It is likely that quite a few RBR-TVBR readers who are Belo Corporation employees still own A.H. Belo shares from when the newspaper group was spun off in 2008, leaving Belo Corp. as a pure-play TV company. The newspaper business is still trying to find a bottom to its advertising decline.
For A.H. Belo, which owns four daily newspapers – the largest being The Dallas Morning News – Q1 revenues declined 7% to $104.8 million. Excluding the impact of advertising from the Super Bowl being in Dallas during Q1 of 2011, total revenues were down 5%.
Advertising revenues were down 12% to $60.1 million, with the Providence Journal showing the smallest decrease.
There was some good news, though. Operating expenses were reduced, so adjusted EBITDA improved 36% to $6.1 million. The net loss for A.H. Belo in Q1 was 18 cents per share, compared to a net loss of 31 cents a year earlier.
The story was quite different for the other Belo – the TV company. It had an up quarter, as reported last week by RBR-TVBR.
