Revenue for the Scripps station group was $111.4 million in the second quarter of 2013, down $5.7 million from the year-ago quarter. An expected decline in political advertising lead to the loss in revenue. Excluding political advertising, the company’s television revenues increased 4.5%
Local and national advertising revenues were up 1.5% and 3.3%, respectively, in the second quarter. Retransmission revenue was up 34%, and digital revenue was up 14%. Expenses for the station group were down 1.6% due to lower syndicated programming costs, and profit in the television division also declined from $34.9 million in the second quarter of 2012 to $30.5 million this year.
“Although masked by the near absence of political advertising in 2013, the off year for elections, our core television revenues showed good growth on the strength of expanding local audiences,” Scripps chairman, president and CEO Rich Boehne said in a statement.