• by Wayne Friedman , November 6, 2019

Nexstar Media Group -- now the largest TV station group in the U.S. -- says its TV stations have seen third-quarter core advertising revenue improvements.

The company says it has seen “overall improvements in core television ad trends” and that the results include a 12-day contribution from its acquisition of Tribune Media TV stations. Nexstar completed its purchase of Tribune Media in mid-September.

Overall local and national spot revenue to Nexstar's stations was up 11.2% to $290.2 million. At the same time, political advertising revenue sank 85% to $10.9 million from $70.1 million.

Last year, virtually all TV station groups witnessed expected high political advertising gains from the midterm elections.

The company said its advertising results saw improvements despite a one-time ad-revenue loss from a blackout of its TV stations at AT&T DirecTV unit due to a contract impasse in the period.

Nexstar saw lower digital advertising revenue during the quarter -- down 16% to $58.1 million. The company says this decline occurred “as we continue to cycle through certain market place changes that occurred earlier this year,” but did not provide details.

Retransmission fees to TV stations were up 3.4% to $294.8 million -- lower than expected due to AT&T’s blackout of its TV stations during the period.

Nexstar posted a 4.2% lower revenue to $663.6 million and a net loss of $5.2 million versus net income $99.8 million.

Nexstar owns or operates 197 television stations in 115 markets -- about 39% of all U.S. television households. The latter figure reflects the FCC’s UHF TV station discount.