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Dale Cripps
Broadcast TV Profitability Still Wows
by Dale Cripps on September 7, 2006 Categories: Broadcast

Did you ever wonder why fierce battles take place within the broadcast crowd? Does the margin in your business stack up with that of broadcasting?

Yes, the Internet is siphoning away chunks of the free TV audience according to the generally reliable Paul Kagan organization. "Advertising sales in the broadcast network upfront ad sales market fell 0.4% in Spring, the second consecutive annual decline. Despite those woes and more, top broadcast TV stations still achieve breath-taking profit margins."

The Kagan Research newsletter Broadcast Investor: Deals and Finance calculates that TV stations owned by the big four broadcast TV networks generated cash flow profit margins of 46%, as the accompanying table indicates. For the whole broadcast TV station industry, the rate stands at 41%-well above most other media sectors. Cash flow margin measures core profitability from operations expressed as a percentage of net sales. Not bad for a dying business.

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_Dale Cripps

Posted by Dale Cripps, September 7, 2006 4:51 PM

Reader Commentary

Reply
n2ubp • Sep 8, 5:49am
My wife was once a TV junkie, even watching reruns to no end. Today once she tires of what is on TV she heads over to the computer and digs into the web sites of the many newspapers in the NYC metro area and its suburbs.
I've taken a couple of Internet surveys that ask my reaction to new network television programming. The majority of the shows do not hold my interest. The surveys do not ask the right questions. They ask the questions they want to hear a positive reaction to. The wording practically forces you to tell them the show is great even if you really think the show is junk. News has become entrtainment. I am sick of the NYC FOX channel bantering on about what happened tonight on American Idol. I am tired of WNBC 4 using its time as a place to advertise their observation platform on Rockefeller Center. I am tired of every news show on every station covering the same news item, at almost exactly the same time, and the same commericials on at exactly the same time. I am tired o...
Reply
Dale • Sep 8, 11:25am
Several people got more out of that article than was in it. My only point to be made was that broadcastsing is still a lucrative business whether you like the programs or not. Dale...

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About Dale Cripps

Dale Cripps is a professional journalist who has focused two thirds of his career on the subject of high-definition television. Upon completing his education in business and service in the military he formed Cripps and Associates, South Pasadena, California, in 1964, which operated as a market-development company for aerospace services. In 1983 he turned to television and began what has become a 20 year campaign to pioneer HDTV. For fifteen of those years he published the well-regarded HDTV Newsletter (an international monthly written for television professionals). During much of this same time he also served as the HDTV-Technical Editor for "Widescreen Review Magazine." On November 16, 1998 he launched the Internet distributed HDTV Magazine, which remains the only consumer publication devoted exclusively to high-definition television. In April of 2002 he co-founded with Tedson Meyers of Coudert Bros, the High-definition Television Association of America, which is presently based in Washington DC. Cripps is the president of this organization. Mr. Cripps is a charter member of the Academy of Digital Television Pioneers and honored by that organization with the DTV Press Leadership Award of 2002. He makes his home in Oregon.

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