Scripps TV Revenue Up 3% In 2nd Quarter

In the second quarter of the this year, revenue for the E.W. Scripps’ TV station group rose 3% over the same period last year, the company said in reporting its second-quarter earnings this morning.

Excluding political advertising in both years, TV revenue was up 8.1%

“Our television strategy, anchored by continuing investment in high-quality local news programming, is resulting in strong audience gains and revenue growth,” CEO Rich Boehne said in a statement.

“The general recovery in television advertising has certainly helped, but we’re setting our stations apart and getting more than our fair share of the increasing demand for advertising by focusing on enterprise journalism, including investigative reporting, that expands local audiences.”

Scripps noted that it received the last of its network compensation from NBC in the second quarter, $220,000. And under terms of new affiliation agreements reached last year, the company is now paying NBC and ABC licensing fees.

Revenue from retransmission consent agreements increased 31% in the quarter to $3.9 million and revenue from digital ventures rose 26% to $2.4 million.

With expenses up 3.3%, the TV group’s profit for the quarter was $13.5 million, up slightly from $13.3 million in the quarter last year.

The modest revenue gain by the TV division was not enough to offset the losses in the larger newspaper division.

Overall, company revenue was down 3% year over year. However, the company was able to shrink is operating loss to $2.2 million. That compares to a $10.5 million loss in the first quarter of this year and a $3.2 million loss in the second quarter of 2010.

Read the company’s report here.