• by Wayne Friedman , January 7, 2021

Record political advertising was recorded by Tegna, a major TV station group, in the fourth quarter, sending overall revenue soaring 34% to 35% over the year-ago period, according to company preliminary estimates.

Tegna's stock closed up 9% to $15.45 on Wednesday.

Revenue for the last quarter of 2020 is projected to reach $932 million to $937 million. In addition to higher political revenue, Tegna benefited from subscription and retransmission revenues, as well as revenues from new TV station acquisitions that were occurred in 2019.

Tegna’s political advertising revenue is projected to amount to $264 million, including $50 million of revenue from the Georgia Senate runoff elections.

Analysts had projected that U.S. TV stations would gain record revenues from political advertising in 2020. Kantar had estimated broadcast TV to reach $3.5 billion in political advertising for 2020.

Tegna’s OTT advertising business unit, Premion, is projected to grow 40% in 2020 revenues to more than $145 million.

Net income is expected to soar by 193% to 199% to $246 million to $251 million in the period.

For the year overall, Tegna expects 2020 revenue to climb 27% to 28% to around $2.93 billion to $2.94 billion; net income expected to get to climb 69% to 71% to $484 million to $490 million.

Tegna says retransmission/subscription revenues were higher having “repriced approximately 35% of its subscribers” of its stations on the four major TV broadcast networks. Next year it expects subscription revenue to see a mid-to high teens percentage climb.