With the movie studio and cable networks making strong gains, News Corp. (NWS-A) reported a strong 6.2 percent increase in profit for the quarter ending March 31.
Profits for the quarter came in at $871 million, a $51 million increase over last year's $820 million. Overall revenue increased by 21.5 percent to $7.5 billion.
The earnings of 27 cents a share were also an improvement over the 26 cents a share they earned last year.
For their movie and television divisions profits leaped as they increased by 82 percent to come in at $410 million.
Driving the growth was the strong box office performance "Night at the Museum," and the DVD sales and rentals of "Little Miss Sunshine," "The Devil Wears Pravda" and "Borat."
Their cable earnings also grew by a healthy 34 percent based upon their regional sports networks, Fox News Channel and the FX network.
News Corp.'s experiment with MyNetworkTV and Asian satelite TV broadcaster "Star" caused the television earnings to drop by 4.5 percent, in spite of strong showings from the Fox network.
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