Filed under: Earnings reports, General Electric (GE), Time Warner (TWX), Walt Disney (DIS), Viacom (VIA), CBS Corp ‘B’ (CBS), News Corp’B’ (NWS), Electronic Arts (ERTS), Activision Inc (ATVI)

Earlier in the week, CBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS) sent out its earnings broadcast. Now it’s time for Viacom, Inc. (NYSE: VIA) to tell investors how things are doing. CBS and Viacom, as I’m sure you know, used to be part of the same media conglomerate, but they went their separate ways to see if being apart would help shareholder value. So it’s always fun to compare the two when they release their numbers (check out Brent Archer’s coverage of CBS’ quarter and his feelings in terms of stock strategy).

For the fourth quarter, Viacom, which competes with companies like The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), General Electric Company (NYSE: GE)’s media asset NBC Universal, and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), was expected to earn $0.83 per share. Earnings from continuing operations came in at $0.83 per diluted share. That was quite a nice rise compared to the $0.69 per diluted share from continuing operations booked one year ago. Plus, the revenue increase for the current quarter was a nifty 19%. For the full year, earnings from continuing operations rose a more subdued 10% to $2.41 per diluted stub; this performance was accomplished on a revenue gain of 18%.

Both media networks — Viacom owns the MTV suite of cable channels — and filmed entertainment — Viacom owns Paramount — posted strong double-digit revenue gains for the quarter and year. Drivers included films by DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. (NYSE: DWA), which the company distributes — those films would be Shrek the Third and Bee Movie. Also, Transformers helped to power results. Another product that tuned up the quarter was Rock Band. It was developed by Harmonix, which Viacom purchased for its MTV unit, and it is distributed by Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS). It’s a rocking competitor to Activision’s (Nasdaq: ATVI) Guitar Hero concept.

Continue reading Viacom rocked during the fourth quarter

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 2:12 am and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.