Nexstar Posts Strong Revs, Stock Price Dips

Nexstar Media Group reported double-digit percentage fourth-quarter revenue hikes, benefitting from higher retransmission fees and political revenues.

But unlike other TV station groups, its stock fell in early Tuesday trading -- down 2% to $68.55. Total quarterly revenue grew 22.8% to $309.9 million; net income from operations grew 37% to $92.4 million.

Nexstar posted 22% rise in retransmission revenue from pay TV providers to $100.3 million. Political advertising revenue was $60 million versus $8 million a year before.

As with other TV station groups, core advertising -- non-political advertising -- suffered, sinking 4.2% to $138.1 million. This came from a 12.5% drop in national spot advertising to $36.2 million and a 0.8% fall from local spot advertising to $101.9 million.

Digital ad revenue was also down 12.1% to $25.7 million -- also against some industry trends for TV station groups. Nexstar says this is because of a “record programmatic advertising volume in the year ago period [which] created a challenging year-over-year comparison.”

Nexstar now has 171 stations in 100 U.S. markets reaching 39% of all U.S. TV households.

The company's long-protracted $4.6 billion purchase of Media General closed in mid-January. After that transaction, it promoted Tim Busch to be president of Nexstar Broadcasting. He had been EVP/Co-COO.

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