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Tag: News Corps

  • News Corp Q2 profit triples; Star TV operating income up by 43%

    News Corp Q2 profit triples; Star TV operating income up by 43%

    MUMBAI: Media conglomerate News Corps second-quarter profit has tripled from $386 million to $1.08 billion, on revenues of $6.7 billion.

    Television operating income went up by 20 per cent on strong revenue growth at the pan Asian network Star and lower promotional costs at Fox due to the earlier launch of its fall lineup versus a year ago.

    Star’s second quarter operating income increased by 43 per cent as advertising and subscription revenue growth, mainly from India, drove total revenues up nearly 30 per cent.

    STAR PLUS, STAR ONE DRIVE NETWORK GROWTH
    Gains were led by weekend programming initiatives at the number one Hindi general entertainment channel Star Plus and from the successful launch of Star One. Meanwhile subscription revenues increased on new channel offerings and higher pricing.

    News Corp chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said, “Our performance this quarter reflects the sustained momentum we have generated across the majority of our businesses. We translated the desirable audiences we deliver for advertisers into double-digit earnings gains at our television and cable network programming segments.

    “We drastically lowered Sky Italia’s operating loss, keeping it on track to deliver its first full year of profitability. We released a number of successful films this quarter each of which should generate strong returns later this fiscal year when distributed in home entertainment.

    “We also hit the ground running with our recent new media investments, expanding the number of registered users of MySpace to over 50 million and positioning us to capitalise on the expanding on-line advertising pie as broadband continues to proliferate. Additionally, we are spending considerable time exploring ways to increase the value of our vast content libraries, such as our recently announced deal between FX, the Fox network and DirecTV for on-demand content.

    “The sustained financial success we have achieved over the last several years provides us the flexibility to invest in these new business opportunities while at the same time delivering continued fiscal year growth to our shareholders.”

    NOT SUCH GOOD NEWS ON FILM FRONT
    The filmed entertainment segment reported second quarter operating income of $299 million versus the $407 million reported in the same period a year ago. The decline was primarily due to difficult comparisons with record second quarter results a year ago, led by the worldwide home entertainment performances of Day After Tomorrow, Garfield, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story and I, Robot, as well as from the catalogue performance of the Star Wars Trilogy.

    The current-year results primarily reflect several successful film and television home entertainment releases, as well as increased revenues from the worldwide theatrical and pay-TV markets. The second quarter film results were largely driven by the worldwide home entertainment performances of Fantastic Four, Kingdom of Heaven, Star Wars Episode III and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, as well as by contributions from various titles including Napoleon Dynamite and Day After Tomorrow.

    Additionally, the pay-TV availability of Oscar winner Sideways and I, Robot contributed to the strong quarterly results. The current quarter also included films like Cheaper By the Dozen 2, The Family Stone, The Ringer and Walk the Line, which has grossed over $110 million in domestic box office and won three Golden Globes and got two Oscar nominations.

    Twentieth Century Fox Television (TCFTV) increased contributions versus the second quarter a year ago, primarily reflecting continued momentum in home entertainment
    sales, most notably from Family Guy and 24.

  • News Corp’s operating income rises 22 %

    MUMBAI: The Rupert Murdoch controlled US media conglomerate News Corp has reported fourth quarter consolidated revenues of $6.1 billion, a 12 per cent increase over the $5.5 billion in 2004’s quarter.
     
     

    For the year ended 30 June 2005 it earned revenues of $23.9 billion, an increase of 15 per cent over the $20.8 billion in fiscal 2004.

    Consolidated operating income for the fourth quarter of $955 million was up 42 per cent over the $674 million a year ago. For the year, operating income was $3.6 billion, an increase of 22 per cent over the $2.9 billion in 2004.

