Adam Symson and the curious return of free television

Adam Symson has a fairly ordinary reason to care whether people can find a football game. He likes watching the Cincinnati Bengals with his daughter. In 2023, he described Sundays on the couch, an allegiance to UCLA and Cincinnati teams, and very little interest in fantasy leagues or betting. The executive buying sports rights was also a parent trying to enjoy the game. Television, viewed from that sofa, has a simpler job description than it does in a boardroom.

That distinction runs through his career. Symson is president and chief executive of The E.W. Scripps Company, but his original ambition was investigative journalism. He learned to follow evidence, ask awkward questions and make a complicated account understandable. Eventually, the complicated account became the company itself. Why buy a national television network? Why sell a podcast business? Why put women’s basketball on a channel many viewers associated with entertainment reruns?

His answers keep returning to the audience: where people spend their time, what they will make time for, and how much trouble they must endure to watch. The remote control is a small object with considerable negotiating power.

A reporter’s route to Cincinnati

Symson graduated from UCLA in 1996 with a communications degree. His early work included investigative journalism at WBBM in Chicago and KCBS, KNBC and KCAL in Los Angeles, along with independent producing for CBS News and NBC News. These were jobs concerned with assembling a story from interviews, documents and footage, well before his work involved assembling a corporate portfolio.

He joined Scripps in 2002 at KNXV, its ABC affiliate in Phoenix, as executive producer of investigations and special projects. The attraction was the company’s commitment to reporting. He subsequently described finding an organization that took journalistic standards and stewardship seriously, a place where he could imagine staying.

In 2003 he moved into the corporate operation, directing investigations and special projects for the television division. News strategy and operations followed. The move widened his responsibilities from the work of one newsroom to the conditions under which several newsrooms could work. A useful investigation needs editorial judgment; keeping investigative teams employed also requires a business that can pay them.

First, learn a different business

In 2006, Symson took responsibility for content and marketing in Scripps’ interactive media division. It was a departure from investigations into a business where journalism met products, distribution and revenue. By 2011 he was responsible for all the company’s digital businesses. He became senior vice president in 2013, with the company explicitly linking his promotion to its investment in digital media.

That experience complicates the easy description of him as a traditional television executive. His route to the top passed through web, mobile and over-the-top video. The National Association of Broadcasters recognized him with its Digital Leadership Award in 2016. Later the same year, he became chief operating officer, responsible for broadcast television, radio and digital media. On August 8, 2017, he succeeded Rich Boehne as CEO.

One example of the digital strategy was podcasting. Scripps bought Midroll for $55 million in 2015 and the Stitcher app for $4.5 million in 2016. It built an audio business with advertising sales, podcast networks and a listening platform, then agreed in July 2020 to sell it to SiriusXM for up to $325 million, including contingent payments.

The distinction between the headline price and the cash mattered: $265 million was payable upfront, with two potential $30 million earnouts. Even an appealing corporate success story deserves its small print. For Symson, the sale expressed a recurring approach: develop a business around changing habits, then consider whether another owner can take it further.

The antenna gets another audition

The next major transaction pointed toward television’s older distribution system. In January 2021, Scripps completed its acquisition of ION Media. It combined ION with the Katz networks and Newsy to establish a national networks business, extending programming across broadcast, pay television and internet distribution. The $2.65 billion acquisition had been announced in 2020 with backing from Berkshire Hathaway.

Buying broadcast reach while audiences were moving toward streaming could look peculiar. Symson’s argument treated the two habits as compatible. A household could subscribe to an on-demand service and still use an antenna for free channels. Paying for one form of television did not require paying for every other form. An antenna has the useful social quality of never asking whether you would like to upgrade your plan.

In a conversation with the National Association of Broadcasters, he described an audience with almost unlimited alternatives. Earlier in his career, the late news competed with a smaller menu: another program, a VHS tape, or bed. Now any program must earn attention against a far larger set of choices. His shorthand for the standard was “lovable or necessary.”

“lovable or necessary”

Adam Symson’s test for what an audience will choose

That is a demanding pair of words for a broadcaster. Being available is useful. Giving people a reason to look for you is harder. National distribution supplied the capacity; the schedule still needed something viewers would arrange an evening around.

