Viacom issued its Q1 08 earnings results this morning and the global entertainment giant showed healthy revenue and profit growth during the quarter, thanks almost entirely to its media networks division and despite weakness in its entertainment or film division. (Download our Viacom historical and current financial data here.)
Revenues rose year-over-year by 14% to $3.2 billion while operating income jumped 28% to $567 million. If it weren't for the media networks, specifically Nickleodeon, Comedy Central and TV Land and, as Viacom pointed out, music video game Rock Band, the entertainment giant would have been under water.
Revenue at Viacom's media properties rose 16% to slightly more than $2 billion, while operating income climbed 15% to $694 million. The motion pictures part of the business, however, saw revenues rise by only 9% during the traditionally weak quarter for theatrical films, thanks entirely due to the global sale of DVDs.
Viacom's theatrical film business posted an operating loss of $63 million, a seasonal occurrence that was still better than the $106 million operating loss posted during Q1 07.
Check out Silicon Alley Insider for coverage of Viacom's earnings call.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 4:10 PM | Print | Comments (0)When it comes to communications policy in the U.S., there are two major goals -- either regulate in the absence of competition or spur more competition in order to obviate the need for regulation. That's the main reason why the FCC, led down the primrose path by proponents, glommed onto broadband-over-powerline (BPL) several years back.
But BPL, a kludgy technology aimed at squeezing communications-strength capacity out of power lines, is almost DOA in the USA. First, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last week rapped the FCC on the knuckles for failing to take a look at studies that deal with BPL's propensity for interference as it rushed to adopt new rules promoting the competitive alternative.
Now, as Karl Bode points out, the biggest BPL advocate, Current Communications (one of the chief primrose path guides) is selling its high-profile Dallas BPL network to local utility Oncor for $90 million.
Oncor is going to use the "smart grid" set-up for...electricity. Although cities and utilities are largely responsible for the hype and public policy push surrounding BPL, I say all the idealistic and uninformed research outfits that pumped out study after study saying BPL was the next big thing are equally responsible for the unrealisitic hopes surrounding BPL.
Smart people have always know that BPL, although worth investigating, was never going to inject enough competition into the marketplace to give either cable or phone companies a run for their money.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 2:56 PM | Print | Comments (0)
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