Cable networks boost News Corp. earnings By SETH SUTEL, AP Business Writer

Cable networks boost News Corp. earnings By SETH SUTEL, AP Business Writer
45 minutes ago



NEW YORK - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. reported higher earnings in its latest quarter Wednesday, one week after the media conglomerate wrapped up a three-month campaign to buy Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co.

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Murdoch, speaking on a conference call with analysts and reporters, said he had high hopes for Dow Jones' potential, saying there was no better company to exploit the "burgeoning demand for global financial information."

At the same time, Murdoch also took aim at the $5 billion deal's critics — several of whom said the quality and indepedence of the paper could suffer under Murdoch.

Murdoch called the Journal the best paper in the United States and said the company has "powerful brand names, unassailable credibility, and worldwide reach," saying that was why the company paid such a high premium and why he personally spent most of the last three months "enduring criticism normally leveled at a genocidal tyrant."

For its latest quarter, News Corp.'s net earnings rose 4 percent rise as higher cable network results outweighed weakness in movies and television. In addition to its many Fox-branded entertainment businesses, News Corp. also owns many newspapers ranging from the highbrow Times of London to the racy British tabloid The Sun.

News Corp. earned $890 million in the three months ended in June, the fourth quarter of its fiscal year, versus $852 million in the year-ago period.

Excluding discontinued operations in the year-ago period, however, profits rose 24 percent, reaching 28 cents per share from 23 cents per share. The results were in line with the estimates of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial. Last year the company sold a radio station group in Europe as well as the Times Education Supplement in Britain.

Revenue rose 9 percent to $7.37 billion.

Driving the results higher were more gains in cable networks, a division that includes Fox News Channel, FX and a series of regional sports networks. Operating income in that unit rose 46 percent.

The company's satellite television business, which had been through a rough patch, reported an 85 percent jump in profit as SKY Italia signed up 368,000 new customers, bringing its base to 4.2 million.

Gains at those two divisions outweighed a decline in income from movies and TV programming, which fell to $106 million from $200 million a year ago, a period that included a bump from box office earnings from "Ice Age: The Meltdown."

Broadcast TV was also weaker, falling 4 percent to $385 million. The division was affected by losses from the first year of MyNetworkTV, a mini-network that News Corp. started up after the sudden closure of the UPN network, which left several News Corp. stations without a network affiliation.