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Warner hurt by slow ad growth
Evening Standard 7 Aug 2008
Media giant Time Warner has been hit by slower advertising growth and a poor performance by its AOL internet unit that pushed down secondquarter earnings by 26%.
Net profit was $792 million (£403.6 million), down from $1.07 billion last year. Revenue was up at its film, cable and networks divisions and overall rose 5% to $11.6 billion, beyond Wall Street's estimates.
Time Warner took the first steps to a possible break-up of its AOL business that is dragging the group down.
Subscription revenue fell 29%. AOL scrapped fees for its email service in favour of an ad-supported revenue model two years ago.
Ad revenue rose 2% to $530 million. Display advertising fell 14%. Chief executive Jeff Bewkes sees AOL's overall and display ad growth rates improving in the second half. He said that the firm has "made the key decisions that will enable us to run AOL's access and audience businesses separately beginning in 2009".
