• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, May 12, 2010

Share prices of broadcast station groups shot up Wednesday as Nexstar reported record revenues for the first quarter. Nexstar, which oversees 62 stations in mid-size markets, saw its stock up near 10% in midday trading, while Sinclair and Belo were both flirting with 6%.

At Nexstar, net revenues leaped 24% to $68.6 million in the January-March period. Sinclair had previously reported more than 13% growth in net broadcast revenues, while Belo posted a 16% similar jump.

Along with Spanish-language Entravision, they are the largest publicly traded station groups unaffiliated with the Big Four networks or without large publishing businesses, according to Broadcasting & Cable.

Entravision's share price was also up significantly -- in the 5% range -- in midday trading. Other groups Gray Television (5%), Fisher Communications (9%) and LIN TV (1%) were also up. (Fisher and Entravision also operate radio stations.)

Nexstar's revenue growth was strong for both local and national advertising in the first quarter, up 16% and 22%, respectively. The company did post a $4 million loss.

The net-revenue increase comes after a 13% decline last year. Nexstar's intake is above (by $5 million), where it was during a pre-recession 2008.

As other station groups have noted, auto marketers have begun to spend more, which accounted for much of its growth; the category was up year-over-year by 40%.

On a call, Nexstar CEO Perry Sook said the results "confirm our view that the initial increases in core advertising activity generated in late 2009 are gaining momentum in 2010."

Sook acknowledged that Nexstar was helped by ad dollars from the Super Bowl and Olympics, but said after the events, March was robust. "We think that the revenue growth in our core ad spend is sustainable."

Sook also suggested political dollars should be strong as the year progresses. The company's stations are located where there could be some heavily contested races.

The company derives 74% of its ad dollars from the local market, so improvement there suggests some economic uplift at a grassroots level, although Sook said more was involved.

"We have developed direct relationships with the owners and managers of these businesses in our markets where we operate. We incentivize our local sales teams substantially, based on their ability to develop these new advertiser relationships," Sook said.

Separately, Sook, who has been outspoken in the need to push cable/ satellite/telco TV operators to pay retransmission consent fees, said he favors a model where networks would negotiate collectively on retrans rates and then find a way to portion out the bounty.

"I continue to maintain that the best outcome long-term would be for the networks to negotiate with the MVPDs (multichannel video providers) on behalf of their affiliate body, then develop a framework for sharing that incremental revenue that's created in the process," he said.