Meredith Station Quarterly Rev. Climbs 39%

Meredith Corp. today reported that its station group’s fiscal first quarter revenue increased 39.4% to $214.4 million.

The station group saw operating profit grow 67% to $67.5 million and adjusted EBITDA increase 58.2% to $77.4 million.

The group revenue comprised:

• $36.1 million from political advertising, up from $1.4 million a year earlier.
• The group’s core (non-political) advertising revenues were up 17% to $102.8 million, including the addition of MNI Targeted Media.
• Consumer-related revenue increased 15.7% from $63.3 million to $73.3 million, due to growth in retransmission fees from cable and satellite television operators. These increases were partially offset by higher payments to affiliated networks.
• Other revenues grew from $1.3 million to $2.2.

The company as a whole reported quarterly total revenue of $757 million, up over 90%. Earnings from continuing operations were $16 million, compared to $33 million in the year-ago quarter.

Meredith Corp. President-CEO Tom Harty said: “We are off to a strong start in fiscal 2019, delivering results that exceeded expectations. Performance was driven by record demand for political advertising in our Local Media Group, and improved sequential comparable print advertising performance along with strong expense discipline in our National Media Group. As a result, we delivered significantly improved year-over-year adjusted EBITDA and margins, which we expect will continue through fiscal 2019.

“Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter, we see continued record political advertising in our Local Media Group and continued improving advertising performance in our National Media Group,” Harty added. “We continue to expect to achieve our goals of reducing debt by $1 billion by the end of fiscal 2019 and generating $1 billion of adjusted EBITDA in fiscal 2020, meaningfully contributing to total shareholder return.”

Read the company’s report here.