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Shares of the company, whose profit also beat
expectations, rose about 2 percent in premarket trading.
Revenue at Turner, which owns channels such as CNN, TNT and
Cartoon Network as well as NCAA.Com, rose 4.5 percent in the
quarter, helped by NCAA Division I men's basketball championship
tournament and growth in Turner's news businesses.
Revenue at HBO, whose popular shows include hit medieval fantasy
series "Game of Thrones", increased 4.4 percent.
HBO's standalone streaming service, HBO Now, launched on Apple
Inc's <AAPL.O> devices this month, in time for the season
premiere of "Game of Thrones", reaching millions of viewers who
do not subscribe to pay TV.
Time Warner said the fifth season premiere of "Game of Thrones"
was watched by a total of 18.1 million people in its first two
weeks, over 1 million more than the viewership for the prior
season's first episode.
Turner and HBO together account for more than half of Time
Warner's total revenue.
Time Warner last year spun off its publishing business Time Inc
<TIME.N> to focus on its more profitable broadcasting
businesses.
Revenue in the company's Warner Bros. Studio business rose 4.3
percent, helped mainly by higher licensing revenue from
subscription video-on-demand sale of "Friends" and the
box-office success of "American Sniper".
The company's net income, however, fell to $970 million, or
$1.15 per share, in the quarter ended March 31, from $1.29
billion, or $1.42 per share, a year earlier.
Net income was hurt due to an increase in marketing costs
primarily related to the launch of HBO NOW and higher spending
on original programming.
Excluding items, the company earned $1.19 per share from
continuing operations.
Revenue rose to $7.13 billion from $6.80 billion.
Analysts on average had expected earnings of $1.09 per share and
revenue of $7.0 billion.
(Reporting by Sai Sachin R and Lehar Maan in Bengaluru; Editing
by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
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