Put the game where the audience can find it

Scripps launched its sports division in December 2022. In April 2023, it announced a multiyear WNBA agreement that gave ION a regular Friday-night basketball destination. The initial schedule covered 15 Fridays, with national and regional games. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert emphasized the opportunity to reach more fans; Symson emphasized reach and consistency.

The weekly appointment was central. A devoted fan might search several services to follow a team. A prospective fan needs a chance to stumble into the game, enjoy it and remember where it will be next week. A recurring night gives the broadcaster something intelligible to promote. It gives the viewer one fewer small logistical problem.

Women’s soccer followed. The NWSL’s November 2023 rights agreements brought Scripps into a group of partners that also included CBS Sports, ESPN and Prime Video. ION’s part began in 2024 with Saturday doubleheaders. Together, basketball and soccer gave the network a recognizable weekend rhythm.

The idea continued into September 2026, when Scripps Sports and the Professional Women’s Hockey League announced a season-long U.S. agreement for 2026-27. A Saturday game on ION and two weekly games on Scripps Sports Network would broaden national access. The agreement followed ION’s coverage of the Walter Cup Finals earlier in 2026. Each addition tested the same proposition: distribution can help turn interest into a habit.

The audience has homework, too

Symson’s concern with the person watching extends to what that person believes. Scripps helped establish National News Literacy Week with the News Literacy Project. The effort asks audiences to examine information rather than simply absorb it: distinguish reporting from opinion, identify advertising and check what they are about to share.

In a 2024 discussion, he argued that even material carrying a familiar news brand should face scrutiny. That admission matters. A publisher asking for trust while encouraging people to verify its work is accepting a more demanding relationship with its audience. The viewer gets a role beyond switching the set on.

The 2026 news literacy week, held February 2-6, concentrated on helping teenagers identify credible information amid AI-generated material and viral rumors. Scripps participated alongside the News Literacy Project, USA TODAY and the USA TODAY Network. For a former investigator, the connection is straightforward: the habits that help a reporter assess a claim also help a reader decide whether to pass it along.

The difficult arithmetic of staying useful

The mission has not insulated the business from financial pressure. In February 2026, Scripps announced a plan targeting $125 million-$150 million in annualized earnings improvement by 2028, measured before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Revenue initiatives, operating efficiencies, AI and automation were all part of the proposed work. The target was an ambition, with execution still ahead.

In August, the consequences became concrete. Scripps announced 268 job cuts as part of a move toward continuous local news streaming, centralized digital production and more automation. Scheduled television newscasts would continue. The change was intended to get stories published when ready, rather than organizing all production around a few broadcast hours.

By October, Symson was publicly defending the distinction between automating production and replacing reporting. He said journalists would continue to report, write and edit the news, while technology would reduce the work needed to process and distribute it. He described the savings as a way to support more reporting from communities. That remains a promise whose value will be measured in the journalism viewers actually receive.

The pressure gives his account of leadership some texture. Speaking with University of Cincinnati business dean Marianne Lewis in 2026, he called himself an “accidental CEO.” He talked about curiosity, continuing to learn and surrounding himself with colleagues whose expertise exceeded his own. He also acknowledged mistakes. Conviction, in his telling, must leave room for discovering that the facts have changed.

The board extended his contract through December 31, 2029, giving him time to pursue the transformation. Time, however, does not settle the question facing the former investigative producer: can a more efficient operation also deliver the reporting that made the work worth doing?

A temporary move that took root

There is a quieter measure of continuity in Cincinnati. Symson and his wife, Sherri, arrived in 2003 expecting a temporary move. They stayed, raised two daughters and became involved in the Jewish community. Together they served as volunteer cochairs of the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati’s 2021 annual campaign. In an interview announcing that work, they described family life with their dog, Willow, and a preference for getting outside.

Those details give the corporate language about connection a place to land: a city that became home, a community supported over years, a game watched together. Symson’s wager is that television can still make room for experiences like those. The test is wonderfully unceremonious. Someone reaches for the remote, finds something worth watching, and stays.