Nexstar Media’s Q1 revenues jump 14% to $615M

Nexstar Media announced its first-quarter results today including a 13.9% increase in revenues totaling $615 million along with operating income totaling nearly $118 million.

The company’s net income for the quarter totaled $47.3 million.

“Nexstar’s strong operating and financial momentum continues in 2018 as we generated record first quarter results and another period of growth that exceeded expectations,” Nexstar CEO Perry Sook said in a statement. “First quarter results benefited from our expanded scale and ongoing diversification; our ability to monetize Super Bowl and Olympic advertising through coordinated multi-platform revenue initiatives; strength in political advertising spending in key markets; and, another quarter of double-digit retransmission and digital revenue growth.”

Nexstar’s first-quarter core television ad revenue rose 6.5% thanks to 8.3% growth in local spot revenue and a 1.6% increase in national spot revenue. Retransmission fee revenue and digital media revenue rose 19.0% and 38.4%, respectively.

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“The year-over-year increase in first quarter non-television advertising revenue reflects the renewal of distribution agreements with multichannel video programming distributors and OTT providers in 2017, the January 2018 accretive acquisition of LKQD, and organic growth across our expanded, profitable digital operations,” Sook said.

As revenues grew, so did expenses for Nexstar. The company said its direct operating expenses increased during the quarter due to expanded scale of broadcast and digital operations as well as budgeted increases in network affiliation expense and expenses for LKQD.