Following an emerging trend within the cable industry--and apparently following one that may be reaching its limits--Discovery (Nasdaq: DISCA) reported that improved advertising sales and distribution fees helped revenues climb seven percent in the fourth quarter. Full year revenues were up nine percent to $3.773 billion.
Discovery President-CEO David Zaslav called out "significant advertising and distribution revenue growth" as a reason for the revenue improvements and promised that the network will "continue to focus on creating high quality programming and expanding our market share globally" in 2011. The channel said the distribution revenue growth was based on "higher rates, subscriber growth primarily from networks carried on the digital tier and lower launch-supported amortization."
Elsewhere in the world of Discovery, DirecTV will help launch its 24/7 3D network (3net) Feb. 13 as a "giant leap in our march to bring audiences the closest-to-real viewing experiences," Zaslav said.
For more:
- see this news release
- and this story
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