ViacomCBS, Nexstar Media Renew Affiliation Agreements

Global media and entertainment company ViacomCBS Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAC) has renewed its affiliation agreements with Nexstar Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: NXST) in 39 markets across the country. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

However, the shares of the company did not react kindly to the news as it fell by almost 8% to close at $31.10 in Friday’s extended trade.

Strategic Impact

The renewal will allow ViacomCBS to continue to reach 17.4 million television households, which is roughly 14% of the U.S. audience. Furthermore, the renewal completes all of ViacomCBS and Nexstar’s affiliation renewals.

Notably, with this renewal agreement, Nexstar’s CBS affiliates will continue to be locally available to subscribers on Paramount+ and widely distributed across vMVPD platforms.

Management Commentary

President of U.S. Networks Distribution of ViacomCBS, Ray Hopkins, said “We are pleased to have reached an agreement with Nexstar that includes several early renewals of our CBS network affiliations. This deal demonstrates the power of our collective partnership and our commitment to maintaining strong relationships in order to best serve audiences across the country with leading content.”

Stock Rating

Recently, Needham analyst Laura Martin reiterated a Buy rating on the stock with a price target of $45, which implies upside potential of 44% from current levels.

The Wall Street community is cautiously optimistic about the stock with a Moderate Buy consensus rating based on 6 Buys, 5 Holds and 1 Sell. The average ViacomCBS price target of $44.42 implies the stock has upside potential of 42.1% from current levels. Shares have declined about 34.5% over the past year.

News Sentiment

At the time of writing, News Sentiment for VIAC is Neutral, based on 58 articles published over the past seven days. 67% of the articles have Bullish sentiment, compared to a sector average of 61%.

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