    STAR INDIA CONTINUES TO SHINE

    The Star Group’s fourth quarter and full year operating income more than doubled on revenue growth of 24 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively. Revenue gains for both the fourth quarter and full year primarily reflect the continued strength of Star Plus and Star Gold as well as contributions from several new channels in India. The television segment as a whole reported fourth quarter operating income of $344 million, a decrease of $7 million versus the same period a year ago, and full year operating income of $952 million, a slight increase over 2004. Record operating income at Star was offset by higher programming costs at Fox and a soft US ad market.

    News Corp chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said, “We are extremely pleased with the continued growth we achieved during 2005. Star received approval to launch a DTH service in India and doubled its earnings contributions. 2005 marked our third consecutive year of record profits. What is pleasing about this past year is not just that we once again delivered double-digit revenue and operating income growth across nearly all of our businesses but perhaps more significantly many of our developing businesses turned profitable.”
     
     

    The movie segment reported fourth quarter operating income of $109 million, up $14 million from the $95 million reported in the same period a year ago, and record full year operating income of $1.1 billion, up 17 per cent from the $905 million reported in fiscal 2004. Current quarter and full year results primarily reflect solid worldwide theatrical and pay-TV revenues and strong contributions from film and television home entertainment releases.

    The results were largely driven by the home entertainment performances of Alien vs. Predator, Sideways and Napoleon Dynamite, as well as contributions from various catalogyue titles including Ice Age. Additionally, the worldwide theatrical distribution of Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, as well as the pay-TV availability of The Day After Tomorrow and Garfield contributed to the strong fourth quarter results.

    Cable network programming reported fourth quarter operating income of $137 million, an increase of $17 million over the fourth quarter a year ago and record full year operating income of $702 million, an increase of $214 million over 2004. Fox News Channel (FNC) reported operating income growth of 30 per cent for the fourth quarter and 40 per cent for the full year fuelled primarily by double-digit advertising revenue growth, which was partially offset by higher costs associated with covering international breaking news stories. During the quarter News Corp states that FNC further increased its leadership position as the number one cable news channel, more than doubling the viewership of its nearest competitor in prime-time and nearly 90 per cent higher on a 24-hour basis.

    The net a priority for the future: Going forward media reports indicate that News Corp is preparing to spend up to $2 billion on the internet. Murdoch has said that this is the group’s top priority as far as global expansion is concerned. It is said to be looking at buying a small internet search engine and is also developing its own mass entertainment website. The Fox sites that are present at the moment are more promotional in nature.

    So far this year, the company has spent more than $700 million investing in Web companies. As had been reported last month by Indiantelevision.com News Corp signed a definitive agreement to acquire Intermix Media for approximately $580 million. With the addition of MySpace,and Intermix’s network of sites, News Corp expects its web traffic in the US to nearly double to more than 45 million unique monthly users.

  • Court gives ‘Independence Day’ screening a clean chit

    NEW DELHI: After lengthy hearings, spanning months, a Mysore court has dismissed a suit for permanent injunction against 20th Century Fox movie, Independence Day. 
    At one time, even Star Movies through Star was made a party to this case.
    Admitting that the court dismissed the case against the top grosser – Independence Day on 20 December, petitioner Veda Nayak of NRI Film Production Associates told indiantelevision.com that he did go in for an appeal against the district court stand.
    “The principal district judge, G V Hegde, dismissed our suit for a permanent injunction against the film Independence Day. We will be appealing this decision in January 2004, as soon as the high court reopens after the Christmas vacation, since we have strong grounds for doing so,” Nayak said.
    Earlier, the same court had refused to stay the re-telecast of Independence Day on Star Movies. The petitioner had moved an injunction contending that as the settlement of another case on copyright infringement involving the movie is pending, it should not be aired on Star Movies.
    In a case filed in a Mysore court, NRI Film Production Associates had alleged that 20th Century Fox Film Corporation (News Corp’s movies arm) infringed on the copyright of a script written by him, called Extra Terrestrial Mission, by producing and releasing the film Independence Day way back in 1996.
    The plaintiff, Nayak’s company, had contended in the court that the defendants, according to information available on the Internet, have already made over $800 million from the film throughout the world thus far, whereas the production cost of the film was only $75 million.
    Nayak’s counsel had argued that the defendants could not have made such huge profits but for the important dramatic events and incidents, they had copied in Independence Day from Extra Terrestrial Mission, written and registered by Nayak in the US, while he was residing there.
    The copyright infringement suit has been keenly contested between the parties since November 1998 in US courts as well.

