At Scripps, our path to real near and long-term value is clear. I’d like to end by recognizing an accomplishment about which I’m very proud. The first National Emmy Award for Scripps news. As you know, we bought Newsy 10 years ago, and rebranded at Scripps News in January. It’s now distributed not just on national platforms, but on our local stations and garnering strong ratings with our local audiences. This Emmy for outstanding science technology and environmental coverage is a testament to the impactful news organization we’ve built and America’s need for its objective fact-based reporting. Now, here’s Jason.
Jason Combs: Good morning, everyone. For the third quarter, we reported financial results that all met or exceeded the expectations we set in August, with another significant beat on company segment profit as we had in Q2. Our segment profit over performance was driven by stronger-than-expected advertising revenue from Local Media core and in the Scripps Networks segment, as well as continued expense management. For the third quarter Scripps Networks revenue was $215 million exceeding our guidance because of better-than-expected connected TV and direct response revenue. Networks connected TV revenue was up 75% from Q3 of 2022, if you back out the impact of our low-margin programmatic product which we began to sunset in Q2. Scripps Networks segment expenses were $166 million up only about 1% from the prior year quarter.
Segment profit in Networks was about $50 million. In our Local Media division, total revenue was down 7%, from the prior year quarter, mainly due to the absence of the election year political advertising revenue. Local core advertising revenue was down about 3% from the prior year period. Local Media Distribution revenue was up 20% to $198 million fueled by renewals in our cable and satellite agreements. We have now completed the renewals for all 75% of the subscriber houses that were up this year and we are very pleased with the results. Local Media expenses were flat to the prior year quarter. Local Media segment profit was $75 million. In the segment labeled, Other we reported a third quarter loss of $6.3 million. Shared services and corporate expenses were $21 million.
The loss attributable to shareholders of Scripps was $16 million or $0.19 per share. Restructuring costs for the quarter accounted for $0.04 of the per share loss. We announced in January, a company-wide reorganization and the restructuring costs are related to that work. As of quarter end, cash and cash equivalents totaled $16 million. Our net debt at quarter end was $2.9 billion and our net leverage was 5.4 times per the calculations in our credit agreement. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter of 2023. In the Scripps Networks division we expect revenue to be down in the 10% range but only down about 8%, if you back out the impact of the programmatic advertising products we discussed. The fourth quarter is being impacted by the industry-wide weak upfront season and ongoing softness in direct response.
We expect fourth quarter Networks segment expenses to be flat. We expect total Local Media revenue to be down in the low to mid-double-digit percent range, since this is not a big election year. We expect local core ad revenue to be up low to mid-single digits. In a tough ad industry environment, we expect to see the benefit of a four percentage point lift in Q4 core due to our two local Scripps sports agreements. Lisa, will give more color in a moment about our strong start to the quarter with key core categories including Ohio Now I’d like to touch on two full year local meeting revenue items. We’ve had stronger-than-expected 2023 political spending especially, from a contentious valid issue in Ohio and we now expect full year political ad revenue to reach at least $30 million.
