E.W. Scripps, the nearly 150-year-old broadcaster that owns local TV stations across the United States, the ION network and newspapers, is eliminating roughly 12% of its total workforce and replacing some of those roles with artificial intelligence.

CEO Adam Symson laid out the plan to Wall Street analysts on Friday during the company's second-quarter earnings call. Since the beginning of 2026, Scripps has cut 432 positions and 126 open jobs, with 268 of those cuts disclosed earlier in the week. The layoffs hit hardest at local stations, including at least a dozen employees at KRIS 6 in San Antonio and positions across Scripps' three Michigan stations (Deadline; Express News; Detroit News).

"We're leaning into AI, automation, technology and the centralization of some roles," Symson told analysts. He described the shift as turning the local station group into "a technology-forward, AI-powered broadcast journalism company" — one still dedicated, in his words, to "the same high-quality, fact-based reporting that they've relied on us for over the past 150 years" (Deadline).

The plan includes a 24-hour streaming news model enabled by AI. Symson, who rose through Scripps' ranks as a digital executive, is wagering that automated news production can fill airtime and cut costs simultaneously.

The financial pressure behind the decision is plain. Scripps posted second-quarter revenue of $490.4 million, down 9% from the same period a year earlier, and a net loss of 34 cents a share — below Wall Street expectations (Deadline). The company said the layoffs and new technology would help achieve $100 million in run rate savings — money saved on a recurring annual basis — and grow EBITDA by $125 million to $150 million by 2028. EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, is a standard measure of operating profitability.

Investors liked what they heard. Scripps shares rose more than 20% in mid-day trading after the call.

The earnings call landed two days after the FCC voted to eliminate the federal cap on local TV station ownership, a regulatory change that could reshape who buys and sells stations in markets nationwide. Last year, Scripps rebuffed a hostile takeover bid by rival Sinclair Inc. Asked whether the company could now change hands, Symson said he could not speak on behalf of the family that controls Scripps shares (Deadline).

For the reporters, producers and station staff who lost their jobs this week, the transformation plan is not an abstract earnings target. It is a newsroom with fewer people in it, asked to fill the same hours of programming — some of them now generated with the help of a machine that did not exist when the company was founded.