Tribune Co. Reports 3Q Broadcast Revenue Down 6 Percent

Media company Tribune Co. swung to a third-quarter profit, as the year-earlier period was weighed down by a larger reorganization charge, masking another drop in revenue, according to Marketwatch.

The results come four months after Tribune said it would spin off its publishing assets into a separate company and focus more on its profitable broadcast TV business, becoming the latest in a string of media companies to make such a move.

Tribune emerged from a four-year bankruptcy stay at the end of last year, and it named television veteran Peter Liguori as its chief executive in a signal to the industry that it sees its future in television.

Overall, Tribune reported a profit of $49.8 million, compared with a year-earlier loss of $30.6 million.

• Publishing revenue totaled $446.4 million, down 3.9% from the prior year, mostly due to a $13 million reduction in print newspaper advertising.
• Broadcasting revenue fell 6% to $248.2 million, primarily due to a $9 million decrease in advertising revenue and a reduction in the estimated value of barter programming.

The largest declines in advertising revenue were at WGN-TV in Chicago, WDCW-TV in Washington D.C., WPIX-TV in New York and WGN-AM radio in Chicago -- due to weaker overall markets, lower ratings in certain time periods in New York and Washington, D.C., and significantly lower ratings for baseball weighing on revenue at both WGN-TV and WGN-AM.

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