PROVIDENCE – Multimedia company LIN TV Corp. (NYSE: TVL) today posted a third-quarter profit of $10.02 million, a 578-percent increase from the year-ago $1.73 million, on revenue that grew 5.4 percent to $98.80 million. Earnings per diluted common share rose to 20 cents from the 2007 third quarter’s gain of 3 cents, or 5 cents excluding discontinued operations.
The company – which yesterday announced a new retransmission deal with Time Warner Cable Inc., ending a blackout of cable rebroadcasts in many LIN markets that began Oct. 2 (READ MORE) – is the owner of 29 television stations, including the local WPRI-TV CBS Channel 12 and WNAC-TV Fox Channel 64.
“We are pleased to deliver strong results in the third quarter of 2008,” President and CEO Vincent L. Sadusky said in a statement today.
“Our leading news stations capitalized on significant political spending in a number of our markets and focused on maximizing digital revenue growth,” he said. “Despite a challenging economic environment, operating income grew 39 percent and net revenue grew 5 percent versus the prior year.”
Broadcast revenue was dominated by political ads, which accounted for 11 percent of total advertising sales during the period. LIN said. Political advertising sales grew to $11.4 million – or nearly nine times the year-ago period’s $1.3 million (READ MORE) – as the presidential contest kicked into high gear.
But nonpolitical ad sales fell 8 percent compared with the 2007 third quarter, due to “general economic pressures,” the company said. Local advertising sales fell 3 percent year-over-year, to 60 percent of total broadcast advertising sales, while national advertising sales fell 15 percent, to 29 percent of the broadcast ads.
Meanwhile, digital and interactive revenue continued to grow. Retransmission consent fees rose 91 percent compared with a year ago, boosted by the analog and digital rebroadcast accord LIN reached in July with Charter Communications Inc. (READ MORE) And Internet advertising sales and other interactive revenue grew 81 percent as the company’s Web sites saw third-quarter page views increase 35 percent to 134.5 million while the number of unique visitors rose 38 percent to 16 million.
“Also in the third quarter, we reduced debt by $23 million, further strengthening our balance sheet,” Sadusky noted. The company paid down $7.5 million in principal on its term loans and paid $15 million on its revolving-loan balances during the period, bringing total debt outstanding to $760.8 million on Sept. 30.
“We remain focused on our cost-discipline program and initiatives that drive bottom-line growth, including securing retransmission consent fees and building our new media business,” the CEO said.
Going forward, LIN “currently expects that fourth quarter 2008 net revenues will decrease in the range of 6.0 percent to 9.0 percent (or $6.5 million to $9.8 million) compared to reported net revenue of $108.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2007,” the company said.
LIN TV Corp. (NYSE: TVL) is a television and digital-media company that owns or operates 29 television stations, plus their associated Web sites, in 17 mid-sized U.S. markets. Its stations include WNAC Channel 64 (Fox) and WPRI Channel 12 (CBS) in the Providence market; WWLP (NBC) in Springfield, Mass.; and WTNY (ABC) and WCTX (MyNetworkTV) in the Hartford-New Haven region. Additional information is available at www.lintv.com.
