Tegna 3Q Media Segment Rev Climbs 23%

Tegna this morning released third quarter results that included Media Segment revenues that were up 23.4% in the quarter to $502 million, driven by a record $55.9 million in advertising related to the Summer Olympic Games, substantially higher retransmission revenues, a $32.0 million increase in politically related advertising and the impact of growth initiatives.

Media Segment 3Q revenue broken down by category:

• Core (local and national) was up 11.2% to $283 million.
• Political grew from $6 million to $38 million.
• Retrans increased 31.8% to $144 million.
• Online rose 12.2% to $33 million.

Media Segment operating expenses totaled $280.6 million compared to $247.9 million in the third quarter of 2015. The increase was due primarily to higher programming fees and continued investment in growth initiatives. Operating income grew 39.4% from the third quarter in 2015 and totaled $221 million. 

Digital Segment 3Q revenue was up 2.1% to $359 million, reflecting $12.2 million in revenue growth at Cars.com and a $5.4 million revenue increase at CareerBuilder offset, in part, by the impact of the sale of our PointRoll business in November 2015.

Gracia Martore, president-CEO, said: “We are very proud of the significant progress we made on all fronts this quarter, which culminated in non-GAAP earnings per share growth of 76 percent, as each of our businesses continues to successfully execute its respective growth strategy.

“At Tegna Media, our strong NBC footprint led to record Summer Olympic advertising revenue in the quarter. We also benefited from higher political revenue and a 32 percent increase in retransmission revenue, continuing the strong retransmission growth trajectory we’ve seen over the last several years. Advertising related to congressional and gubernatorial elections in the quarter was up substantially compared to past presidential election years. However, political advertising did not achieve expectations due primarily to substantially lower than anticipated spending in the presidential election.

“In our Digital Segment, strong results at Cars.com were driven by growth in direct channel revenue as well as the acquisition of DealerRater. CareerBuilder benefited from the acquisitions of Aurico and Workterra augmenting strong product sales as it continues its transition toward SaaS-focused products and services.”

Martore continued: “We continue to be on track to complete the spin-off of Cars.com in the first half of 2017, and we are making progress on the strategic review process for CareerBuilder, which is now well underway. As we continue down both of these paths, we remain as sharply focused as ever on growing and innovating across all of our businesses to ensure that we remain at the leading edge of the digital and media landscapes as we close out the year and enter 2017.”

The company as a whole reported revenue of $860.3 million, up from $757.5 million in the year-ago quarter.

Read the company’s report here.