Time Warner 1Q adjusted results top Wall Street

[March 19, 2010]  NEW YORK (AP) -- Time Warner Inc. said Wednesday that its first-quarter profit fell 14 percent as AOL and publishing results continued to crumble under the weight of deteriorating ad sales. Still, the media and entertainment conglomerate's adjusted results were better than Wall Street expected.

The owner of Time magazine, Turner Broadcasting and HBO also maintained its full-year adjusted earnings forecast.

Time Warner earned $661 million, or 55 cents per share, for the period ended March 31, down from the year-earlier result of $771 million, or 64 cents per share.

Excluding investment losses and other items, earnings from continuing operations were 46 cents per share. That's better than the 38 cents-per-share that analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters predicted. Analysts' estimates typically exclude one-time items.

Quarterly results reflect a 1-for-3 reverse stock split.

New York-based Time Warner, which spun off Time Warner Cable Inc. in March, says revenue dropped 7 percent to $6.95 billion from $7.47 billion. Aside from the pressures of its AOL and publishing units, the company said lower DVD sales at its filmed entertainment division also squeezed results.

Analysts expected revenue of $6.78 billion.

Time Warner sliced its net debt to $10.4 billion from $20.7 billion at the end of 2008, primarily because the spin-off of Time Warner Cable resulted in a one-time dividend payout of $9.25 billion to Time Warner.

The separation is expected to help the parent company concentrate on its strengths in content, especially if it can also shed all or part of AOL, acquired as part of AOL's $106 billion purchase of Time Warner in 2001.

Chairman and Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes said in a statement that the company is currently "working to determine the right ownership structure for AOL."

Time Warner still expects 2009 adjusted earnings to be about flat with a year ago, which comes out to $1.98 per share. The forecast accounts for the stock split as well as the Time Warner Cable spin-off.

Analysts forecast profit of $1.96 per share.

[Associated Press]

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.