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Here's Why You Should Dump TEGNA Inc from Your Portfolio (Revised)

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On Aug 22, TV broadcasting station operator, TEGNA Inc. (TGNA - Free Report) was downgraded to a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

Shares of TEGNA have lost 46.1% in the last three months compared with the industry’s gain of 4.8%. However, this price plunge primarily reflects the divestitures that TEGNA has completed in this time frame.

 

The company’s actions to spin off Cars.com and sell most of its controlling stake in job search website CareerBuilder have led to a sharp fall in its share price. Not only this, these have also pushed the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings downward.

On Jun 1, TEGNA completed the spin-off of Cars.com into two publicly traded companies: TEGNA and Cars.com, a leading digital automotive marketplace. On Jun 19, TEGNA completed the sale of its web portal CareerBuilder, to an investor group led by Apollo Global Management and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board.

TEGNA will still remain an ongoing partner in CareerBuilder, while reducing its previous 53% controlling interest to 12.5%, on a fully diluted basis. The company will be able to invest the proceeds from the CareerBuilder sale in its core businesses. At the same time, the remaining 12.5% stake will enable the company to tap the potential in the job search market.

Nevertheless, the broadcast TV industry is categorized as an intensely competitive one. TEGNA’s major competitors include CBS Corp. , Gray Television Inc. (GTN - Free Report) and Entercom Communications Corp. , to name a few. Additionally, the U.S. broadcast TV industry has long been grappling with declining advertising revenues and macroeconomic volatility. CBS and Entercom Communications currently carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) while Gray Television has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Furthermore, the media and entertainment industry is one of the rapidly changing areas in the economy. Massive technical changes in content creation, aggregation, and distribution platforms have rendered the traditional business model unprofitable. Such technological changes and their latest upgrades add to the company’s programming costs and expenses, which are likely to affect the bottom line. In the second quarter of 2017, operating expenses of TEGNA were $339.29 million, up 6.9% year over year.

(We are reissuing this article to correct a mistake. The original article, issued on Aug 22, 2017, should no longer be relied upon.)


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