TV up in down quarter for Washington Post Company

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A big hit for the education division, plus the usual decline for newspaper publishing, made Q2 a tough time for The Washington Post Company. The bright spots from the revenue point of view were television broadcasting and cable TV.


The TV station group, Post-Newsweek Stations (which are really in need of a name change), saw revenues rise 3% in Q2 to $84.9 million. That was attributed to “overall improved advertising demand across many product categories,” the company said it its quarterly release. The Washington Post Company does not hold quarterly conference calls with analysts. Operating income for the television division improved 9% to $32.6 million.

Cable One revenues were basically flat, up nearly $700K to $191.2 million, with growth cited in selling Internet and telephone services. Operating income for cable declined 8% to $40.4 million.

At the Washington Post newspaper, revenues fell 6% to $162.8 million. Print ad revenue fell 12% to $66.6 million. Online advertising revenues for the publishing division fell 13% to $23.4 million. The publishing operating loss improved, slimming to $2.9 million from $14.3 million.

The big declines were in the very large education division, with revenues down 15% to $628.7 million and operating income down 82% to $20.5 million.

For the entire company, revenues fell 10% to $1.07 billion and operating income dropped by more than half to $81.1 million. Net income available for common shares was $5.74 per share, down from $10.00 a year ago.