News Corp. (NWS-A) exploded far beyond expectations as it earned $843 million, or 27 cents per share, a huge 7 cents a share beyond the 20 cents a share analysts projected.
The major reason was its stellar performance in its advertising results across its Fox network property, its cable channels, TV stations, and satellite business.
Compared to a year ago this is extraordinary as it lost $433 million last 
year, which equated to 13 cents a share.
Peter Chernin, president/COO of News Corp. said: "Scatter advertising was up in the single-digit percent [cost-per-thousand viewer (CPM)] range in our first quarter for our cable networks."
With a weak cable TV advertising market, Fox excelled as it grew to $889 million from last years' $775 million.
Although they havne't been happy with their new dramas for the year, they still have to release their best broadcast weapons, "American Idol" and "24." This will change the whole season once they're launched. Still, this has been a weak spot for the year.
Another strong area for them is DirecTV which surged to $622 million from $498 million. This has to make News Corp. executives satisfied as they have been in contact with John Malone and Liberty Media for a long time on the possibility of selling it. This will increase the strength of News Corp.'s position in a potential deal.
The other area of concern for News Corp. was that revenue from its tv and film studios dropped to $1.21 billion from $1.42 billion a year ago.
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