• by Wayne Friedman , August 28, 2018

In July, cable TV news networks continued to show soaring revenue gains. But for the first time this year, broadcast networks posted advertising revenue improvement.

Broadcast TV news shows for July on ABC, NBC and CBS saw ad revenue grow by 8%, according to Standard Media Index. At the same time, the five main cable news networks — CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, HLN and Fox News Channel — posted 18% higher results in national advertising revenue in July.

For the month, MSNBC grew the most -- 44% -- over the same period a year before. Fox was up 10%, CNN, 8%. Year to date, MSNBC, is 58% higher in ad revenue; CNN, 14%, and Fox 8%.

Among TV network groups, Comcast continued to have the biggest share of ad dollars for news, at 35%. Fox, Walt Disney and Time Warner each had a 16% share, while CBS was at 8%.

Broadcast entertainment TV revenue grew 3% in July, with prime-time original programming up 8%, among NBC, ABC and Fox.

Comcast Corp. was the largest TV network group in entertainment ad revenue in terms of share, with 19%. Discovery (including Scripps Network Interactive) was at 17%, followed by Viacom at 14%, Time Warner with 11%; CBS at 8%; Walt Disney with 8%; A&E at 7% and 21st Century Fox with 5%. The top 12 media owners account for 98% of ad revenue.

SMI’s data comes from five of the seven major media agency groups, gleaned from raw invoices, actual dollar amounts spent on each media buy.

These agencies make up 70% of the national TV market. SMI models out the remaining 30% using occurrence data.