Gray Television brought in $80.7 million for the first quarter of 2012, a 16% increase over the company’s total revenue from the same period last year.

The Q1 increase was driven by increases in retrans revenue and political advertising at the 36 stations Gray operates.

“A significant portion of our retransmission consent contracts expired on December 31, 2011,” the station group explained in its financial release, “and we were able to renew substantially all of these contracts under terms more favorable to Gray, which resulted in increased revenue in the first quarter of 2012.”

Gray’s political advertising revenue increased $3.6 million to $5.0 million, which is a first quarter record for the company.

Local advertising was also up, with the company bringing in $2.1 million more than it did during the first quarter last year to bring the 2012 tally to $45.9 million.