Sales by IDW’s publishing division declined nearly a half million dollars in the company’s fiscal second quarter ended April 30 to $4.4 million, but operating losses improved $168,000 to $1.39 million from $1.56 million in the year ago period.  That was accomplished by cutting expenses, including a $151,000 reduction in charitable contributions, a $54,000 reduction in selling and distribution expenses due to "lower direct ship based came sales" (translation:  less Kickstarter fulfillment), a reduction of $53,000 in advertising and marketing expenses, and other net reductions of $45,000.

Publishing revenues were down over a million dollars, the company said in its filing, which it attributed to "timing of significant major brand titles," and as it has for a number of quarters, to "industry cyclical downward pressures driven by market leaders."  Digital was down $111,000 due to timing, while game sales were up $440,000 and "other" revenue was up $201,000.

Overall IDW Media Holdings, Inc., which operates IDW, IDW Entertainment, and brochure and digital marketing company CTM Media Group, had sales of $8.7 million for the quarter, down about 2%, and posted a $2.2 million loss, which was about 23% worse than the year ago period.

IDW Entertainment showed a $622,000 loss, $40,000 more than the year ago period, but the big move was in CTM, which had a $967,000 loss, up from the $642,000 loss in the year ago period.  Expenses were up on flat sales, a bad combination.

There were some improvements from the company’s fiscal Q1, ended January 31 (see "Publishing Declines Continued in IDW’s Q1"), with slowing declines in publishing revenues.