• by Wayne Friedman , July 18, 2008

TV station and newspaper publisher Media General continues to feel the pinch of weak national and local advertising revenues.

For its second-quarter earnings, Media General's broadcasting profits fell 17% to $14.9 million. While national and local spot dollars were weak, the company said it gained from improved political advertising dollars, rising to $2.8 million versus $745,000 during the same period of a year ago.

Overall, broadcast revenues fell 5.7%, with advertising sales dropping 5% or $4.5 million. Lower-spending advertising categories include furniture store and entertainment marketers. This was partially offset by higher automotive and fast-food advertising.

While the news was bad enough for its broadcasting division, the company's publishing unit took the biggest hit--dropping just under 70% of its earnings from the quarter of the year before to $6.8 million. Total revenues fell 14.7%, and newspaper advertising revenues declined 17.1%.

Classified advertising revenues were at $14.1 million, down 29.5%--mostly from Media General troubling Florida markets. Retail advertising revenues were off $3.4 million, down 6.3%--also because of Florida, particularly its Tampa Tribune newspaper operations.

Media General's interactive division had a loss of $656,000 against a profit of $359,000 in the 2007 quarter. Revenues were at $10.6 million, up 13.7%, all from a 45.7% increase in local advertising and revenues from DealTaker.com, which Media General acquired in March. Media General's partnership with Yahoo!HotJobs took in $2 million in revenues in the quarter. Classified revenues dropped 4%.