E.W. Scripps posts 2nd-quarter profit after recording year-ago loss on impairment charge

E.W. Scripps posts 2nd-quarter profit of $2.3M

CINCINNATI —Media company E.W. Scripps Co. said Monday it made a profit in the second quarter despite a decline in ad revenue, reversing a year-ago loss that was weighed by impairment charges.

E.W. Scripps earned $2.3 million, or 4 cents per share, up from a loss of $531.2 million, or $9.78 per share, in the same period a year earlier. The 2008 quarter included impairment charges of $583 million from the company’s newspaper businesses and from investments in newspaper partnerships in Colorado.

Revenue fell 23 percent to $193.9 million from $250.9 million.

Rich Boehne, president and CEO of the Cincinnati-based company, said Scripps is seeing slight improvement in its advertising markets over the past several weeks, especially at TV stations.

“Thanks to disciplined operating decisions and modest debt, Scripps has been able to protect its financial health and look ahead with optimism despite an economic crisis that has throttled the flow of marketing dollars across this country,” Boehne said in a statement.

Revenue from the company’s television stations was $61.1 million, a decrease of 24 percent from the same period a year earlier. The decline was largely due to reduced ad spending from companies in the automotive, financial services and retail industries.

Revenue from newspapers managed solely by Scripps fell 22 percent to $113 million. Advertising revenue declined 29 percent to $79.4 million, hurt by a weakness in print classified advertising.

Boehne said in a conference call with analysts the company is “aggressively cutting expenses and reallocating resources” to improve its financial health.

“At a time when most competitors are whacking away at their products, we’re trying to do the exact opposite,” he said. “That’s not been easy. Even in newsrooms, we’ve reduced compensation, but we’ve tried to protect our overall investment in news product.”

Earlier this year, Scripps shut down Denver’s Rocky Mountain News. Last year the company split off its cable networks and online shopping sites into a separate, publicly traded company called Scripps Networks Interactive Inc.

Shares of E.W. Scripps, which owns local TV stations affiliated by NBC and ABC and newspapers such as the Ventura County Star, jumped $2.30, or 42.1 percent, to close at $7.76 Monday. In the past 52 weeks, the stock has traded between 67 cents and $7.99.