Good First Quarter For Group Owners

Publicly traded TV station groups posted a “respectable” revenue growth of 1.2% in the first quarter on this year, according to M.C. Alcamo & Co., a New York-based investment bank.

“After four consecutive quarters of double-digit growth, the U.S. broadcast industry coasted positively into a soft landing in Q1,” said Alcamo President Michael Alcamo.

“The industry reported a respectable revenue growth rate of 1.2% over the first quarter in 2010, which itself had shown revenue growth of 15.3% from Q1 2009.”

Overall, EBITDA margins remained firm, the Alcamo analysis found. The industry-wide EBITDA margin softened only slightly, by 2.7 points, from 33.9% to 31.2%. 

The seven pure-play TV broadcast companies — Belo, Entravision, Fisher, Gray, LIN, Nexstar and Sinclair — did slightly better than the TV broadcast segments of eight multimedia companies — Gannett, Journal Communications, Meredith, Media General, McGraw-Hill, Saga, E.W. Scripps and Washington Post.

While the pure plays grew 2.2%, the broadcast segments of the multimedia companies were down 0.1%. Combining the results of the two sectors yields the 1.2% gain.

Because 2011 is an off political years with relatively few elections and the attendant political advertisers, most broadcasters expect their revenue to be off in the mid-single digits this year.

But Alcamo said that the first quarter revenue benefited from better- than-expected political advertising. “Issue advertising is starting to become a relatively active category even in non-election years.”

Among the pure plays, Fisher led the revenue gainers, posting growth of 7.3%. The runners up: Sinclair 7.2% and Entravision, 2.3%. LIN and Gray were down 1%, while Belo was down 2%.

Among the broadcast segments of the multimedia companies, McGraw Hill was the winner, with revenue growth of 10.2%. Media General (down 2.6%), Gannett (down 2.2%), Washington Post (down 1.8%) and Journal Communications (down 1.2%) were the revenue losers.