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Note 2 - Revenue | 12 Months Ended
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Dec. 31, 2020
Notes to Financial Statements |
Revenue from Contract with Customer [Text Block] |
2. | Revenue
Revenue Recognition. We recognize revenue when we have completed a specified service and effectively transferred the control of that service to a customer in return for an amount of consideration we expect to be entitled to receive. The amount of revenue recognized is determined by the amount of consideration specified in a contract with our customers. We have elected to exclude taxes assessed by a governmental authority on transactions with our customers from our revenue. Any unremitted balance is included in current liabilities on our balance sheets. Advertising Revenue. Broadcast advertising revenue is generated primarily from the broadcast of television advertising time to local, national and political advertisers. Most advertising contracts are short-term, and generally run only for a few weeks. Our performance obligation is satisfied when the advertisement is broadcast or appears on our stations’ websites or mobile applications. Advertising revenue is recognized when the performance obligation is satisfied and then billed to the customer in the period the revenue is recognized. We have an unconditional right to receive payment of the amount billed generally within 30 days of the invoice date. Payment terms are expressly stated in our standard terms and conditions. The invoiced amount to be received is recorded in accounts receivable on our balance sheets. We broadcast the customer’s advertisement either preceding or following a television station’s network programming and within local and syndicated programming. Broadcast advertising is sold in time increments and is priced primarily on the basis of a program’s popularity among the specific audience an advertiser desires to reach. In addition, broadcast advertising rates are affected by the number of advertisers competing for the available time, the size and demographic makeup of the market served by the station and the availability of alternative advertising media in the market area. Broadcast advertising rates are generally the highest during the most desirable viewing hours, with corresponding reductions during other hours. The ratings of a local station affiliated with a major network can be affected by ratings of network programming. Internet advertising is placed on our stations’ websites and mobile applications. These advertisements may be in the form of banner advertisements, pre-roll advertisements or video and other types of advertisements or sponsorships. We generate advertising revenue either by the efforts of our direct sales employees or through third party advertising agency intermediaries. Third party advertising intermediaries represent the customer and contract with us to deliver broadcast or internet advertising for the customer. Retransmission Consent Revenue. We enter into license agreements with cable, satellite, multichannel video programming distributors and digital delivery system (or “OTT”) customers (collectively “MVPD”) that provide them the right to use our broadcast signal for retransmission across the MVPD system for an agreed period of time. These agreements represent a sales and usage based functional intellectual property license based on the number of subscribers to the licensee’s delivery systems. Our performance obligation is to provide the licensee with access to our intellectual property when it is broadcast. The duration of the typical retransmission consent contract is three years. Retransmission consent revenue is recognized continuously during the period of the contract as we transmit our broadcast signal to the MVPD. The amount of revenue recognized is determined based upon a fixed rate per subscriber multiplied by the number of active subscribers to our MVPD customer systems for the given month. We bill our MVPD customers monthly over the life of the retransmission consent contract. We have an unconditional right to receive payment of the amount billed generally within 30 days from the invoice date. Payment terms are expressly stated in our retransmission consent contracts as well as in the standard terms and conditions. The invoiced amount to be received is recorded in accounts receivable on our balance sheets. Subscriber data necessary to calculate the amount of retransmission consent revenue to be recognized for the current month is not received until subsequent to that month. We estimate the current month retransmission consent revenue based upon the subscriber data from the most recent subscriber report by the MVPD. We record the estimate in the current month as retransmission consent revenue and then adjust the amount recorded in that month when we receive the actual subscriber data. We typically have monthly adjustments to our revenue to account for changes in MVPD subscribers on a monthly basis, however, the number of MVPD subscribers does not change materially on a monthly basis and this adjustment does not materially impact our recorded retransmission consent revenue on a quarterly or annual basis. Production Company Revenue. Our production company revenues include sports marketing, production and event management, sports and entertainment production services and automotive programming production and marketing solutions. We recognize revenue of marketing, production and events at the time the events are aired or delivered. We recognize advertising revenues related to the events when the advertisements are aired. Sponsorship revenue is recognized ratably over the contractual period of the sponsorship. Other Revenues. Other revenues consist of production, tower rental and other miscellaneous items. Production revenue is derived from the production of programming. Production revenue is recognized as the programming is produced. Tower rental income is recognized monthly over the life of the lease. All of our leases under which we are lessor are considered operating leases. Other revenue is comprised of one-time or infrequently occurring special projects, dubbing, fees and other miscellaneous items. Other revenue is recognized as the services are performed. Other revenue is generated by our direct sales employees. Expedients. We expense direct and agency commissions when incurred because our advertising contracts are one year or less in duration and the amortization period for capitalized expenses would be less than one year. Direct commissions are included in broadcast operating expense and agency commissions are netted against gross revenue in our consolidated statements of operations. The nature of our contracts with advertising customers is such that our performance obligations arise and are satisfied concurrent with the broadcast or web placement of the advertisement. We did not have incomplete or unsatisfied performance obligations at the end of any period presented. We record a deposit liability for cash deposits received from our customers that are to be applied as payment once the performance obligation arises and is satisfied in the manner stated above. These deposits are recorded as deposit liabilities on our balance sheet. When we invoice our customers for completed performance obligations, we are unconditionally entitled to receive payment of the invoiced amounts. Therefore, we record invoiced amounts in accounts receivable on our balance sheet. We require amounts payable under advertising contracts with our political advertising customers to be paid for in advance. We record the receipt of this cash as a deposit liability. Once the advertisement has been broadcast, the revenue is earned, and we record the revenue and reduce the balance in this deposit liability account. We recorded $9 million of revenue in the year ended December 31, 2020 that was included in the deposit liability balance as of December 31, 2019. The deposit liability balance is included in deferred revenue on our consolidated balance sheets. The deposit liability balance was $21 million and $9 million as of December 31, 2020 and 2019, respectively. Disaggregation of Revenue. Revenue from our broadcast segment is generated through both our direct and advertising agency intermediary sales channels. Revenue from our production companies segment is generated through our direct sales channel. The following table presents our revenue from contracts with customers disaggregated by type of service and sales channel (in millions):
|  | Year Ended December 31, |
|  | 2020 |  |  | 2019 |  |  | 2018 |
Market and service type: |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
Advertising: |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
Local |  | $ | 771 |  |  | $ | 898 |  |  | $ | 443 |
National |  |  | 198 |  |  |  | 229 |  |  |  | 114 |
Political |  |  | 430 |  |  |  | 68 |  |  |  | 155 |
Total advertising |  |  | 1,399 |  |  |  | 1,195 |  |  |  | 712 |
Retransmission consent |  |  | 867 |  |  |  | 796 |  |  |  | 355 |
Production companies |  |  | 61 |  |  |  | 87 |  |  |  | - |
Other |  |  | 54 |  |  |  | 44 |  |  |  | 17 |
Total revenue |  | $ | 2,381 |  |  | $ | 2,122 |  |  | $ | 1,084 |
Sales channel: |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
Direct |  | $ | 1,302 |  |  | $ | 1,270 |  |  | $ | 552 |
Advertising agency intermediary |  |  | 1,079 |  |  |  | 852 |  |  |  | 532 |
Total revenue |  | $ | 2,381 |  |  | $ | 2,122 |  |  | $ | 1,084 |

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