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News Corp. profits fall
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February 12, 2002: 4:54 p.m. ET
Ad slump hurts 2Q bottom line, but earnings per share beat expectations.
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NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - News Corp. Ltd. beat second-quarter earnings estimates by a penny Tuesday, but profits fell from a year ago as trouble in the advertising market continued.
Including all one-time items, the company, which owns the Fox television network, Twentieth Century Fox film studio and a host of newspapers and cable channels, reported a net loss of $606 million, or 50 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $23 million, or 3 cents a share, in the year-ago period.
The quarter includes a one-time loss of $809 million, largely from a charge associated with the pending sale of its stake in the Italian pay television joint venture Stream and a write-down of the value of its broadcast sports contracts. The year-ago quarter includes a charge from the WebMD Internet business.
Excluding the one-time items, News Corp. (NWS: Research, Estimates) earned $203 million, or 17 cents per share, for the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared to $270 million, or 26 cents per share, a year earlier.
Revenue rose to $4.12 billion from $3.85 billion a year ago.
Analysts surveyed by First Call expected the company to earn 16 cents per share with revenue of $3.9 billion.
"While we have yet to see clear signs of an economic recovery, there are some hints of a modest upswing in the U.S. advertising market," said Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chairman and CEO, in a statement. "Television station pacings in the current quarter are running ahead of this time last year, while scatter pricing for the Fox network remains ahead of upfront pricing."
Operating income fell in the company's film, television and newspaper businesses, but rose in its cable network programming and book publishing units. 
-- from staff and wire reports
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