Ad Revenue

A year that began with a bang was interrupted by a quake, and now is ending with a whimper. Next year is projected to be better — but not for everybody. The March earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which put a months-long halt to automobile production, combined with a moribund job market and a steady drumbeat of bad economic news to slam the brakes on television advertising sales. Early in 2011, economists predicted that TV advertising revenue in the U.S. would increase 6% this year to an all-time high.

The cancellation and hefty write-down of HBO's"Luck" and the closure of a TV channel in India put a damper on an otherwise solid first quarter forTime Warner Inc. The New York media giant reported a profit of $583 million for the quarter ended March 31, compared with $653 million for the same period in 2011, an 11% drop. Revenue was up 4% to $7 billion. "We're off to a great start to the year, and we're benefiting from strong momentum for our content across our businesses," Time Warner Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes said Wednesday.

Boasting popular sporting events and original entertainment shows, cable programmers long ago surpassed the broadcast networks in viewers. Now they are beginning to close the advertising-revenue divide. "For the first time, the cable upfront take will be greater than the broadcast upfront," Bill Koenigsberg, chief executive of Horizon Media, said this week at the National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. convention in Chicago. This year, many top cable channels, including Time Warner's Turner networks, have been able to raise their ad rates more than 10% in the so-called upfront market, the period when advertisers commit to buying the bulk of the commercial time for the upcoming TV season.

SAN FRANCISCO — The rapid growth of Facebook Inc. showed signs of slowing in the first quarter, potentially cooling investors' fervor just weeks before the company's hotly anticipated initial public stock offering. Facebook generated $1.06 billion in sales, the second quarter in a row sales topped $1 billion. That represented a 45% jump from a year earlier but a 6% decline compared with the fourth quarter. The financial performance, the company's most anemic since at least 2010, fell below analysts' expectations.

Online advertising revenue grew 148% to a record $1.2 billion during the third quarter, putting the industry on track toward $4.4 billion in 1999 revenue, the Internet Advertising Bureau said. Internet advertising revenue hit $1.92 billion in 1998, according to the New York-based group. Consumer-related ads generated 32% of total ad revenue during the third quarter, followed by computing (21%), financial services (19%), telecommunications (6%) and business services (5%).

U.S. Internet advertising revenue grew 26% to $3 billion in the second quarter, driven by paid search listings and more sophisticated video and audio ads known as rich media, according to a study released Monday. The data provided by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers bolster the view that advertisers are spending more on the Internet as consumers devote more time to the Web and less to other media. Online ad revenue in the first half of the year also rose 26%, to $5.

For magazines that publish early in the week, 1996 provided a 53rd Monday, giving them an extra opportunity to generate revenue. But even without the extra issue, the weekly heavyweights owned by Time Inc. would have been the top three finishers in advertising revenue last year. People was No. 1 (for the sixth straight year), pulling in an estimated $525.6 million, up 20.1% over 1995. Sports Illustrated, aided by the Olympic Games, was No. 2, with $522.1 million, up 19.8%.

General Motors Corp., unhappy over articles critical of the car maker in Fortune magazine's Feb. 15 issue, said Wednesday that the company has pulled an eight-page advertisement insert scheduled to run in the publication this week. The nation's top car maker said the decision to cancel the advertisement was made after reading a series of stories that included an article by former GM board member H. Ross Perot entitled "How I Would Turn GM Around."

Combined print and online advertising revenue at U.S. newspapers slid 1.5% to $11.8 billion in the third quarter, hurt by falling automobile and help-wanted classified sales, an industry group said Tuesday. The decline marks the first time that combined print and online spending fell since the Newspaper Assn. of America began measuring such revenue in 2004.

National Broadcasting Co. projected on Tuesday a shortfall this year of up to $200 million in advertising revenue because of weaker prime-time performance and problems it blames on the Nielsen ratings system. NBC President Robert C. Wright confirmed the estimate, which he earlier had disclosed privately to NBC-affiliated stations during the annual convention being held in Washington. The figure represents an 8% drop from 1989's record $3.3 billion in advertising revenue.

