Granite Broadcasting reported on Monday a widened first-quarter loss of $19.5 million, compared with a loss of $17.4 million a year ago, hurt in part by a slowdown in political advertising revenue. Revenue fell 1 percent to $25.7 million.

The company said its revenue decline would have been worse had it not been for the consolidation of two Malara Broadcasting stations, one in Fort Wayne, Ind., and one in Duluth, Minn., with which Granite has a shared-services agreement. Excluding those stations, the revenue decline would have been 4 percent.

But both figures beat the company’s forecast issued earlier this year that revenue would decline as much as 7.5 percent. Granite said local advertising was stronger in the quarter due to robust local advertising revenue, which rose 7.5 percent at the Big 3 networks and was up 20 percent at Granite’s WB affiliate in Detroit. The Detroit station also posted a 6 percent rise in national advertising–largely due to its carriage of Detroit Pistons games.