Skyrocketing political income helped Gray to its largest Q3 revenue result in its history, but it was not the only positive result for the company. The $102.9M it brought in represented a 36% gain over Q3 2011.
Retransmission consent, local advertising, national advertising and internet income were all posted in black ink as well. The Summer Olympics also had a beneficial effect for the company.
Gray offered the following highlights from its balance sheet:
* Local advertising revenue increased $2.0 million, or 4%, to $46.7 million.
* National advertising revenue increased $0.6 million, or 4%, to $14.3 million.
* Internet advertising revenue increased $1.2 million, or 22%, to $6.4 million.
* Political advertising revenue increased $19.3 million, or 367%, to $24.5 million.
* Retransmission consent revenue increased $3.4 million, or 65%, to $8.5 million.
* Other revenue increased $0.1 million, or 4%, to $1.9 million.
* Consulting revenue from our agreement with Young remained at $0.6 million in the third quarter of 2012 (the agreement with Young expires at year’s end).
Gray said that the increases in its internet revenue are partially attributable to general improvement in the US economy, but added that it is still working to develop its online sales efforts and continue to build it as a revenue stream.
Of its top five non-political advertising categories, three were up: automotive (+25%), medical (+17%) and appliances (+12%); and two were down: restaurant (-13%) and communications (-4%).
Looking ahead to Q4, Gray expects the last round of political advertising to displace non-political local and national advertisers and reduce income from those categories by about 2% and 5%-6% respectively. One the other hand, it is looking for a gain of about 11%-12% from its internet operations and a 71% increase in retransmission consent income.
