Image Source: Positive Real Estate Professionals.com
I was about to write my post on how the latest and greatest technology is changing media – until I saw last week’s earnings releases start to roll in from the media sector. Time Warner (TW), Fox and then CBS all posted double digit increases:
- CBS saw a 42 percent increase in third quarter profits.
- Fox cable network unit’s quarterly income improved by $146 million compared to the same period a year ago.
- TW’s better than expected earnings contributed 62 cents per share, compared with Wall Street projections of 53 cents.
(Source: New York Times, “Profit Rises at Time Warner and at News Corporation,” 11.3.10)
The media giants earnings from last quarter are not only good news for shareholders, but for an industry that has seen its share of challenges over the last two years – battling online sites, cord cutting (customers canceling their pricey pay-TV subscriptions), falling TV ad revenues, not to mention the economy. According to this Reuters article, TW and Fox reiterated they saw no signs of cord cutting, a term adopted from the telephone companies to describe the shift from land lines to cell phones. “’I don’t get this cord cutting issue,’ News Corp Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey said on a conference call. ‘I feel it is a fundamental service that for American households is a fundamental part of what they do with their time, and what they value in their life.’”
The biggest reason for their strong earnings could be the most telling – and hopefully sustainable – number of all. All three media giants saw very encouraging increases in ad revenue in 2010. Both CBS and TW were up 10 percent, while Fox News Corp was up a whopping 16 percent from their domestic cable channels. (Source: Reuters, “WRAPUP 1-Media Sector Wrings Hands on 2011 Outlook,” 11.3.10)
Political ad spending was a nice shot in the arm for TV, with 2010 being an election year. In fact, political ad spending, for this year, is predicted at three billion dollars and may top 4.2 billion dollars, notes this Adage Age article.
Any numbers from 2010 should come in higher compared to a dreadful year in 2009. Last year TV ad spending was down by nine percent, led by a shredded car industry with the sectors TV ad spending down 23 percent compared to 2008. However, the increase in ad spending this year is still very impressive and driving revenue for a hard-pressed industry.
As quoted from this New York Times article, “’The takeaway is that advertising is strong,’ said Michael Nathanson, an analyst at Nomura. ‘The video ecosystem of affiliate fees and advertising seems to be holding up well.’”
This earnings season is proving to be a rebound year for media companies and is confirming what I have been writing about for the last two years – the same idea Sumner Redstone expressed before delivering very impressive earnings – “Content is King!”
The recipe seems simple for big media: provide great content; find a way to monetize the content; keep costs down; and let the content fall where it may. Then kick back and watch the revenue streams flow regardless of which platform audiences use to consume the content. It certainly is good to be king…at least for the moment.
There’s been a lot of debate lately about free versus paid content online. All this talk leads to one simple question. What features will motivate readers to scale the paywall?
