Time Warner Posts Profit in 3rd Quarter

NEW YORK — Time Warner Inc., whose sprawling media empire includes Bugs Bunny, HBO, singer LeAnn Rimes and “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” on TV, posted a third-quarter profit Wednesday as its music unit showed signs of improvement after a long slump.

Time Warner, one of the world’s biggest media companies, earned $39 million, contrasted with a loss of $28 million a year earlier. After paying dividends to preferred stockholders, it had a per-share loss of 6 cents, in line with Wall Street forecasts, contrasted with a loss of 19 cents a year earlier.

Investors cheered the results, and Time Warner stock jumped $3.53 to close at $84.50 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Warner Music showed signs of reversing more than a year of weak performance. Sales rose to $938 million from $880 million, while cash flow, a measure of earnings before interest, taxes and other items used to gauge results at companies with heavy debts, climbed to $99 million from $90 million.

The company also had record cash flow at Time Inc., which publishes Life, People, Fortune and Sports Illustrated; Time magazine; Warner Bros. film studios; Turner Cable, owner of the TBS and TNT cable networks; and Home Box Office.