Sinclair Broadcast Group cruised past Wall Street estimates for the political advertising-rich fourth quarter. The company posted total revenue of $893.3 million, up more than 25% from the year-earlier quarter and better than the consensus outlook of analysts, which was a shade less than $880 million. Earnings per…

Nexstar, which has grown from a single radio station 23 years ago into what will soon be the No. 1 owner of local TV stations in the U.S., reported record revenue of $798 million in the fourth quarter. Boosted by political ad spending, which was more than triple the level of the 2014 mid-term elections, total revenue…

Political TV advertising ahead of this fall’s mid-term elections is starting to kick into gear, with local TV stations on track to take in revenue of $2.4 billion, up 14% from $2.1 billion in the 2014 mid-terms. Nevada, Arizona and Florida are all surging, with gains also noted in Illinois, Missouri and Minnesota. The…

Broadcast TV investors are finally resigning themselves to the likelihood that stations won’t see the bonanza they’d expected this year from political ads — mostly due to lower than anticipated outlays by Donald Trump. Sinclair Broadcasting shares fell 9.4% yesterday after it lowered its guidance for political…

TV station owners, and their investors, couldn’t wait for the 2016 election campaign to kick off. This would be “the first ever without an incumbent [presidential candidate] or limits on campaign funding,” Moody’s Investors Service said in April. It projected that $3.4 billion could go to stations, helping to lift…

That $4 billion to be spent on TV in the 2016 election cycle is up 18% vs 2012, and could result in a windfall for station owners E.W. Scripps and Gray Television, according to a widely watched business estimate out this morning. Wells Fargo Securities’ Marci Ryvicker tracks political spending more closely than just…

It’s OK to market stuff to captive movie theater audiences. But potentially enlightening or disturbing political and campaign pitches will be off limits this year on more than 20,100 screens at 1,600 theaters served by National CineMedia. The No. 1 exhibition ad sales company says today that it won’t accept political…

Here’s the good news for station owners and networks in an analysis of this year’s political media spending out today from ad forecasting firm Borrell Associates: Cash will continue to flood most markets, with broadcasters seeing $4.6B, an 11.5% increase over 2010, the previous midterm election year. The problem…

Two years ago TV broadcasters kicked up a fuss when the FCC made a simple decision: It ordered them to put online info about the political ads that they air — info they already were required to make available on paper to anyone who visits the station. Broadcasters lost that fight. But it seems that many, possibly…

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. And ENGLEWOOD, Colo., Jan. 27, 2014 – DIRECTV (NASDAQ: DTV) and DISH Network L.L.C., a wholly owned subsidiary of DISH Network Corporation (NASDAQ: DISH), have joined forces to offer an addressable advertising platform of unprecedented scale and reach for political campaigns. The strategic…

Wells Fargo Securities’ Marci Ryvicker tracks political ad spending more closely than anyone on Wall Street, so I was pleased to see her weigh in this morning on what’s ahead for 2014. She agrees with the consensus view that spending will be down vs 2012, which included the presidential race, but up from 2010, the…

Doesn’t that violate a Newtonian law that compels spending on political ads to grow into infinity? You might think so considering that the total has increased every two years since 2002, and only fell in three years since 1980 (that would be 1990, 1998, and 2002). But 2014 will change the recent trajectory, with the…