Chernin: Writers' Strike Could Help Fox
News Corp. COO Says Broadcaster's Well-Positioned With Animated, Reality Fare
By Mike Farrell -- Multichannel News, 11/7/2007 9:02:00 AM MT
(Strike Photos)
News Corp. chief operating officer Peter Chernin told analysts on a conference call Wednesday night that the ongoing TV writers strike could turn out to be a financial boon for the media conglomerate, at least for the short term.
On a conference call with analysts to discuss News Corp.’s fiscal 2008 first quarter results, Chernin said that because of the wealth of reality and animated series – which produce its episodes a year in advance – on its networks in primetime, News Corp. is benefiting from the strike.
“My guess is that during fiscal 2008, a strike is probably a positive for us,” Chernin said on the conference call. “We save more money in term of deals and story costs and the lack of making pilots than the potential advertising [loss].”
Chernin added that the strike could also result in increased ratings for its Fox broadcasting network, which has a primetime schedule heavy with reality programming and animated series.
“We would be in original programming virtually every night of the week for the remainder of this broadcast season in the event of a strike,” Chernin said. “So we would expect that if anything it would lift our market share; have us win this season by an even greater margin than we expect to.”
But Chernin said that a longer strike – say eight months or a year – would have a detrimental effect on Fox.
“Boy, I sure hope it doesn’t go that long,” Chernin said.
Revenue at the media conglomerate rose 19% in the quarter to $7.1 billion and operating income rose 23% to $1.05 billion, its fourth consecutive quarter of high-teens or better growth.
Driving those results were strong gains in cable networks – revenue rose 24% and operating income was up 16% in the period – and in its filmed entertainment segment, where revenue rose 30% and operating income climbed 51.5%.
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