News Corp loss $6.4bn in THREE months.

[Media Boy UK]

News Corp (Owners of The Sun and The Times as well as 39% of BSkyB) is embarking on what chairman Rupert Murdoch deemed "rigorous cost-cutting" as it looks to address a loss of $6.42bn in Q4 2008.

The loss was driven largely by an $8.4bn write-down on the value of its TV and newspaper assets.

Among its UK operations, News International's pre-tax profits, in sterling, were flat year on year in Q4 2008. Ad revenue was down 10% year on year. Circulation revenue increased slightly during the quarter mainly from price increases.

http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/News/8792...ews-Corp-loss/

Info from Mediaweek.

[Pierre]

$8.4bn write-down on the value of its TV and newspaper assets

So they'd over valued their assets. No doubt they were advised to this by lawyers/accountants - smells a bit

[Raistlin]

Yeah, looks like they actually made a profit.....

They wrote-down $8.4bn. and then declared a $6.42bn loss. By my reckoning that means that they're actually sitting on something like $1.98bn profit somewhere along the line.

The maths probably aren't that simple, but I'm prepared to bet it's not all the doom and gloom that they're making out.

[BBKing]

Ad revenue was down 10% year on year

Watch this one - ad revenues were declining and *then* everyone started going bust. Newspapers are in for a rough time.

Not that one feels sorry for Mr. Murdoch in all this, since he's flagrantly used his newspapers for many years to favour the kind of politics that got us into this mess and smear and traduce alternative views that, y'know, might be worth digging up.

On the other hand I'm sure somewhere there are members of his staff who are decent human beings. Bad luck.

Originally Posted by BBKing

Watch this one - ad revenues were declining and *then* everyone started going bust. Newspapers are in for a rough time.

Not that one feels sorry for Mr. Murdoch in all this, since he's flagrantly used his newspapers for many years to favour the kind of politics that got us into this mess and smear and traduce alternative views that, y'know, might be worth digging up.

On the other hand I'm sure somewhere there are members of his staff who are decent human beings. Bad luck.

BBKing likes to pretend, but he is a massive Sun reader. In fact the only paper he likes better is the Daily Mail :d