Murdoch Grows Operating Income In 7 of 8 Segments (NWS)

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

NEWS CORP (NYSE: NWS, NWS-A) has just posted earnings of $832 million or $0.27 EPS.  Its consolidated operating income for the second quarter was $1.4 billion was up 24% versus the $1.1 billion reported a year ago.

Below is the consolidated Operating Income from each unit, with comparisons from Dec-2007 to Dec-2006 and a POS. or NEG. note (positive or negative) ahead.  Seven of the Eight units showed positive growth in operating income:
NEG.    Filmed Entertainment  $403M vs. $470M       
POS.    Television   $245M vs $112M   
POS.    Cable Network Programming  $337 vs $275M
POS.    Direct Broadcast Satellite Television     $62M vs. -$12M
POS.    Magazines and Inserts     $85M vs. $74M         
POS.    Newspapers and Information Services  $196M vs. $170    
POS.    Book Publishing  $67M vs. $54
POS.    Other  $23M vs. $1M

Frankly, we are not really concentrating on any EPS numbers because the integration from the monumental Dow Jones acquisition.  Same goes for guidance.  But what is obvious as can be is that the Rupert Murdoch model is working.  We can’t show you too many newspaper and magazine operators that are showing this strong of operating income for these segments.

These media conglomerate earnings take quite a bit of time to digest the fall-out for the entire sector because of so man moving parts.  The NWS-A more active shares closed down 0.3% at $19.35 in regulartrading and are essentially unchanged in after-hours trading.  The52-week trading range for NWS-A shares is $17.19 to $25.40. 

Stay tuned for Disney earnings tomorrow and Time Warner earnings on Wednesday.

Jon C. Ogg
February 4, 2008

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Featured Reads

Our top personal finance-related articles today. Your wallet will thank you later.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618