RICHMOND, Va. – Multimedia company Media General Inc. (NYSE: MEG), the parent of WJAR-NBC Channel 10 in Providence, today posted third-quarter revenue of $230.3 million, a decline of 4.5-percent decline from the year-ago period.
The company’s third third-quarter profit was $2.5 million or 11 cents per diluted share, a 67.5-percent decline from the year-ago profit from continuing operations of $7.7 million or 33 cents per share. Including income from discontinued operations, relating to CBS television stations sold in 2006, the company’s 2006 third-quarter profit was $20.6 million or 87 cents per diluted share, or nearly eight times its profit in the quarter just ended.
The results “primarily reflected lower Broadcast and Publishing Division profits, a loss from our share of SP Newsprint, and a write-down of an investment in a company that produces interactive entertainment,” Marshall N. Morton, Media General’s president and CEO, said in a statement this morning.
“On the other hand, we aggressively managed expenses, and total operating costs decreased 4.6 percent from last year. Expenses for health care, retirement-related plans and performance-based incentive compensation were down significantly from last year.
“Publishing Division expenses declined 7.5 percent, excluding severance costs related to process re-engineering at several newspapers,” helping “to mitigate the impact of a challenging advertising environment, especially in Tampa,” he continued.
The Broadcast Division’s third-quarter profit fell 26.2 percent to $16.2 million on revenue that fell 3.5 percent to $91 million. “Although Broadcast Division national and local time-sales grew, we were unable to fully replace $11.5 million of political revenues in last year’s third quarter,” Morton said.
“The Interactive Media Division generated record quarterly revenues of $9.7 million,” a 31.9-percent increase from the year-ago period, “through strong growth in the advergaming business as well as local and national/regional advertising,” he said. “We are making excellent progress with our Yahoo! HotJobs partnership.”
Interactive Media lost $3.4 million for the quarter, or $1.1 million excluding a one-time write-down, as page views rose 7.7 percent year-over-year and visitor sessions 10 percent, excluding Web sites associated with the NBC stations the company acquired in March 2006.
Next year “will be a much stronger year,” Media General predicted, citing anticipated political and Olympic revenue, “synergies” realized at the four new NBC stations, other cost reductions this year, new products and services, and online growth.
The company said it has no plans to separate its newspaper and broadcast businesses. “Customers and shareholders alike benefit from the company’s focus on being the local multimedia leader in strong growth markets, principally in the Southeast,” it said.
Media General Inc. (NYSE: MEG) is the owner of 23 network TV television stations – four of which, including WJAR-NBC Channel 10 in Providence, it bought in March 2006 from NBC Universal – plus more than 125 newspapers and other publications, mostly in the Southeast. Additional information is available at www.mediageneral.com.
