Gray TV Threatened With De-Listing

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has informed Gray Television that the broadcaster has not satisfied a standard required to continue being listed. The NYSE stated that Gray was “below criteria” for the Exchange’s price criteria for Gray’s common stock because the average closing price per share was less than a dollar for the last 30 trading days. 

At midday Friday, Gray's common stock was trading at $1.34 per share. Its 52-week high is $9.55.

Gray now enters a six-month “cure period” in which its average share price over a consecutive 30-day trading period must exceed $1 “in order to cure the deficiency for this continued listing standard.” Gray’s common stock and Class A common stock remain listed on the NYSE. The broadcaster plans to notify the NYSE within 10 business days that it intends to “cure this price deficiency.”

Gray Television operates 36 stations. It reported mostly favorable earnings earlier this week, with total net revenue of $82.6 million for the third quarter, a 12% jump from the same quarter last year thanks largely to political and digital advertising. But Gray saw a 3% drop in local ad revenue and a 9% plummet in national ad revenue and is highly leveraged.

Michael Malone

Michael Malone, senior content producer at B+C/Multichannel News, covers network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television. He hosts the podcasts Busted Pilot, about what’s new in television, and Series Business, a chat with the creator of a new program, and writes the column “The Watchman.” He joined B+C in 2005. His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Playboy and New York magazine.