Revenue from The E.W. Scripps Company’s television stations rose to $152 million in the fourth quarter of 2012, up from $84.7 million in the year-ago quarter. On a same station basis, revenue was up 39%.
Excluding the company’s newly-acquired stations, political advertising totaled $44.1 million for the quarter. The political ads were up significantly compared to the previous election cycle in Q4 2010 ($28.1 million) and the previous Presidential election cycle in Q4 2008 ($26.0 million).
Local advertising was up 11% to $54.9 million, while national advertising was up 12% to $25.9 million. On a same-station basis, local was down 12% and national was down 17% due to displacement caused by a surge in political advertising.
“Investing to expand our television portfolio and to improve our local news programming resulted in an attractive platform for political advertising and the most effective voice for election-year journalism ever staged by Scripps,” president and CEO Rich Boehne said in a statement.