• by Wayne Friedman , April 9, 2013

Retrans revenues for TV stations continue to be a growing piece of the overall revenue business.

BIA/Kelsey expects retrans dollars to rise to nearly 10% of TV stations' overall revenue share by 2017. This would be up from the 6.5% average the TV station consultant says existed in 2012.

The TV group says gross retrans dollars will hit $4.69 billion in 2017, up from $2.23 billion in 2012. Net retrans dollars (the money that remains after fees given to their respective TV networks) will grow to $2.35 billion from $1.45 billion.

"Retransmission fees have become a noticeable revenue stream for local television stations, but are also a much-needed revenue source to support their investments in news and local programming," stated Mark Fratrik, vice president and chief economist, BIA/Kelsey.

BIA/Kelsey says its forecasts came from data of television homes, cable penetration rates, fees local stations are receiving from cable and satellite delivery systems, fees that local stations are paying parent networks for their share of these revenues, and money received by non-top four network affiliates, including CW, MY and Univision.