Like a good gardener, the management at E.W. Scripps (NYSE:SSP) continues to tend to its collection of assets -- pulling weeds when needed, making sure to water and nurture the promising, yet vulnerable, businesses. And while some folks no doubt worry that Scripps will ultimately mess up and overpay for a deal, I come away thinking that this is one of the few American media companies I'd actually consider owning.
Looking at this quarter, we see that revenue from continuing operations was up 22% as reported and would have been up 16% on a pro forma basis. All segments did their share, as even the newspaper biz posted top-line growth this quarter. Operating income was likewise quite strong, although small contributions from joint ventures and joint operating agreements hurt the year-over-year net income comparison.
It's also important to take note of that "from continuing operations" part. Scripps has finally decided to rid itself of Shop at Home, and part of the sales process is to now classify it as a discontinued operation. And that definitely helped reported results -- had SaH been included, profit growth in particular would have gotten clipped.
There are a lot of moving parts here and not a lot of space, so I'll just say that the network business continues to develop nicely. And it was interesting to me to see that Scripps' newspaper business compared quite favorably to other major operators like New York Times (NYSE:NYT) or Gannett (NYSE:GCI), even though I sometimes have the impression that Scripps runs this mainly as a cash-rich legacy business.
Even though the acquisition of uSwitch in March wasn't exactly greeted with unabashed enthusiasm, I think the market is once again too skeptical about this company and the ultimate potential here. This is one of the few media companies with actual growth, and it seems to me that there's a history of management winning out over initial skepticism. But that's fine with me -- a little more skepticism here, and I just might look to add these shares to my own portfolio.
For more Foolish thoughts on the media:
Fool contributor Stephen Simpson has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares).
