S&P downgrades ION

Standard & Poor's said it lowered the corporate credit rating on ION Media Networks Inc. to CCC from CCC+.

The outlook is negative.

The agency lowered the company's first-lien senior secured notes to CCC from CCC+ and revised the recovery rating to 4 from 3.

"The downgrade and negative rating outlook reflect our concern about ION Media's deteriorating liquidity position because of declining revenues and EBITDA in an unfavorable advertising environment," S&P analyst Deborah Kinzer said in a statement.

The CCC corporate credit rating reflects expectation that ION Media's financial risk will remain very high because of its weak and declining EBITDA, onerous debt burden, dwindling cash balances and negative discretionary cash flow, the agency said.

Competition from well-capitalized rivals, continuing reliance on infomercials for a large part of revenue and programming and up-front expenses to add more syndicated series to the network's programming intensify the company's challenges, the agency said.

ION Media's geographically diversified portfolio of TV stations only minimally offsets these factors, S&P said.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.