News Corp earnings rise on cable TV and film gains

Media conglomerate News Corp posted an 11-percent rise in quarterly earnings as strong performances by the company's film and television businesses offset losses at its newspapers and broadcast television units.

The New York-based company controlled by Rupert Murdoch said Wednesday it earned $571 million compared to $515 million in the year-ago quarter. Revenue fell 4.1 percent to $7.2 billion.

The film-and-television production unit saw income rise by 56 percent largely on the strength of the strong performance of the third "Ice Age" movie and DVD sales of the most recent "X-Men" movie. The company's cable channels saw income rise 41 percent thanks to higher fees paid by cable- and satellite-TV companies.

News Corp executives have said they want to permanently change the business model of the broadcast TV and newspaper divisions by levying fees for the company's digital news and by charging cable companies to carry its broadcast networks.

But News Corp's broadcast-television division, which includes the Fox network and local TV stations affiliated with Fox, saw operating income plunge by over 50 percent to $38 million while the newspaper division, which includes The Wall Street Journal and The Times of London, posted an 81 percent drop in operating profits.

In a conference call to discuss the earnings, Murdoch said that 2010 would be "a year of stability" in which the company would flourish.

"The economies in which we do business are clearly in better shape than they were a year ago," Murdoch said. "We have further positioned our operations to take advantage of the improvements we are seeing globally."

Last updated on Nov 5^th, 2009 at 10:09 am IST--DPA