News Corp. Reports $265-Million Loss

News Corp. reported a $265-million loss Thursday because of write-downs from several failed investments. Revenue and operating results also fell as a poor advertising climate knocked the wind out of the company’s television and newspaper business.

As expected, News Corp.’s advertising-driven business took a hit from a slowdown that has been affecting all media companies. Operating income was off 23% from television and down 25% from newspapers, which include the New York Post, the Sun in Britain and many papers in Murdoch’s native Australia.

Excluding one-time items, the giant media company’s operating profit fell 21% to $145 million, from $184 million a year earlier. The results beat by a penny analysts’ recently lowered expectations of 11 cents, according to Thomson Financial/First Call.

Revenue in the period ended June 30 fell 12% to $3.44 billion.

News Corp. said a series of write-offs resulted in a one-time charge of $410 million. The company cited write-downs in One.Tel, a failed Australian telecom company; 360networks, a Canadian optical network provider; Indian cable network Zee Telefilms; and EPartners, a News Corp. venture capital fund that has ceased making investments.

News Corp. said earnings from the Fox broadcast network were essentially flat, from the same period a year ago, as a drop-off in ad spending and higher sports programming costs were offset by lower network program costs as Fox substituted expensive shows such as “Beverly Hills 90210” with newer shows such as “Boston Public.”

The company’s local television stations couldn’t escape the effects of the soft ad market, however. Earnings in that division tumbled 29% from the same period a year ago.

The operating loss in News Corp.’s film and TV production business narrowed to $4 million, from $53 million a year ago, when results took a hit from the box-office bomb “Titan A.E.” and the shutdown of an animation studio.

For its full fiscal year, News Corp. reported a net loss of $445 million, which included one-time losses of $1.1 billion. In addition to the fourth quarter’s charge of $410 million, the full-year losses also include a first-quarter charge of another $410 million as the company adopted new accounting rules for valuing its film inventory.

In the same full-year period a year ago, News Corp. earned $1.12 billion. Excluding charges and one-time gains in both periods, full-year earnings fell 13% to $691 million from $794 million, or 64 cents a share versus 77 cents a share.

Revenue for fiscal 2001 fell 2% to $13.8 billion from $14.15 billion.

News Corp.’s shares fell 12 cents to close at $35.68 on the New York Stock Exchange.