Revenues down 5.2% in August for Tribune

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Radio/Entertainment revenues gained 0.9%, with credit for that given to Tribune Entertainment, but otherwise August was a down month for Tribune Company. Television revenues were down 4.6% and newspaper ad revenues dropped 7.2%. All in all, company revenues fell 5.2% to 391.2 million.
Since Tribune doesn’t break out its lone radio station, WGN-AM Chicago, we don’t know how it did in August, but it apparently didn’t have much impact on the larger numbers. For the Radio/Entertainment unit, Tribune said a decline in revenues from the Chicago Cubs was offset by higher revenues from Tribune Entertainment. Thus, Radio/Entertainment revenues rose 0.9% to 36.6 million.


TV station group revenues declined 4.6% to 83.9 million. That is slightly worse than the minus 4.2% showing year-to-date.

Those two units combined constitute the Broadcasting & Entertainment division, where August revenues were down 3% to 120.5 million.

In publishing, the killer this year has been classified advertising, down 16.6% year-to-date and off 20.1% in August to 71.8 million. Otherwise, newspaper ad sales improved for Tribune in August. National gained 2.8% to 46.7 million and retail inched up 0.6% to 91.7 million. Newspaper advertising overall declined 7.2% to 210.1 million. Circulation was also down, so total newspaper revenues declined 6.1% to 270.6 million.