E.W. Scripps Falls Most in 3 Years

E.W. Scripps Co. (SSP) fell the most in three months after the owner of more than a dozen newspapers and 19 television stations said revenue from TV ads will drop this year after a boost in 2012 from political campaigns.

The shares slid 5.5 percent to $10.73 at the close in New York, the biggest drop since Nov. 14. They have declined less than 1 percent this year, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has risen 5 percent.

The percentage drop in 2013 revenue from TV ads will be in the “high single digits,” the Cincinnati-based company said today in its fourth-quarter earnings statement. Televised campaign-ad sales surged more than 16-fold from a year earlier to $56.9 million in the fourth quarter, contributing to net income that more than quadrupled to $27.2 million.

Television stations benefited during 2012 from the presidential-year election campaigns as well as the Summer Olympics, making for tough comparisons this year.

The company said its newspaper revenue will fall “at a low single-digit rate” in 2013. For all of last year, television accounted for 55 percent of the company’s $903.5 million in sales, while newspapers were 44 percent. E.W. Scripps added four TV stations at the end of 2011.

To contact the reporter on this story: Edmund Lee in New York at elee310@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net