• by Wayne Friedman , February 19, 2016

Crown Media Holdings continues to outperform the marketplace in terms of advertising performance -- posting high double-digit percentage revenue gains for the its fourth-quarter reporting period.

Crown Media says it posted a 21% gain in advertising revenue quarter-over-quarter to $134.1 million. Other bigger TV-media companies have seen 5% to 7% ad growth in recent quarters.

During the quarter, Crown Media also had an 8% hike in affiliate revenue to $22.0 million. Crown Media posted an 18% gain for the full year to $386.2 million; distribution fees were up 3% to $85.3 million.

Some of its strong results have resulted from adding 5.1 million subscribers for Hallmark Channel and 6.7 million for Hallmark Movies & Mysteries during the year.

Crown Media witnessed more than a threefold rise in content revenue sales to $7.2 million. Revenues from deals with subscription VOD services added $5 million during the year.

Crown Media increased marketing expenses $1.5 million during the fourth quarter -- to support its big efforts around end-of-the-year holiday programming. Marketing expenses rose to $7.8 million from $6.2 million for 2015.

Fourth-quarter revenue had 18% gain to $158.8 million; 2015 revenue was up 15% to $478.7 million.

Net income for the fourth quarter was down to $38.9 million from $51.6 million. Some of this was due to higher programming costs, which increased 66% to $55.7 million during the period.