Versant earnings report will test Wall Street appetite for cable TV

Versant Media Group will release its first earnings report as a public company on Tuesday, giving Wall Street its first glimpse inside a company made up primarily of pay-TV networks.

The Comcast spinoff — comprised of CNBC, MS Now, USA Network, Golf Channel, Syfy, E! and Oxygen, as well as digital properties including Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow and Sports Engine — debuted on the Nasdaq in January after one of the media industry’s most significant transactions in recent years.

The company’s first-ever quarterly results will provide more detail into a portfolio of assets that were long embedded in Comcast’s NBCUniversal TV results. They will also test Wall Street’s appetite for cable TV at a time when the market has faced deep pressures.

Ahead of going public, Versant released financials that showed declining revenue in recent years. Versant’s assets generated $7.1 billion in revenue in 2024, down from $7.4 billion in 2023 and $7.8 billion in 2022, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Versant’s stock has dropped about 25% since its January debut, weighed down by expecting selling related to the spinoff. The company’s market capitalization stands at roughly $4.8 billion.

It’s a rarity these days to see pure-play media stocks going public — especially those made up solely of TV networks. Last year Newsmax, the conservative cable news network, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Its shares initially soared before falling precipitously since its debut.

Versant makes more than 80% of its overall revenue from pay-TV distribution. While that business is still profitable, the longtime cash cow for the media industry has been declining as customers flee the bundle for streaming alternatives.

“At Versant, 62% of our audience comes from live programming across sports and news,” CEO Mark Lazarus said during the company’s investor day in December.

“We feel very confident in our position. And the last year, the deals we’ve done, I think bears that out,” he added.

Versant’s sports- and news-heavy content slate has been a key part of its pitch to investors — as has its light debt load and its emphasis on digital properties as future drivers of revenue and earnings growth.

“Sports and news focus is positive, as Versant has far fewer of the lower-value general entertainment networks that some peers do,” Raymond James analysts wrote in a research note earlier this year. “While Versant lacks ‘Tier One’ sports like NFL, NBA, college football, etc., we think its sports lineup (significant golf rights, WWE, NASCAR, etc.) combined with MS NOW, CNBC, and other networks, supports VSNT’s value to distributors.”

Prior to its spinout, NBCUniversal…