• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, July 3, 2008

On its second day as a stand-alone publicly traded entity, the company with the Scripps cable networks again traded up, while other media stocks struggled. Scripps Networks Interactive rose nearly 5% in the $42 range in midday trading, after rising Tuesday as well--its first day after splitting from the E.W. Scripps Co.

 

The Food Network and HGTV operator was up Wednesday as five companies with significant holdings in ad-supported cable--Viacom, Time Warner, News Corp., Disney and Discovery Holding Co.--all were trading down, albeit slightly. So was General Electric, where NBC Universal makes up a small portion.

Cable networks are considered a growth business, and the smaller SNI would appear to have an advantage versus those large companies, since its five networks make up the vast majority of its revenues. The others have more diverse portfolios. SNI's success--which includes "The Rachael Ray Show"--over its first two days of trading could bode well for Discovery, which is expected to become a separate publicly traded company soon. Discovery's main business is its fleet of cable networks.

Meanwhile, E.W. Scripps--which SNI split from--saw its shares fall in the 4% range to $2.90. The company, with primary operations in the slow-growth newspaper and local TV stations areas, could continue to struggle.

SNI has a potential advantage in that none of the programming on its channels would appear to be affected by any coming actors' strike. That also applies to Discovery. The other major media companies could experience a slowdown in production.