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Profits for News Corp. (NYSE:NWS-A) in the second quarter of their fiscal year increased by 1.2 percent, led by the Web, cable-TV and televison businesses. The production side of the television and film unit brought the results down, as well as poor performances by their affiliates.

For the quarter ending December 31, net income grew to $832 million, or 27 cents a share. During the same period last year, it was $822 million, or 26 cents a share.

Revenue for the quarter increased by 9.5 percent, rising to $8.59 billion.

Earnings for their digital unit surged, as Fox Interactive and MySpace grew earnings to $23 million, matching the 9.5 percent that overall revenue grew for the quarter. Last year earnings for the division stood at only $1 million. Much of this came from the agreement the company made with Google (Nasdaq:GOOG), and which launched in January of 2007.

Another strong performer for the company was their television division, which more than doubled earnings to $245 million. Increased market share and resultant increase in ad prices were the key to that performance.

Their cable unit also gained strong profits, as it soared by 23 percent to $337 million. The strength of global channels, regional sports and the Fox News Channel drove the growth.
 
Dragging down the profits was the film and television production division, which plunged by 14 percent to $403 million.

The company, cited by the Online Wall Street Journal, said, "Twentieth Century Fox Television reported lower contributions versus the second quarter a year ago, primarily reflecting the timing and delivery of new episodes partially offset by higher contributions from domestic syndication and international television, most notably from 'Family Guy' and 'The Simpsons.'"
 
In this climate, the company, overall, has to be happy with this performance, which was pretty close to being in line with analysts' expectations.