Facebook, on the verge of the largest initial public stock offering in Silicon Valley history, generated more than $1 billion in sales in the first quarter, a jump of 45%, but its first-quarter net income slipped year over year. Its net income dropped 12% to $233 million from $205 million as expenses soared, the social networking giant said in a regulatory filing Monday. Facebook's first-quarter revenue also declined 6% from the fourth quarter. Facebook blamed the decline on seasonal patterns.

Troubled Yahoo Inc. had a bit of good news Tuesday, reporting first-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street's estimates despite revenue that was essentially flat. For the three months that ended March 31, Yahoo said profit rose 28% to $286 million, or 23 cents a share, from $223 million, or 17 cents, a year earlier. Income from operations decreased 11% to $169 million. Revenue, meanwhile, increased 1% to $1.2 billion. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected earnings per share of 17 cents and revenue of $1.06 billion.

Troubled Yahoo Inc. had a bit of good news Tuesday, reporting first-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street's estimates despite revenue that was essentially flat. For the three months ended March 31, the online search company said profit rose 28% to $286 million, or 23 cents a share, compared with $223 million, or 17 cents, in the same year-earlier period. Income from operations decreased 11% to $169 million. Revenue, meanwhile, increased 1% to $1.2 billion. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected earnings per share of 17 cents and revenue of $1.06 billion.

It's morning for America - "Good Morning America,"that is. In a shift that could remake morning TV, ABC'sa.m. extravaganza finally overthrew NBC's"Today" last week, ending its archrival's 16-year perch atop the weekly ratings. "GMA," hosted by George Stephanopoulos and Robin Roberts, drew an average of 5,147,000 total viewers last week, just 13,000 more than "Today," according to early data released Monday from Nielsen. While "GMA" has beaten "Today" before now on individual days, it hasn't done so in the weekly averages since 1996.

Will Facebook ads supply our friends with too much information? Consider the case of Nick Bergus, a writer, multimedia producer and instructor from Iowa City, Iowa, who can now add another line to his resume: personal lubricant pitchman. It all started when he favorited a tweet on Stellar (a service that aggregates “favorites” on social networks) that linked to a 55-gallon drum of Passion Natural water-based lubricant being sold on Amazon.com for $1,495. (For interested buyers, that's 46% off the list price for the kind of supply better suited to Mark Wahlberg's character in “Boogie Nights” than mere mortals)

Strong performances from the film studio and cable television business helped propel a 65% jump in News Corp.'s net income for its second quarter. The media conglomerate on Wednesday reported revenue of $8.98 billion for the quarter that ended Dec. 31, up 2% from the same time a year earlier. Net income rose to $1.06 billion, compared with $642 million a year earlier. Earnings per share rose to 42 cents. "We believe the explosion of consumer demand for digital content, driven by the upsurge in emerging platforms and international opportunities, makes this a great time to be a content leader," President and Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey told investors.

Warner Music Group Corp. said Thursday that it had settled its copyright infringement lawsuit against the social-networking website Imeem by agreeing to license its music and video content to the site for a slice of its ad revenue. Financial details of the settlement were not disclosed. Under the agreement, Imeem Inc. can carry music and videos from all of the record company's artists, who include Madonna, Linkin Park and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

A year that began with a bang was interrupted by a quake, and now is ending with a whimper. Next year is projected to be better — but not for everybody. The March earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which put a months-long halt to automobile production, combined with a moribund job market and a steady drumbeat of bad economic news to slam the brakes on television advertising sales. Early in 2011, economists predicted that TV advertising revenue in the U.S. would increase 6% this year to an all-time high.

The Beverly Hills-based private-equity firm that owns the San Diego Union-Tribune has hired a New York investment bank to explore options for the newspaper, a move often considered a first step for an owner seeking to sell. Platinum Equity, which acquired the paper two years ago from the Copley family, hired Evercore Partners to "evaluate strategic alternatives," said Mark Barnhill, a principal at Platinum. "We manage a large and complex investment portfolio, and routinely consider a range of options that will best position our companies for the future," Barnhill said in a statement.