That was all due to the lack of political revenues, with local and national both up double digits in November, excluding political. Meanwhile, newspaper ad revenues were also down double digits, and that wasn’t related to the election cycle.
Saying the company was “heavily impacted by an 11.8 million reduction in political revenues from last year,” Media General reported November 2007 total revenues of 80.3 million, a decrease of 12.5%.
Broadcast division revenues declined 19.9% to 33.3 million, with gross time sales down 18.3%. Excluding political, local rose 11.7% and national 14.3%.
"The near 12 million decrease in Political revenues at our television stations, partially offset by double-digit increases in Local and National time sales, was the primary cause of our November revenues decline," said Marshall N. Morton, president and chief executive officer. "With the addition of four new NBC stations in 2006, we generated 13.2 million in Political advertising last November compared with 1.4 million this year, which was generated by spending from Presidential campaigns in South Carolina and Florida, state and local government races in a majority of our markets, and issue spending in a number of states,” he noted.
Publishing Division revenues decreased 8.9% to 44.6 million, with classified suffering the most. Interactive Media Division revenues rose 34.8% to 3.0 million.
