A weaker than expected performance by its films at the box office and through DVD sales depressed Disney's second-quarter profits. Operating income at Disney's studio business fell 97 per cent to $13 million. The recession also continued to depress earnings in other parts of the group, with advertising down at Disney's ABC television network. But […]

Norwegian teleco Telenor has reported a 65 per cent decline in first quarter net profits compared with a year earlier, hurt largely by its stake in Russian mobile operator VimpelCom. The group said net profit for the January through March period was 1.62 billion kroner ($248m) compared to 4.57 billion kroner a year earlier. Revenues […]

Discovery Communications reported an $8 million increase in first quarter revenues to $817 million, outstripping analysts expectations for the period and posting $119 million in profit. The company reported only $34 million in profit for the first quarter of 2008. Discovery even bucked the advertising slump, posting a two percent increase in ad revenues. As […]

Sales slightly down and losses increasing on Q1 to £123m (E138m) from £109m last time were the bad news while increased ARPU (£42.29 v £41.95) and a record low churn of 1.1% were the good news. Revenue for the quarter was £935.7m against £947.3m last time. But the underlying fall in broadband sign-ons – down […]

The board of directors of struggling satellite radio provider Sirius XM has approved a “stockholder rights plan” that would effectively prevent the weakened company from hostile takeovers. According to the terms of the plan, known in financial circles as a poison pill, any attempt to buy up more than 4.9 per cent of Sirius’ stock […]

Viacom profits fell 34 per cent in the first quarter, hurt by a global advertising spending slowdown. The company reported first quarter net profit of $177m, down from $270m, a year earlier. Revenue fell 7 per cent to $2.91bn. Advertising at Viacom's cable networks, which as a sector is considered the most resilient compared with […]

BSkyB has delivered profit gains in the last quarter as more customers signed up for its high-definition digital services. Pre-tax profits rose 13% to £63m (E70m) between January and March. It added 243,000 customers for its Sky+HD service, but with churn the net gain down to 80,000 new customers. Revenue was up to £1.4bn, from […]

Comcast reported improving subscriber losses and nearly doubling its free cash flow for the quarter. Comcast said it lost 78,000 subscribers in the period – slightly worse than the 57,000 lost in the first quarter of 2008 but better than analyst consensus estimates of a 171,000 subscriber loss. Revenue rose 5.3% to $8.8 billion and […]

Australia's biggest investment bank, Macquarie Group, has reported its first fall in full-year profits in 17 years. Net profit in the year to 31 March fell by 52% to A$871m ($635m). It also cut A$2.5bn ($1.8 billion) from the value of its assets because of the global financial crisis. The bank said it had cash […]

Central European Media Enterprises (CME) has announced less than impressive financial results for the three months ended March 31st, 2009. Net revenues for the first quarter of 2009 were $141.2 million, a decrease of 37 per cent, compared to the first quarter of 2008. Operating income for the quarter fell $130 million to a loss […]