News Corp disappoints Wall Street

Posted Feb 4th 2008 6:33PM by Jonathan Berr
Filed under: After the Bell, Earnings Reports, Television, News Corp'B' (NWS)

News Corporation (NYSE: NWS), Rupert Murdoch's media empire, today reported second-quarter profit that fell short of Wall Street expectation.

Net income was $832 million, or 27 cents per share, compared with $822 million, or 26 cents, a year earlier. Gains by MySpace along with higher fees by cable networks, including Fox News Channel, pushed up revenue by about 10% to $8.59 billion. Analysts expected earnings of 28 cents on revenue of $8.25 billion.

�"We are obviously proud of the results we delivered during the second quarter, the highest operating income quarter in our history, but most important is the balanced nature of our earnings momentum with double-digit growth at nearly every operating segment," Murdoch said in the earnings press release.

Murdoch still has plenty to crow about. Fox may have broken TV ratings records with last night's Super Bowl. Plenty of political advertising will continue to flow onto the company's cable TV channels, broadcast networks and recently acquired Dow Jones assets such as The Wall Street Journal. The company even settled the nasty lawsuit filed by publisher Judith Regan.

Unfortunately for Murdoch, his company remains vulnerable to a downturn in advertising, particularly by the struggling financial services companies. It will be interesting to see how the Australian tycoon leads his company through these challenging times.

Tags: F/X, FOX NEWS CHANNEL, FoxNewsChannel, MYSPACE, NWS, Rupert Murdoch, RupertMurdoch, WALL STREET JOURNAL, WallStreetJournal