  • Shanghai court rules in favour of US studios in piracy case

    MUMBAI: If there is one thing that India and China share in common, it is a common disrespect for copyright.
    Therefore, the recent victory by three US studio majors Walt Disney Co, Vivendi Universal and News Corp’s Twentieth Century Fox in their continuing battle against piracy in mainland China is all the more significant.
    According to a Reuters report, a Shanghai court has ruled in favour of the three Hollywood studios, who took the landmark legal action against local companies for pirating movies.
    This is the second legal victory by the major studios in the last year or so. Last September, the three studios, along with AOL Time Warner’s Warner Bros, sued retailers and factories in Beijing for pirating films. Warner and Universal had won damages and apologies when they settled their Beijing lawsuits this spring.
    The studios had sought a public apology, compensation of up to $75,000 per film and a halt to the alleged violations, MPAA regional legal counsel Mark Day was quoted as saying in an earlier report. Day said that piracy of movies was running at over 90 per cent of titles produced in China.
    According to the MPAA website, piracy costs the US motion picture industry more than $3 billion each year in lost revenue worldwide, with China thought to be one of the worst offenders.
    As a “piracy-infested” market, India faces similar problems to that of China though not to the extent that exists across the “bamboo curtain”. In a presentation during Ficci Frames 2003, Michael Ellis, vice-president & director, MPAA, said piracy in India was costing the US film industry a revenue loss of $75 million a year.
    Said Ellis, “In India, piracy used to be 80 per cent. We were able to reduce that to 60 per cent in 2000 and a little bit lower in 2001, but it’s on its way back and our losses have increased from $70 million to $75 million (in 2002). China is more than twice that with about $168 million in estimated lost revenue due to piracy in 2002, the International Intellectual Property Alliance has said.
    Ellis said that over 9,000 raids were conducted across Asia in 2002 resulting in over 7,900 favourable criminal prosecutions.

  • Another baby girl for Murdoch

    MUMBAI: Proud papa (come grandpapa) media giant Rupert Murdoch has become a father for the sixth time at 72.
    Murdoch with Chloe’s elder sister Grace Helen in 2001. (Picture courtesy- www.abc.net.au)


    The News Corp chairman and chief executive’s wife, 35-year-old Wendi Deng, gave birth to the couple’s second child, a girl named Chloe, in New York on Thursday, reports say.
    Murdoch’s first daughter (from this marriage), Grace Helen, was born in November 2001. Murdoch has four children from his previous two marriages, Prudence, Lachlan, James and Elisabeth.
    Murdoch married Deng, a former employee at News Corp’s Asian subsidiary Star TV, in 1999. Deng joined Star TV in the mid-90s and rose rapidly through the ranks. It was on one of Murdoch’s visits to Hong Kong that the two reportedly met.

