News Corp. results to complete round of abysmal media earnings

When News Corp. wraps up earnings season for big media Wednesday, nobody is expecting a miracle -- defined in this dismal market as growth.

All Wall Street will want is a glimmer of hope.

News Corp.'s will be the last of the media giants to post results, following bleak reports from Time Warner, Viacom, CBS and Disney.

Rupert Murdoch’s media empire -- Fox movie studio, Fox network, Fox News Channel, MySpace, the Wall Street Journal and New York Post, Harper Collins publishing, and a number of television and newspaper assets in Europe and Australia â€"- already lowered guidance for its fiscal year ending June 30 back in February along with a major $8.4-billion asset write-down.
 
As a result, analysts surveyed by Thompson Reuters are expecting a 12% drop in revenue to $7.72 billion and a 15% drop in net income to 15 cents per share for the quarter ended March 31, according to the Associated Press. Sizable dips along those lines aren’t likely to affect News Corp.’s stock, which has actually rallied 77% since early March, though it’s still worth about half what it was a year ago.
 
Shares could go up, in fact, if Murdoch gives any signs that the advertising slump is fading, either directly in guidance or through anecdotal evidence. The chief executive also is likely to highlight last weekend's strong $85-million opening for "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," though it won't be reflected in last quarter's results.

Along with financial concerns, investors also will be looking for reassurance that Fox’s recent executive shifts -- which have seen President Peter Chernin step down, Fox Searchlight Chief Peter Rice take over the television network and former AOL Chief Executive Jonathan Miller brought in to oversee the troubled MySpace and other digital assets -- are resulting not in instability, but a plan for growth in fiscal 2010, which starts in July.

-- Ben Fritz

Photo: Rupert Murdoch. Credit: Daniel Acker / Bloomberg News

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