Despite its running costs having been cut in a recent restructure, ongoing falling advertising and search income at MySpace (NSDQ: NWS) was the primary reason for Q3 losses in News Corp.’s Other segment growing by a tenth from last year, to $165 million.
News Corp did not otherwise mention the for-sale site in its earnings materials and not a single investment analyst asked the company about it, even though News Corp was to receive around five or more bids of at least $100 million by the end of last week, according to WSJ and Reuters last week.
News Corp net income for the three months to March 31 fell by a fifth from last year to $682 million, on eight percent lower revenue of $5.32 billion.
Television earnings quadrupled as national advertising bounced back from last year’s slump. And cable networks, News Corp’s biggest contributor, earnings rose by a quarter. But the film business saw income halved from the previous year after the Avatar effect wore off.
In the publishing division, Q3 operating income slumped by $82 million to an underlying $36 million. To blame – The Daily costs, falling UK and Australian newspapers advertising revenue, increased newsprint costs and falling earnings in the Integrated Marketing Services division, which also paid out a further $125 million to settle a lawsuit.
The Other division in which MySpace sits also contains IGN, the outdoor business and, formerly, Fox Mobile.