E.W. Scripps says core advertising revenue at its local TV stations increased 3.4% to $157 million in the first quarter of this year.

The company says it brought in more than 1,000 new-to-TV advertisers -- similar to its results in previous periods -- and saw double-digit growth in services and home improvement marketers.

For its national TV networks, Scripps says there was an 8.5% increase in adjusted combined revenue, despite the troubled national advertising climate.

TV media-buying executives say there has been a dramatic slowdown since the start of the year in the scatter markets due to supply-chain issues. Automotive marketers, for example, continue to see lower TV ad spend.

Overall, the nine Scripps Networks saw revenue climb 12% to $239 million. The company says combined results for its networks have shown ratings growth of 5% in total viewers in prime time.

Total first-quarter company revenue grew 4.6% to $566 million.

In addition to higher core advertising, local TV stations' revenue benefitted from higher political ad spend (at $5.8 million versus $1.3 million in the prior year quarter) and retransmission revenue (up 2.5% to $160 million)

Income attributable to the shareholders of Scripps was $9.8 million. In the prior-year quarter, there was a loss of $8.1 million from continuing operations attributable to the shareholders.

Mid-day Friday trading of E.W. Scripps stock was down 4% to $16.52.