More positive news for local television stations in a recent report by the Wall Street Journal. The advertising market started to turn around in the fourth quarter of 2009 and now the projections are positive for 2010.
News Corp.'s local TV station group, which was hit particularly hard by the recession, posted a 6% revenue gain for the quarter after six consecutive quarters of decline. Murdoch said the business is on track for an 18% to 19% gain in the current quarter.
"But you must remember that we're now beginning to compare with
some very bad quarters last year," said Rupert Murdoch. "And are we down on the boom years of two years ago? Yes, certainly, but our profits are very well up on last year."
Other large owners of local broadcast stations, like The Walt Disney Co. (DIS), CBS Corp. (CBS) and Gannett Co. Inc. (GCI), posted continued revenue declines, citing tough comparisons to the year-ago period when political spending for the presidential election was in force. Many executives predicted that 2010 will reverse this dynamic, with strong political spending for the midterm congressional elections.
On Thursday, CBS reported a 1.7% decline in overall ad revenue for the recent fourth quarter, as further declines at its TV and radio stations, Internet properties and outdoor advertising division offset an 8% increase in ad revenues at its national broadcast network, which remains the most-watched national network in the U.S.
CBS Chief Executive Les Moonves said that, excluding political ad revenue, the company's local TV stations posted an 11% increase in revenue in the fourth quarter, and he noted that in the current quarter, the business is on pace for a revenue gain by a high-teens percentage rate from the same period last year.