For all the crying over money troubles and need to reduce costs, TV stations, which for a long time have seen 30 to up to 50% profit margins are seeing the bright light of online revenues. And newspapers, which have been slashing jobs and blaming the internet for their woes, can say the same.
According to B&C, a Borrell Associates study shows that TV station Web sites will produce an estimated $1.2 billion in revenue in 2008 – a big jump from last year’s $772 million.
But newspapers will fare even better – it’s expected they’ll be getting $3.7 billion of the $13.1 billion in local online advertising for the year.
For the study “What Local Media Web Sites Earn,” Borrell surveyed more than 3,100 local media properties, including 613 TV stations in the United States and Canada.