Sinclair 2Q Media Rev. Rises 20.5% To $606M

Sinclair Broadcast Group today reported that in the three months ended June 30, its media revenues, before barter, increased 20.5% to $606.3 million versus $503.2 million in the second quarter of 2015.

The company’s total revenues increased 20.3% to $666.5 million, versus $554.2 million in the prior year period.

Breaking down the media revenue:

• Political revenues were $16.7 million versus $4.0 million in the second quarter of 2015.

• Revenues from digital offerings increased 28% in the second quarter as compared to the second quarter of 2015.

Operating income was $129.1 million, an increase of 12.9%, versus operating income of $114.3 million in the prior year period.

Net income was $49.4 million, versus net income of $45.8 million in the prior year period.

Diluted earnings per common share were $0.52 as compared to $0.48 in the prior year period, which includes the previously disclosed one-time FCC settlement of $9.3 million which reduced diluted earnings per share by $0.09.

Sinclair President-CEO David Smith said: “As the leading television broadcaster, we continue to deliver financially and operationally. Not only did we exceed our expectations for our key financial metrics during the second quarter, but we also have made significant progress in expanding distribution and content.

“Specifically, we launched Circa, the innovative news and entertainment website aimed at the new generation of news consumers. In just its first week of launch, Circa had over 7 million video views.”

And David Amy, Sinclair’s EVP-COO, said: “We remain confident that we will continue to see robust political advertising as the second quarter 2016 results were at the high end of our guidance range and the first half results exceeded pro forma 2012 same period by 12%. However, given the minimal spending to date by the Trump campaign and his late start in fund raising, we expect to see political spending for the remainder of the election cycle skew slightly more to fourth quarter than in years past but are still expecting a record year. In addition, we are estimating approximately $8 million of incremental revenues on our NBC affiliates from the summer Olympics that begin this month.”

Read the company’s report here.