WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Gannett Co. Inc. (GCI), the parent company of USA Today, Tuesday reported an increase in profit for the second quarter, as revenues from its broadcasting unit surged, reflecting the acquisition of Belo Corp. Earnings for the quarter topped Wall Street estimates, but revenues fell short of expectations.
McLean, Virginia-based Gannett's second-quarter profit surged to $208.47 million or $0.90 per share from $113.62 million or $0.48 per share a year earlier.
Excluding special items, adjusted earnings improved to $154.65 million or $0.67 per share from $135.12 million or $0.58 per share a year earlier. On average, eight analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.64 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude one-time items.
The newspaper and broadcast company generated revenues of $1.46 billion for the quarter, up 12.1 percent from $1.30 billion last year. Seven analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $1.48 billion for the quarter.
Broadcasting revenues surged 88 percent to $398.3 million, reflecting the impact of the Belo acquisition as well as substantially higher re-transmission revenue and political advertising.
Publishing revenues declined 4.1 percent to $867.4 million, as advertising revenues slid 5.7 percent and circulation revenues dropped 0.6 percent.
Digital segment revenues rose 4.2 percent to $194.4 million, due mainly to higher revenues from job search site CareerBuilder.com.
GCI is currently trading at $32.61, up $0.89 or 2.81%, on the NYSE.
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