Media company E. W. Scripps Co. (SSP) Tuesday reported an increase in fourth-quarter profit, mainly on revenues from televised political advertising. However, shares of Scripps are currently down ten percent, as its revenues fell short of Wall Street expectations.
Cincinnati, Ohio-based Scripps said political advertising revenues for the quarter was higher than the full-year political revenue reported last year, helped by the recent presidential elections. Political advertising revenues were $56.9 million, up from $3.5 million last year.
Chief Executive Boehne said, "Investing to expand our television portfolio and to improve our local news programming resulted in an attractive platform for political advertising and the most effective voice for election-year journalism ever staged by Scripps. We also took advantage of the election year to build out our digital product portfolio across both TV and newspaper markets, expanding audiences and attracting new revenue sources."
Operating revenues for the fourth quarter grew 32 percent to $259.8 million from $197.4 million last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected revenues of $260.21 million for the period.
Television segment revenues rose 79.4 percent to $151.9 million, while newspapers revenues dropped 4.6 percent to 105.1 million, as print advertisements and circulation revenues dropped.
Scripps fourth-quarter profit rose to $27.2 million or $0.47 per share from $6.29 million or $0.11 per share last year.
Looking forward, Boehne said, "We expect the momentum to continue in 2013, with sustained progress from our newspapers and a level of profitability at our television stations, even on a same-station basis, that will be more than 50 percent higher than in 2011, the previous non-election year."
For the first quarter, the firm expects television revenues to be flat and newspaper revenues to be down in the low- to mid-single digits.
SSP is currently trading at $10.00, down $1.35 or 11.89%, on the NYSE.
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