It was rare to see a printed-news publisher doing well financially before the recession, so its even more notable to see one making money now. For the year to March 31, Economist Group posted operating profits 26 percent higher than last year at £56 million and revenue 17 percent better…

How important is the Grand Theft Auto franchise to Take-Two (NSDQ: TTWO) Interactive? Important enough that the publisher can’t stay in the black without it. Take-Two swung to a $10.1 million loss for its fiscal Q209; a loss of $0.13 per share. That’s in contrast to a profit of $98.2…

The home video category apparently wasn’t recession-proof enough for Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI), which said Q1 net income plunged 39 percent to $27.7 million ($0.12 per share) from $45.4 million the year before. On an adjusted basis, profits were $41.3 million ($0.19 per share). Revenues fell 19.4 percent to $1.12 billion,…

After a long period of uninterrupted growth, Sony (NYSE: SNE) has announced its first full-year loss in 14 years due to a downturn in consumer spend on gadgets and the collapse of financial markets and currencies in Japan and worldwide. In its full-year results to March 31, the company announced…

DISH Network lost 94,000 subscribers during the first quarter, but cost-cutting helped the satellite TV operator boost profits. Revenue grew 2.1 percent to $2.9 billion, while net income grew 21 percent to $313 million and earnings-per-share (EPS) was $0.70, beating analyst expectations of $0.57. The total number of subscribers at…

Layoffs at Playboy (NYSE: PLA) —the company has cut a quarter of its staff since October 2008—helped counter some of the revenue declines during the first quarter of 2009, but they weren’t enough to lift the adult-entertainment company into profitability. Playboy’s revenue declined 22 percent, to $61.6 million, below analyst…

Traditional media companies aren’t known for being forthcoming when it comes to sharing details about their digital operations—as of just a few quarters ago, Disney (NYSE: DIS) didn’t even break out its digital results separately. But this week, several companies provided a few new insights into their digital strategies. Here’s…

Fresh from merging Liberty Entertainment with DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) on Monday, the cable company ended the week saying that revenues at Liberty Interactive, which houses home shopping channel QVC, fell 6 percent to $1.8 billion. Interactive’s adjusted operating-income-before-depreciation-and-amortization (OIBDA) fell 15 percent to $341 million. There was some imbalance on…

Scripps Networks Interactive (NYSE: SNI), the do-it-yourself home and lifestyle oriented cable entertainment company, has some fixing up of its own: the weak ad market sent Q1 profits 10 percent lower to $60.1 million ($0.37 per share), as revenues slipped 7 percent to $361 million. In addition to a 4.6…

RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK) said today that its first-quarter financial results were heavily affected by currency exchange rates, resulting in a five percent decrease in revenues compared to the year-ago period, and a net loss, compared to a profit in the first quarter a year earlier. Excluding the effects of these…

It’s not usually a good sign when your earnings report starts with a vote of confidence from the boss and is followed by an explanation about why the same quarter last year was so good. CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS) lost $55.3 million, or $0.8 per share, in the first quarter,…

Rebounding from posting a $72 million loss in Q4, *Activision Blizzard* turned in strong Q1 numbers. Net revenues came in at $981 million—14 percent higher than it had originally forecast. Profits also exceeded expectations, rising to $189 million, or $0.14 per diluted share; Activision (NSDQ: ATVI) had forecast an EPS…

The Chrysler bankruptcy is going to hit lots of companies hard, and high up on that list is Sirius XM (NSDQ: SIRI) Satellite Radio. Jim Meyer, the company’s President of Operations and Sales, said on the company’s earnings call today that the impact would start to be felt in the…

If EMI Music makes a huge amount of digital revenues, it certainly doesn’t like to shout about it. In its year-end results to March 31—its first full year under Terra Firma’s ownership—EMI says non-physical sales, including digital sales, licensing and online rights, now account for 35 percent of revenues, compared…

Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) won’t be buying stakes in more web music services any time soon, after it wrote off $33 million on Thursday against its investments in Lala and Imeem. CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. told analysts on the earning’s call: “We do not intend to make more digital…

Viewers still want their satellite TV, but DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) paid more to add new subscribers and keep its existing ones, which hurt profits. The company’s first-quarter 2009 revenue grew 7 percent to $4.9 billion (just below analyst expectations of $5 billion) and earnings per share decreased 38 percent to…

Its debt challenges have been side-stepped for now, but Sirius XM (NSDQ: SIRI) Satellite Radio has other issues to worry about. The company’s pro forma revenue grew 5 percent to $605.5 million in the first quarter, below consensus estimates of $647 million, and its loss per share was $0.07, also…

After stumbling in Q4, Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) continued its turnaround, posting $20.1 million ($0.07 per share) in net income in Q1, versus a $31.6 million loss the same time last year. Revenues were also positive, gaining 10 percent to $1.9 billion. Meanwhile, Cablevision’s first Q1 with Newsday in the fold,…

Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE) appeared to make some progress in the quarter ending March 29, but as the publisher indicated at its annual meeting in March, the advertising results were and remain “grim and lousy.” The owner of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch managed to slim its net loss to $51.7…