• by Wayne Friedman , July 17, 2006

TV advertising revenues continue to hurt media companies' financial results. Net profit at General Electric's NBC Universal slipped 10 percent in the second quarter to $882 million, from $979 million a year ago. The network's struggles continue to stem from low ad revenues inked in deals at the June/July 2005 upfront market, when revenues dropped some $900 million versus 2004.

In addition, the scatter markets--quarter-by-quarter selling of advertising time--continued to be weak for most networks, including NBC. For the second year in a row, NBC ended in fourth place among broadcasting networks in the key 18-49 demo. General Electric blamed NBC for GE's overall second-quarter results: Net profits at the parent company rose only 4 percent.

Media General, which owns TV stations and newspapers, saw its broadcast profits for the second quarter decrease 4.1 percent to $20.2 million. Broadcast total revenues inched up 2.4 percent or $1.7 million to $74.3 million--thanks to strong political advertising revenues of $4.1 million, up from last year's $515,000 in the same period. National TV spot advertising sales--those sales from the major national TV rep companies--slipped 4.3 percent or $1.1 million. Fast food, entertainment, and home-improvement advertising were down; telecommunications advertising went up.

Local TV advertising sales--sales from Media General's own sales staff, fell less--down 0.7 percent or $350,000 from lower automotive and fast-food advertising. Telecommunications advertising also climbed in this ad category for the company.

Earlier last week, The Tribune Company reported lower results stemming from weak TV advertising sales.