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Murdoch: Hacking has had no impact on other operations

By Dominic Ponsford

Despite News Corp‘s legal woes in the UK – overall operating profit for the three months to the end of June rose 45 per cent year on year to $1.35bn.

Looking at the full year, News Corp reported adjusted operating profit up 12 per cent to $4.98bn on total revenue of $33.4bn (up from $32.8bn a year ago).

Operating profit from book and newspaper publishing increased to $270m for the quarter (from $196m in the same period a year ago).

The improved performance of the publishing division – which includes News International in the UK – reflected higher advertising and circulation revenues at The Wall Street Journal and lower costs at the integrated marketing services business, News Corp said. The last three months also benefited from strengthening local currencies in the UK and Australia.

Chief executive Rupert Murdoch said: “I’m pleased that once again News Corporation exhibited operational momentum in both the final quarter of fiscal 2011 and for the full year driven by significant increases at our market-leading Cable Network Programming and Television segments.

‘While it has been a good quarter from a financial point of view, our company has faced challenges in recent weeks relating to our London tabloid, News of the World. We are acting decisively in the matter and will do whatever is necessary to prevent something like this from ever occurring again.

“It is important to note that there has been no material impact on our other operations. Our broad, diverse group of businesses across the globe is extremely strong today.

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‘The drivers of our businesses are intact, our position is strong and our future is promising. Our fundamental goals at News Corp are to produce sustained, meaningful value for shareholders, provide outstanding content and services to customers and consumers and do it with integrity. These goals are interrelated and all three are critically important. And we will deliver on them.”

Looking at the year as a whole here is how News Corp’s profits divided up:

  • Cable network programming: $2,760m
  • Filmed entertainment: $927m
  • Television: $681m
  • Direct broadcast satellite television: $232m
  • Publishing: $864m
  • Other: $614m (loss).

The losses from the ‘other’division mainly reflect News Corp’s disastrous investment in the social networking website MySpace.

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