• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, August 8, 2005

As with several other major publishers, online revenue at The Washington Post Company outperformed print in the second quarter of this year, according to its earnings report released Friday. Last month, both The New York Times Company and the Dow Jones Company reported a disproportionately strong quarter for online revenue.

Overall, net income at The Washington Post Company declined 7 percent over the quarter from $84.9 million a year ago, to $78.8 million.

Newspaper publishing, which includes online, managed a 1 percent revenue gain--reaching $236.3 million from $234 million last year. Year-over-year division operating income, however, decreased 28 percent, from $37.7 million to $27 million.

Online revenue rose 21 percent in the second quarter year-over-year from $15.4 million to $18.7 million, while it rose 24 percent for the first half of the year to $35.7 million from $28.8 million during the same period last year.

Local and national online advertising revenues grew 36 percent and 38 percent, respectively, year-over-year. Online classified advertising revenue on washingtonpost.com increased 16 percent in the second quarter of 2005 and 20 percent for the first six months of 2005. Magazine revenue advanced 8 percent to $97.9 million, while revenue from TV broadcasting was down 2 percent to $88.4--which the company attributed to the absence of political ads in the second quarter. Meanwhile, its cable television service generated quarterly revenue of $129.1 million--a gain of 2 percent from last year.

Print circulation at The Post was down 4 percent for daily papers, and 3.5 percent for its Sunday edition.

The education division, which operates the Kaplan test-preparation service, helped buoy the company, experiencing revenue growth of 25 percent to $345.8 million.