If you throw all the products we buy and the services we use in one basket, then add up the price tag, that's the Gross Domestic Product, which is the primary metric economists use to assess the economic health of a country or region.

The easy part of calculating GDP is the calculation itself: C+I+G+(X-M)=GDP. Got it? No? Well, add Consumption, Investment by companies, Government purchases, and then take the product of eXports (calling it 'E' would lack sexiness) minus iMports ('I' was taken). Viola! GDP.

Still don't get it? Well, knowing the components helps. Consumption is the biggest component, and it's a tally of the cost of all the goods and services we buy. Investment is what companies spend on the real assets they own, plus the value of the inventory that we haven't gobbled up through consumption. Government purchases are what the Feds pay money for (whether it be highways or fighter jets, though big social programs, like welfare, aren't counted). And then we calculate the difference between the goods and services we¿re sending to other countries and the stuff we're bringing in.

Good. That explains it, except there's a catch. Inflation has a habit of distorting the numbers, so economists talk about either Nominal GDP or Real GDP. In fact, Real GDP isn't necessarily "real" for most folks, since it takes any inflation out. Nominal GDP includes the effects of inflation. (There's something called the implicit price deflator which is a calculation using the two, but we'll spare you the details.)

So, now that we know GDP, why do we want to? Well, it's good to compare different markets. And watching the trend shows whether a given economy is growing (good), stagnating (not so good), or shrinking (very not so good). When GDP goes down two quarters in a row, we're officially in a recession.

For the record, GDP is released at the end of each month, with most reporting ¿preliminary¿ data for the previous month. But you won't get final GDP numbers for the fourth quarter of a year until the very end of the first quarter of the next year. After all, it's not an easy number to calculate.

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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

LIN TV Corp. to Announce Second Quarter 2008 Earnings Results on August 5, 2008

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Comtex

PROVIDENCE, R.I., Jul 16, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) ----LIN TV Corp. (NYSE:TVL) will report its second quarter 2008 earnings results before the market opens on August 5, 2008. The Company intends to host a conference call to discuss the earnings release that morning at 8:30 a.m. (ET).

The conference call-in number is 1-888-765-5574 for U.S. callers and 1-913-312-1241 for international callers. The call-in pass code is 4837920. Callers who intend to participate in the call should call-in 10 minutes before the start of the call to ensure access. A replay of the call will be available through August 12, 2008 by dialing 1-888-203-1112 and entering the same pass code as above.

The conference call will also be webcast simultaneously from LIN TV Corp.'s website, www.lintv.com, and can be accessed there through a link on the home page (under the Latest News section).

About LIN TV

LIN TV Corp., along with its subsidiaries, is a local television and digital media company, owning and/or operating 29 television stations in 17 U.S. markets, all of which are affiliated with a national broadcast network. LIN TV's highly-rated stations deliver important local news and community stories, along with top-rated sports and entertainment programming, to 9% of U.S. television homes, reaching an average of 10 million households per week.

LIN TV is also a leader in the convergence of local broadcast television and the Internet through its television station web sites and a growing number of local online innovations that reach 15% of U.S. broadband households. LIN TV is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "TVL". Financial information about the company is available at www.lintv.com.

SOURCE: LIN TV Corp.

LIN TV Corp. Courtney Guertin, 401-457-9501
   Public Relations Specialist courtney.guertin@lintv.com

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