Hit with higher NBC affiliation fees and less political money, Graham Media’s revenue during the first quarter of 2017 dipped 1% to $91.5 million from the previous year, the company reported Wednesday.
That figure includes revenue from two stations Graham acquired for $60 million from Nexstar in January—the CW affiliate WCWJ in Jacksonville, Fla., and WSLS, the NBC affiliate in Roanoke, Va. Without that money, the TV group’s 1Q revenue was down 6%, Graham said.
Graham said the decline was due to a $4.2 million decrease in political advertising and network revenue, offset by a $2.9 million increase in retransmission money. The figure also is impacted by Graham’s Houston (KPRC) and Detroit (WDIV) stations' new affiliate contract with NBC, which took effect Jan. 1 “and resulted in a significant increase in network fees.”
Operating income for the first quarter of 2017 decreased 37% to $26.0 million, from $41.2 million in the same period of 2016, also due to the significantly higher network fees and lower revenues.
(Photo via Pictures of Money's Flickr. Image taken on Sept. 17, 2015 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 9x16 aspect ratio.)
