The recovery in ad spending produced what has become fairly typical results for a regional newspaper publisher and broadcaster like Media General (NYSE: MEG) in Q4: print declines were arrested and political ad revenues provided a big boost to local TV ad revenues. But there were some slight surprises on the digital side. Unlike a lot of local publishers, online revenue growth was notably tepid, especially considering the poor state the business was in in Q409. But online classified revenues were healthy, thanks mostly, to ongoing outside partnerships with Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and internet real estate site Zillow.
Richmond, VA.-based Media Gen, which owns 21 newspapers, also entered into a partnership agreement with local daily deals site Groupon in Q4, but no mention of that arrangement was mentioned in the publisher’s latest results.
As for the specifics of Media Gen’s Q4 performance, publishing revenues dropped 8.6 percent, while national and local dollars grew 2.5 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively. But the big news was that as classified revenues decreased 19 percent overall, online classifieds were up 9 percent, which was attributed to the continued assistance of the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium and Zillow. Digital media revenues increased 40.5 percent, due to robust Local and Classified revenue growth, which was directly attributable to the company’s aggressive digital sales initiative.
Total digital media revenues were up just 1.3 percent. Media Gen pointed to lower revenues at the company’s advertising services businesses, DealTaker.com and Blockdot, which mostly offset the stunning 40.5 percent revenue growth at the company’s local media websites.
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