Cable TV programming did big box office business during the first quarter while the movie business lagged, programming behemoth Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) has reported. The company's overall first quarter profits of $651 million were about 10 percent lower than a year ago.
First quarter revenue grew 5 percent to $6.7 billion, based almost entirely on a TV unit that showed an 18 percent revenue increase to $0.5 billion based on a 9 percent subscription revenue growth, 31 percent more advertising revenue for Turner Networks and 48 percent more revenue for content, including sales of HBO original programming. Film unit revenue was down 3 percent to $2.6 billion.
Time Warner Chairman-CEO Jeff Bewkes called out TV and Web-based content successes when announcing the results.
"Just this past week, we expanded the availability of our HBO Go streaming service to mobile devices; reached agreement with Apple to enable our Time, Fortune and Sports Illustrated print subscribers to access the iPad editions of these magazines at no extra cost; and, through Warner Bros., launched our test of premium video-on-demand," Bewkes said while proclaiming, "We're off to a solid start this year."
For more:
- see this news release (PDF)
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