• by Wayne Friedman , May 11, 2011

Nexstar Broadcasting Group had steady but small advertising gains in its first-quarter results.

The TV station group witnessed local advertising revenue increasing 3.7% to $43.3 million, while national advertising was up 2.1% to $15.1 million. The company, like other TV station groups, says it continued to benefit from double-digit percentage gains in automotive advertising.

Better results were grabbed from retrans and digital business -- with retrans revenues up 15.6% to $8.5 million and its e-Media operations 23.8% higher to $3.7 million.

As with other TV station groups, Nexstar took a big hit on political advertising -- down to $560,000, from $3.2 million in the first quarter of 2010. Network compensation was also off 20.9% to $841,000. Perry A. Sook, chairman, president and CEO of Nexstar, stated: "Our strategies for building new-to-television local direct billings, combined with the ongoing advertising rebound, drove Nexstar's sixth consecutive quarter of core television advertising revenue growth."

Overall, Nexstar said revenues climbed 1.9% to $69,945,000. But net income was down 6.7% to $9,166,000. The lack of political advertising was compounded by the absence of Olympic TV advertising, which benefited exstar a year ago.