Earnings Up at Time Warner

NEW YORK: For the quarter ended March 31, 2013, Time Warner reported net income of $720 million, a gain on the comparative year-ago period’s $581 million.

Revenues were essentially flat at $6.9 billion, with growth at the Networks segment being offset by declines at the Film and TV Entertainment and Publishing divisions.

At the Networks, which includes Turner Broadcasting and HBO, revenues were up 3 percent to $3.7 billion, thanks to a 5-percent growth in subscription revenues. This helped to partly offset the declines of 1 percent in ad revenues and 4 percent in content revenues.

At the Film and TV Entertainment segment, revenues were down 4 percent to $2.7 billion, mainly due to lower theatrical performance and a decline in TV licensing revenues. This was partly helped by higher home-video revenues, thanks to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Argo.

The Publishing segment took a hit of 5 percent in its revenues, with an 11-percent decline in subscription revenues and 10 percent in "other" revenues. There was, however, a 2 percent-bump in ad intake.

Jeff Bewkes, the chairman and CEO, said: “We’re off to a strong start in 2013, making us even more confident in our full-year outlook. Our Adjusted Operating Income in the first quarter increased 7 percent to $1.4 billion, up 10 percent excluding Publishing, and Adjusted EPS climbed 22 percent. These results reflect the ongoing strength of our content, particularly in television. At Turner, the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball tournament was the most watched March Madness in almost two decades. And we’re seeing good momentum across most of Turner’s networks, including TBS, which was the number one ad-supported cable network in prime time across adults 18-34 and 18-49 during the quarter. At Warner Bros., we have had another very strong TV season, including having four of the top six comedies on TV and both of the breakout new dramas of this season, Revolution and The Following. And HBO continues to go from strength to strength, powered by hits like Game of Thrones, which is on track this season to become the most-watched series on HBO since The Sopranos.”

Bewkes continued: “This quarter we also announced our plans to spin off Time Inc. into an independent publicly-traded company, which we expect to complete by the end of the year. As we said when we announced the spin-off in March, we believe this is the best structure for both Time Inc. and Time Warner, and expect this step will create additional value for our stockholders. Underscoring our commitment to stockholder returns, so far this year we’ve repurchased almost $870 million of our stock and paid out over $270 million in dividends.”