News Corp profit rises 65 per cent on film, cable performance

Feb 8, 2012, 23:23 GMT

Los Angeles - Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation earned 1.06 billion dollars in its fiscal second quarter, a 65-per-cent jump from a year earlier, which was credited to successful TV shows and movies.

The company, which owns the Fox Network, 20th Century Fox and The Wall Street Journal, said its revenue was up 2 per cent to 8.98 billion dollars.

'The significant growth we reported in the second quarter in the cable network programming, television and filmed entertainment segments clearly validates our strategy to develop and distribute superior wide-ranging content,' chief executive and Chairman Rupert Murdoch said.

The earnings benefited from the strong DVD sales of Rise of the Planet of the Apes and X-Men: First Class, while the television unit enjoyed strong ad revenue on the back of hit shows such as The New Girl and X-Factor.

This helped make up for a 43-per-cent decline in operating income in the publishing sector, where the company had to make do without the now-defunct News of the World, as well as taking an 87-million-dollar charge related to the phone-hacking scandal surrounding its British newspapers.