A below-the-surface look at News Corp.'s (Nasdaq: NWSA) second quarter television revenues shows that retransmission can pay off. While the company moaned that retransmission disputes with Dish Network (Nasdaq: DISH) and Cablevision Systems (NYSE: CVC) cost it $47 million in lost revenue, it also said its second quarter operating income of $735 million was a 22 percent increase ($131 million) over the same period a year ago.
Hidden among all the stats and reasoning was the notation that affiliate revenue grew 10 percent at domestic cable channels and 17 percent at international cable channels primarily based on higher rates and subscribers.
Breaking it down, the international communications conglomerate said that the Dish dispute, which knocked its channels off the bird for about a month, cost $30 million in lost revenues while the Cablevision firestorm, which blacked out the baseball playoffs, was a $17 million headache.
For more:
- TVNewsCheck has this story
- Broadcasting & Cable has this story
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