Nexstar's Revs Dip, But Retrains, Digital Grows

Lower political and general advertising weakness sunk Nexstar Broadcasting Group's revenue in the third quarter -- but it trimmed net losses from a year ago.

Nexstar took in $60.4 million in net revenue, a 14.1% decline from the same quarter in 2008. Nexstar also landed with an $18.4 million net loss versus a $45.3 million net loss in the third quarter 2008. Political revenues dropped $6.8 million in the period.

Perry Sook, chairman, president and CEO of Nexstar, did say -- as other broadcast executives have -- that the ad economy is slowly improving. "While it is difficult to predict the pace of an economic recovery, we are seeing improvements in core advertising activity this fall," he said.

The company did see growth in the period of two of its long-term potential money generators: retransmission fees and digital revenues. Retransmission consent revenues rose 27.4% to $7.9 million, while its digital revenues rose 8.8% to $3.0 million.

Concerning the growing concern of broadcast stations sharing retransmission fees with networks, Sook reiterated his point of view: He is against any effort by the networks to take away those revenues.

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Sook pointed out that it is local programming -- not network programming -- that brings a TV station most of its value. As such, he is against networks tapping into this revenue stream.

However, he noted that if networks were able to negotiate better overall retransmission deals -- as a large entity of affiliates and owned-and-operated stations -- then he would consider a 50-50 split of those fees.

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