E.W. Scripps
Last usable year: 2023-12-31 — 32 months ago. Nothing filed since gives the figures a payout ratio needs. For a company that once paid, that usually means it stopped.
| Basis | Payout | Why |
|---|---|---|
| GAAP earnings | negative | whyLost $11.84 per share — no earnings to pay from. |
| Operating cash flow | 43.0% | whyBefore capital spending. |
| Free cash flow | 92.3% | whyAfter maintaining the business. |
Spread between highest and lowest: 49.3 percentage points. Same filings, different denominators.
Coverage rating 4 / 100 — Not covered. ? Peer standing 4/50Direction 0/30Stability 0/20
Against its own history: 92.3% this year vs 17.8% median over the prior 4. A gap this size is usually a one-off — acquisition, settlement, cyclical trough — not a dividend that stopped being funded. The rating reads the latest year; the table shows the trend.
Free cash flow payout, last 5 years
| Fiscal year | Payout |
|---|---|
| 2023-12-31 | 92.3% |
| 2022-12-31 | 18.1% |
| 2021-12-31 | 25.6% |
| 2020-12-31 | 7.1% |
| 2018-12-31 | 17.5% |
Coverage worsened sharply this year, 18.1% to 92.3%, after no clear trend before it. One year is not a trend, but it is worth knowing which direction the last one moved.
8% of the 25 communications here pay out more — at the demanding end.
The arithmetic
- GAAP earnings — dividends declared per share $0.570 ÷ diluted EPS $-11.84
- Operating cash flow — dividends paid $48.0m ÷ operating cash flow $112m
- Free cash flow — dividends paid $48.0m ÷ (operating cash flow $112m − capex $59.6m)
Where the figures came from
- 10-K filed 2026-02-27 · accession 0000832428-26-000010
- 10-K filed 2025-03-12 · accession
0000832428-25-000012 - 10-K filed 2024-02-23 · accession
0000832428-24-000015
Every one is public at sec.gov and free to check. That is the point — you should not have to take our word for any of it.
Caveats on this company
- DPS derived from dividends paid ($0.57); no per-share tag filed
Computed by an open pipeline reading SEC XBRL directly. If any number here looks wrong to you, tell us — that is more useful to us than agreement.
What the free cash flow payout ratio measures, and where every company here sits on it.
Who else looks like this
Every figure above is computed from E.W. Scripps’s own filing, and every company here is measured the same way. Screen all of them on any of these twelve measures, or on the rules two investors published — free, and nothing you screen leaves your browser.