2010 is continuing to be much better than 2009 for Belo Corporation. Presenting Monday at the Noble Financial Sixth Annual Equity Conference, the pure-play TV group affirmed its guidance that Q2 revenues should be up in the mid-teens.
“Based on current pacing trends, we believe our total spot revenue could approach a mid-teen increase in the second quarter of 2010 compared to the second quarter of 2009, which is consistent with what we stated on our first quarter earnings call. We expect the percentage increase in spot revenue without political in the second quarter of 2010 versus the second quarter of 2009 to be higher than the first quarter increase of 12 percent,” said CFO Carey Hendrickson.
“Political revenue in the second quarter of 2010 is expected to be considerably lower than the $6.3 million generated in the first quarter of 2010. The light political activity in the second quarter is mostly a function of the timing of campaigns in our respective markets. We expect robust political revenue for full-year 2010 with most of this revenue coming in the second half of the year,” Hendrickson added.
He also gave some detail on the recovering automotive advertising category: “Belo’s automotive category was up 45 percent in the first quarter of 2010 versus the first quarter of 2009 and we expect the percentage increase in automotive to finish higher than that in the second quarter.”
