Revenues were up for Tribune Media in the first quarter of 2015 despite a loss in television advertising revenue. But expenses were also up, forcing the company to spill some red ink on its Q1 balance sheet.
President/CEO Peter Liguori says the company remains on track to achieve full-year guidance.
Consolidated revenue was up 6% to $472.7M, in digital and retransmission consent gains.
Consolidated operating profit also gained, jumping from $50.3M to $60.9M.
However, EBITDA fell 9% to $$129M, due to increased reverse comp fees, digital capex and acquisition costs, among other things.
“We generated top-line line growth in the first quarter and made progress against many of our key strategic objectives,” said Peter Liguori, Tribune Media’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “First, we grew revenue market share across our stations, including, most importantly, our four largest markets. WGN America successfully continued its conversion from a superstation to a cable network and the network is telecast as a cable entity to 60% of our subscriber base, while generating a 52% increase in carriage revenues this quarter. Finally, the on-going expansion of our Digital and Data business yielded increased revenue and Adjusted EBITDA growth.”
Liguori continued, “Our results in the first quarter and our outlook for the remainder of the year give us confidence that we are on track to achieve our revenue and Adjusted EBITDA guidance for the full year.”
The company is expecting to produce solid results during the remainder of 2015 and to take off when political kicks in during 2016.
