• by Wayne Friedman , January 11, 2008

Local television has cause for hope. Station revenues sank just over 1% to $22.2 billion in 2007--but should climb 11% in 2008 because of higher political ad dollars, according to the Chantilly, Va.-based financial advisory service, BIA Financial Network.

BIA says the revenue gain in 2008 will mean a 10-year high for TV station advertising revenue.

Future years will show more of a yo-yo effect. BIA projects a 3.0% decline in 2009; an 8% gain in 2010, and a 1.4% decline in 2011. TV station advertising revenues are on a two-year cycle, since they see Olympic advertising and political advertising revenue every other year.

BIA said big growing markets in 2007 included Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, South Carolina, Maine, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada, and southern California. All states witnessed increases of 12% of more.

The lower revenue gains of between 6% and 8% were seen in Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Utah, and parts of Montana, North Dakota, Nevada, Kansas, Oklahoma, Michigan and Alabama.

BIA also reported 2007 sales of 294 stations for an estimated $4.6 billion, compared with 202 sold in 2006 for $18.1 billion. A large piece of the 2006 total was the sale of Univision stations (as part of the network deal) and four NBC stations.

The top station transaction in 2007 was News Corp.'s sale of eight television stations in markets that included Cleveland, Denver, St. Louis, Kansas City and Milwaukee. The second-largest transaction of the year was Lincoln Financial Media's sale of three stations in Charlotte, NC, Richmond, VA, and Charleston, SC to Raycom Media for $583 million.