  • Murdoch eyes 20 per cent of Hughes Software Systems

    MUMBAI: Rupert Murdoch is snapping at Indian shores again.
    Murdoch’s News Corp has announced that it would make an open offer to acquire 20 per cent shares of the Gurgaon based telecom software developer, Hughes Software Systems. The proposal comes just three months after News Corp’s successful bid for a 34 per cent stake in Hughes Electronics Corporation for about $6.6 billion in cash and stock. 
    Hughes Electronics is the US based parent of Hughes Network Systems, which in turn owns 55.4 per cent stake in HSS. The News Corp offer, which will be made at Rs 232 per share, is for 67,34,265 HSS equity shares, and is being made along with Hughes Network Systems India Ltd, HNS Mauritius Holdings and Hughes Electronics Corporation, the company said in a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange on Monday.
    The HSS open offer, which was made a day before the company’s board was due to meet to consider the first quarter results for the period ended 30 June, is at an 8.11 per cent discount of the company’s Friday closing of Rs 252.50 on the BSE. The offer, which opens on 20 August and closes on 18 September, is not conditional on any level of acceptance by the shareholders.
    Analysts have been reported as saying that the open offer is likely to evoke a lukewarm reaction since the current price of HSS stock is higher than the open offer price, and are skeptical about the offer as News Corp did not appear to have any interest in technology solutions providers like HSS elsewhere, raising questions about the kind of fit that the firm would have within the News Corp matrix. 
    The deal to acquire Hughes Electronics, however, gives News Corp access to DirecTV’s more than 11 million subscribers and concludes Murdoch’s three-year effort to gain a US outlet for his global satellite television network. A senior HSS official has been quoted as saying, “The News Corp offer has been made as per the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) regulations which stipulates that an open offer has to be made for an Indian listed company if its multinational parent undergoes any change in management.” 
    HSS reported a net profit of Rs 379 million in the year ended 31 March, 2003 – a decline of about 27 per cent from the previous financial year. Net sales at Rs 2204 million for 2002-03 were also lower than Rs 2349 million in 2001-02.

  • BBC DG Dyke replaces Murdoch at number one in MediaGuardian Top 100

    MUMBAI: There is a shift in positions in the just released annual top 100 list of UK based publication MediaGuardian.
    Last year, News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch was numero uno, followed by BBC DG Greg Dyke. This year, they have switched places. The BBC has had a good year with its TV and radio channels enjoying critical and ratings success. It also launched new digital channels.
    A new entrant in the top 10 is Ofcom’s chairman David Currie. Currie is in charge of the most powerful regulator the UK television, radio and telecommunications industries have ever seen. Due to be operational by the end of this year, the super-regulator replaces five existing bodies – the independent television commission, the broadcasting standards commission, the office of telecommunications, the radio communications agency and the radio authority. His priorities will include the rollout of broadband across the UK.
    The television top ten sees the fairer sex break into the male bastion. There are three women. Sky Networks’ managing director Dawn Airey, independent producer Eileen Gallagher and BBC director of TV Jana Bennett have taken the seventh, eighth and ninth spots respectively in the TV line-up for 2003.
    Reports indicate that Airey’s rise (from 33 in last year’s MediaGuardian 100 to 16) can be attributed to her move from Channel Five to Sky, where she has responsiblity for all the broadcaster’s non-sport services, including Sky One, Sky News and the movie networks. In the process, she has gone from overseeing a programming budget of around ?150m to nearer ?500m.
    The MediaGuardian report states that Gallagher is this year’s biggest MediaGuardian 100 climber, rising 76 places to 17. This is in part due to her position as co-founder and managing director of indie producer Shed, which makes hit ITV dramas Bad Girls and Footballers’ Wives. Shed is in a good position to benefit from the government’s decision to force broadcasters to improve the terms on which they deal with independent producers.
    The overall top ten list also sees a woman. News Corp’s The Sun’s editor Rebekah Wade is at number six. Murdoch appointed her to the position six months ago and media analysts say that she has brought the spark back into the publication which had previously been missing. Wade climbed up 47 places from last year. She is also the top performer among the under 40 crowd.
    As far as journalistic ethics are concerned, Wade caused a commotion earlier this year saying that journalists were entitled to use bugging devices and other covert methods if there was a strong public interest in the story under investigation. The creator of publishing phenomenon Harry Potter author J K Rowling is a new entrant on the list. She comes in at number 50.
    In terms of slipping down, WPP 8’s group CEO Sir Martin Sorrell’s fall by 40 places reflected another tough year in the ad market. As reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com he closed a deal to acquire Cordiant Communications. An interesting new entry is that of a blogger at number 94. Blogging came into its own after 9/11 and the Iraq conflict. The Baghdad Blogger wrote under the pseudonym Salam Pax. His story of how the war was affecting his family was read online everyday by 20,000 people.