The McClatchy Co. reported significantly higher second-quarter profits today despite another decline in revenue.
Sacramento-based McClatchy, which owns The Bee, said profits jumped to $26.9 million from $4.9 million a year earlier. The per-share profit improved to 31 cents, well above Wall Street's expectations, from 6 cents a year ago.
Revenue for the quarter fell 4.8 percent to $299.3 million. Advertising sales, which have been in a slump since 2006, dropped 5.7 percent from the year-earlier period. But company officials noted that the latest decline in ad revenue was an improvement from the first quarter, when they fell 6.8 percent.
"Despite economic headwinds, we were encouraged to see sequential improvements in advertising trends in the second quarter compared to the first quarter," said Pat Talamantes, the company's president and chief executive.
Talamantes said digital ad sales grew 4.9 percent, which he called "a very healthy rate."
He said the uneven economy makes it hard to forecast the future. "We continue to see a very choppy economic recovery that is affecting our advertising customers, and therefore our visibility into our own advertising revenues," he said in a press release.
McClatchy shares jumped 28 cents, to $1.96, in early New York Stock Exchange trading.
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