David B. Amy - Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Management
Thank you, Lucy. Before we go through the results, let me review some of the more meaningful activities that have taken place since our last earnings call. In a very value creating transaction, we announced that we are buying Tennis Channel for $350 million. Unlike most cable nets, which are securely challenged, Tennis with its live sports, passionate fans, and established brand is under distributed. Through our relationship with the MVPDs, we have already secured an increase in their carriage from 30 million homes to 50 million homes, the result of which will positively impact the revenue and EBITDA over the next 18 months. We recently closed on our previously-announced TV station acquisitions in Corpus Christi, Texas and the swap of our market stations for stations in South Bend. Adding to our retrans visibility, we finalized or have agreements in principle on almost 40% of our retrans subscribers that are renewing, leaving only 13% of the subs left to be negotiated this year. American Sports Network, while continuing to produce games for our stations, has officially transformed into a 24/7 multi-cast network carried in 15 of our markets. The intent is to affiliate the ASN network on other broadcasters' multi-cast lineup. On the content front, ASN produced its first college football bowl game, the Arizona Bowl, and recently entered into a two-year agreement to produce the regular and post-season games for the newly-created Major League Football, which is estimated to begin this spring. Our other multi-cast network, COMET, has also started affiliating with other broadcaster and now reaches approximately 70 million households. We expanded local news in Steubenville, Ohio, and Harlingen, Texas in time for the March primary races in those states. This spring, we will be re-launching Circa, an independent digital news site aimed at the growing social and non-linear audience. Circa will remain an independent organization funded by Sinclair and other potential investors. We recently joined the NewsON partnership that provides consumers live and on-demand local newscasts and news clips on mobile and connected TV devices. And we are pleased to announce the creation of a $0.5 million Broadcast Diversity Scholarship Fund to help minority students of race finance their undergraduate studies related to broadcast television and journalism. Chris will now take you through the fourth quarter results.