Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns Cape Girardeau Fox affiliate KBSI-Fox 23 and operates Paducah's WDKA-My 49 (both of which can be seen in the southwestern and western reaches of the Tri-State), reported its second quarter earnings Wednesday morning.
For the three months ended June 30, Sinclair's broadcast operations took in $220.0 million, an increase of 38.1% versus the $159.4 million brought in during 2Q2011. As with other companies, Sinclair saw a massive spike in political revenue ($11.4 million versus $1.2 million in 2Q2011), as well as automotive (up 16.8%).
On the down side, the company saw its debt load balloon from $1.34 billion at the end of 2Q2011 to $1.7 billion at the end of this year's second three months. However, company leadership expressed confidence that they have Sinclair where it needs to be.
"Second quarter results were excellent, as political advertising spending in the quarter was almost triple our expectations," said David Smith, Sinclair's president and CEO. "We continue to position the Company for long term growth as we take advantage of what we believe to be under-valued assets relative to historic public equity multiples. In the second quarter, we closed on the acquisition of the Freedom Communications television stations and recently announced the acquisition of six of the Newport Television stations. To date, we have announced approximately $1 billion in total assets acquired or to be acquired projected to represent almost $150 million of incremental blended cash flow. In addition, we were able to renew our FOX affiliation agreements seven months early, thereby removing any uncertainty regarding our on-going relationship with the network and securing our affiliation in our flagship market."
You can read Sinclair's full report here.
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