Media giant Washington Post (NYSE:WPO) has a sprawling portfolio of newspaper, magazine, online, cable, and broadcasting assets, but lately the driving force behind the company has been the educational services provided by subsidiary Kaplan. The education segment followed up last quarter's impressive 45% spike in revenues with a similar 41% gain. This increase helped propel overall revenues 16% higher to $818.4 million. Second-quarter earnings jumped 40% to $84.9 million, or $8.82 a share, easily outpacing estimates of $8.32.

The wave of advertising spending that lifted ad revenues 15.5% at Gannett's (NYSE:GCI) flagship USA Today bypassed Washington Post's namesake daily, whose ad revenues only managed to climb 1%. Fortunately, print weakness was partially offset by strength in the online counterpart, Washingtonpost.com. The online publishing division reported local and national online advertising growth of 61%, pushing sales 39% higher to $15.4 million. Total revenues in the newspaper publishing division rose 5% to $234 million.

With help from political spending in advance of November's election, broadcasting revenues from the company's six television stations rose 10% to $90.2 million. This is in line with similar advances of 10.3% at Gannett, 10.7% at New York Times (NYSE:NYT), and 11% at E.W. Scripps (NYSE:SSP).

The cable division also had a 10% increase in revenues. Both digital cable and cable modem Internet services have been completely rolled out and are available for all of the division's 712,000 basic cable customers. Around 17,000 digital subscribers have been added over the past year, bringing the total to 220,400 -- for a penetration rate of 31%. This trails Cablevision's (NYSE:CVC) 35.9% and Comcast's (NYSE:CMCSA) 37.5%, but the company is beginning to reap the rewards from the capital invested to get these premium services up and running.

The education segment, though, continues to shine the brightest. Some might recall using Kaplan's materials to study for the SAT, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. In addition to test preparation, the company's wide-ranging services include learning centers, book publishing, software, professional licensing certification, and continuing education, and both undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Thanks to Kaplan's growth (both internally and via acquisition), operating income soared from $3.5 million to $29.4 million.

The long-awaited rebound in advertising spending has yet to fully reach Washington Post's core print business, but other divisions have picked up the slack. Aside from newspaper and magazine publishing (which despite a small drop in revenues experienced a surge in income thanks to a 14% pickup in ad spending at Newsweek), every other segment posted double-digit increases in both revenues and operating income. That revenue diversity will help keep the company on an even keel until the choppy advertising market settles.

To see what's behind The Washington Post's headlines, flip to Selena Maranjian's More Than a Newspaper.

Fool contributor Nathan Slaughter owns none of the companies mentioned.