• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, December 13, 2006

Political ads may be bad for bipartisanship, but they are great for station coffers. Thanks in part to political ads in the last days before the mid-term elections, revenue at Scripps' TV station group rose 26% in November to $39.6 million, compared to the same month last year. Scripps' Networks cable and satellite properties, including HGTV and Food Network, turned in $96 million in revenue in November--a 17% increase over last year.

However, the company's newspaper holdings--like most other newspaper chains--turned in lackluster November results.

Revenue was essentially flat, falling 0.2% to $61.8 million. The single biggest loss by category was in classified advertising, where newspapers have faced stiff competition from the Internet: classifieds' revenue shrank 6.9% to $15.8 million. National revenue was also down 5.1%.

At many newspaper chains, the loss of print classified revenue has been mitigated somewhat by fast growth in online classified revenue. In recent months, however, the rate of growth in online revenue overall, and classified revenue in particular, has been slowing.

This change is due to a gradual slowdown in both the housing and job markets, reflected in the real-estate and job recruiting categories. Scripps doesn't release online revenue information on a monthly basis.