAs in response to a complaint regarding those stations’ retransmission consent negotiations. The NAL proposed a $0.5 million penalty for each station, totaling $9 million. The licensees filed a response to the NAL on October 15, 2020, asking the FCC to dismiss the proceeding or, alternatively, to reduce the proposed forfeiture to $25,000 per station. On July 28, 2021, the FCC issued a forfeiture order in which the $0.5 million penalty was upheld for all but one station. A Petition for Reconsideration of the forfeiture order was filed on August 7, 2021. On March 14, 2022, the FCC released a Memorandum Opinion and Order and Order on Reconsideration, which reaffirmed the forfeiture order, dismissed (and in the alternative, denied) the Petition for Reconsideration, and stated that because the fines were not paid within the period stated in the July 2021 forfeiture order the FCC may refer the case to the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) for enforcement of the forfeiture pursuant to Section 504 of the Communications Act. Our understanding is that this matter remains pending. The Company is not a party to this forfeiture order.

On September 21, 2022, the FCC released an NAL against the licensees of a number of stations, including 83 Company stations and several stations with whom the Company has LMAs, JSAs, and/or SSAs (or with whom the Company had LMAs, JSAs, and/or SSAs and has since acquired), for violation of the FCC’s limitations on commercial matter in children’s television programming related to KidsClick network programming distributed by the Company in 2018. The NAL proposed a fine of $2.7 million against the Company, and fines ranging from $20,000 to $26,000 per station for the other licensees, including the LMA, JSA, and/or SSA stations, for a total of $3.4 million. On October 21, 2022, the Company filed a written response seeking reduction of the proposed fine amount. On September 6, 2024, the FCC issued a forfeiture order imposing the fine as proposed in the NAL. The Company and all other affected licensees filed a joint petition for reconsideration of the forfeiture order on October 7, 2024. On June 27, 2025, the FCC adopted an Order and Consent Decree pursuant to which the Company agreed to make a voluntary contribution of $500,000 to resolve, without any admission of liability, the forfeiture order (with respect to Company stations), a closed captioning investigation of Company station WUHF in Rochester, NY, and matters relating to certain of the Company’s pending station renewal applications. As part of the consent decree, the Company also agreed to implement a two-year compliance plan relating to the FCC’s limits on commercial matter in children’s programming and closed captioning rules, and the FCC agreed to grant the license renewal applications of all Company stations involved in the matters resolved by the consent decree. The consent decree states the forfeiture order will be resolved by separate action with respect to the non-Company licensees named in the forfeiture order, and to the Company’s knowledge all but one of such non-Company licensees have entered into non-monetary consent decrees with the FCC and agreed to similar compliance plans with respect to the FCC’s limits on commercial matter in children’s programming. The Company made the $500,000 voluntary contribution on July 9, 2025.

On November 6, 2018, the Company agreed to enter into a proposed consent decree with the DOJ. This consent decree resolves the DOJ’s investigation into the sharing of pacing information among certain stations in some local markets. The DOJ filed the consent decree and related documents in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on November 13, 2018. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia entered the consent decree on May 22, 2019. The consent decree is not an admission of any wrongdoing by the Company and does not subject the Company to any monetary damages or penalties. The Company believes that even if the pacing information was shared as alleged, it would not have impacted any pricing of advertisements or the competitive nature of the market. The consent decree requires the Company to adopt certain antitrust compliance measures, including the appointment of an Antitrust Compliance Officer, consistent with what the DOJ has required in previous consent decrees in other industries. The consent decree also requires the Company’s stations not to exchange pacing and certain other information with other stations in their local markets, which the Company’s management had already instructed them not to do.

The Company is aware of twenty-two putative class action lawsuits that were filed against the Company following published reports of the DOJ investigation into the exchange of pacing data within the broadcast television industry. The actions were consolidated in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (the “Court”) in October 2018. The plaintiffs allege that the Company and thirteen other broadcasters conspired to fix prices for broadcast television advertising and engaged in unlawful information sharing in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The plaintiffs seek damages, attorneys’ fees, costs and interest, as well as injunctive relief. The Court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss in November 2020. In December 2023, the Court approved settlements between the plaintiffs and four former defendants totaling $48 million, however the plaintiffs continue to pursue their claims against the Company and the remaining non-settling defendants. During 2025 and 2026, the Court issued various rulings concerning discovery, sanctions and privilege disputes. In November 2025, the Court imposed monetary sanctions on the Company for certain costs incurred by the plaintiffs in investigating the loss of certain cell phone data, while declining as premature the plaintiffs’ request for additional sanctions. In May 2026, the plaintiffs filed a notice of settlement with Griffin Communications, LLC, which remains subject to Court approval. Fact discovery closed on June 1, 2026, and a trial is scheduled for November 1, 2027. The Company continues to believe the lawsuits are without merit and intends to vigorously defend itself against all such claims.

We have provided a guarantee that requires us to provide funding to Marquee under certain circumstances. On July 19, 2024, Marquee sent us a funding notice seeking $29 million under the Marquee guarantee by August 1, 2024 purportedly to make payments under certain agreements to affiliates of the Chicago Cubs, an affiliate of which is also a co-owner of Marquee. Based on the information provided to us by Marquee, Marquee has sufficient cash to make such payments without funding under the Marquee guarantee. For this and other reasons, we do not believe we are contractually required to provide funding under the Marquee guarantee at this time and have so informed Marquee. On August 2, 2024, Marquee sent us another letter claiming that our failure to timely pay the amounts subject to Marquee’s funding notice constitutes a breach of the Marquee guarantee and requesting payment of such amounts no later than August 17, 2024 at which time Marquee has stated it will pursue any and all available remedies pursuant to the Marquee guarantee. As of January 1, 2025, we determined we had no further obligations under the guarantee agreement. Marquee disputed this position, and on June 9, 2025, we entered into a binding term sheet to settle the matter. As part of the settlement, the parties agreed that the guarantee would be in effect through 2029; however, the maximum obligation under the guarantee agreement was reduced. As a result of the execution of this binding term sheet, we have concluded that our obligation to pay under a portion of the guarantee is probable and the loss related thereto could be reasonably estimated, thus recorded an estimated obligation related to this arrangement during the year ended December 31, 2025. See Note 3. Notes Payable, Finance Leases, and Commercial Bank Financing for further information. Because loss contingencies are inherently unpredictable and unfavorable developments can occur, the assessment requires judgment about future events. Moreover, there is no assurance that contingencies will be satisfied and the ultimate loss may differ materially from the estimated obligation we have recorded.

On June 30, 2026, one of the Company's customers, Dish Network L.L.C. ("Dish"), commenced a bankruptcy case under Chapter 11 of Title 11 of the United States Code. Although Dish has announced its intention to continue normal business operations during the Chapter 11 process and to satisfy all general unsecured claims in full, Dish’s bankruptcy case remains ongoing and there can be no assurance regarding the ultimate recovery or timing of collection of amounts outstanding as of the petition date. Management continues to monitor the bankruptcy proceedings and assess the recoverability of the outstanding receivables associated with Dish. Based on the information available as of the date these financial statements were filed, the Company expects amounts due from Dish to be collected in the ordinary course, although this assessment may change as additional information becomes available or as bankruptcy proceedings progress. The Company continues to provide retransmission services to Dish under its existing contractual arrangements and continues to receive payments from Dish related to these services, which Dish has obtained authorization to continue to pay in the ordinary course as the bankruptcy proceedings progress. However, the outcome of the Chapter 11 proceedings remains subject to court approval and other uncertainties that could affect the ultimate collectability and timing of the Company's accounts receivable from Dish.