• by Wayne Friedman , August 11, 2009

The E.W. Scripps Co.'s second-quarter television revenue showed little sign of improvement -- but reported a profit versus a first-quarter loss.

  Company results showed a 24% decline in revenue to $61.1 million, coming from lower local spot and national spot revenue -- a 26% drop to $37.3 million and a 29% fall to $16.9 million, respectively. Political advertising sank to $333,000 from $1.6 million in the comparable 2008 period.

As has been the case for many TV station groups, these lower numbers were attributed to less advertising in automotive, financial services, and retail categories.

More positive results came from a category that included cable retransmission fees and grew 41% to $6.5 million. Scripps said it incurred 14% higher programming costs from syndicated shows. But the company said these costs were more than offset by reduced employee costs and expenses for production and distribution. All this boosted TV results from a segment loss in the first quarter of 2009, to a net profit of $4.8 million in the second quarter. Still, these results were about 75% less than the $18.3 million in profit earned during the second quarter of 2008.

The company's newspaper segment pretty much followed the television's division trend -- falling 22% to $113 million, with advertising revenue down 29% to $79.4 million. Revenue from online-only advertising sales did climb 19% to $3.6 million.

Overall, the company eked out $2.3 million in net income as compared to a net loss of $506.8 million in the second quarter of 2008. Revenue declined 23% to $194 million.