Revenue Up at Fisher Communications in 2007

TV-Station Owner Posts Strong Q4, Full Year

By Michael Malone -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/22/2008 3:08:00 PM

Fisher Communications announced a 4% bump in revenue in 2007 over 2006, with TV revenue representing a 3% gain.

Net income for the year was $31.9 million compared with $16.8 million in 2006. Fisher attributed the gain to “increases in national advertising revenue for both the English- and Spanish-language television stations, which were partially offset by the cyclical reductions in political advertising from the 2006 election year.”

Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, debt and amortization) totaled $26.2 million for the year versus $29.9 million in 2006. Operating cash flow was $31.6 million, down from $33.7 million in 2006.

For the fourth quarter of 2007, revenue dipped 1% compared with the same quarter the year before. Net income for the quarter was $31.4 million versus $16.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2006.

Fisher president and CEO Colleen Brown called 2007 a strong year. “In the past two years, we have driven sales growth, ratings growth and margin growth,” she said. “We have diversified our network and geographic footprint, built duopolies in our existing markets, entered the Spanish-language television business, launched an Internet division and significantly improved our debt-to-cash-flow ratio, while continuing to improve the performance of the company."

Seattle-based Fisher owns and manages 13 full-power and eight low-power TV stations, as well as eight radio stations.