Belo Earns $28 Mil. In Third Quarter

By: (AP) Belo, publisher of The Dallas Morning News, said Wednesday that third-quarter earnings rose based in part on a surge in political advertising at its television stations.

The Dallas-based company, which owns 19 TV stations and four daily newspapers, earned $28 million, or 25 cents per share in the three months ending Sept. 30.

Analysts had expected earnings of 20 cents per share, according to a survey by Thomson First Call. But its fourth-quarter outlook of between 34 cents and 36 cents was below the Thomson First Call consensus of 38 cents.

In trading on the New York Stock Exchange, shares of the stock rose 25 cents to close Wednesday at $23.60.

In the same period last year, Belo lost $518,000, or less than 1 cent per share. Third-quarter revenue rose to $347.6 million from $322.5 million a year ago.

Operating revenue at the television stations rose 18.4%, to $158.7 million, while slipping less than 1% at the newspapers, to $179.5 million. Belo said the TV stations were boosted by $11.5 million in election-year political advertising, compared to $400,000 in such ads a year earlier.

Newspaper revenue would have gained 1.2% if not for the fact that this year's third quarter had one less Sunday than last year's period, the company said. Sunday newspapers are heavy with advertising.

Classified advertising revenue remained weak, falling 9.7% overall -- and 25.7% for employment classifieds -- at Belo's flagship newspaper, The Dallas Morning News.

Belo said it was cutting the long-term assumption about pension-plan returns to 8.75% from 9.75% retroactive to Jan. 1 and would take a $6.2 million charge this year.

Pension expense is expected to exceed $6.2 million next year, the company said. The company said it expected sales commission and marketing expenses to rise significantly in the fourth quarter and it ended a yearlong wage freeze.

The company said it was comfortable with analysts' current forecasts of earnings of $1.05 per share for all of 2002.

Belo said it would begin to record stock options as an expense, but did not give a date for the change.

In the first nine months of the year, Belo earned $85.3 million, or 75 cents per share, compared to a loss of $210,000, less than 1 cent per share, in the same period of 2001.