• by Wayne Friedman , August 7, 2013

Benefiting from its acquisition of 18 stations, Irving, Texas-based Nexstar Broadcasting climbed over 40% in revenue for its second-quarter earnings results.

Nexstar pulled in $126.2 million from its TV and related businesses. Net income, however, dropped to $6.3 million against $8.8 million in the second quarter of 2012 -- as a result of an expense in its acquisition activity.

Local advertising sales for the bigger group rose 41% to $66.7 million with national advertising revenues up 52% to $28.6 million.

As with most TV station groups, political advertising has dropped this year. Nexstar witnessed a 70% decline to $1.8 million. But retransmission and digital revenues moved strongly in the other direction -- up 63% to $24.9 million for retransmission and 73% higher for digital to $7.7 million. Digital revenue now accounts for 26% of all its revenue.

There are more Nexstar stations to come. It will add in 19 television stations and seven digital sub-channels in 10 markets for $270 million from Communications Corporation of America and White Knight Broadcasting. That will give Nexstar “diversity and scale” of 91 stations in 48 markets, of which 33 will be duopoly markets -- two stations in one market.

Nexstar will also own, operate, program or provide sales 20 related digital multicast signals in 48 markets. Overall, it will reach approximately 13.9% of all U.S. television households from all its TV outlets.

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