6 posts and columns on one-time charges

Tim Armstrong’s AOL Beats Wall Street’s Low Expectations

in Media on February 3, 2010 at 4:11 am PT

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong turned in his first earnings report as CEO of the newly independent company this morning. And his numbers don’t look anything like the ones he was used to reporting at Google–revenue plummeted across the board. Then again, Wall Street has minimal expectations for AOL for at least a couple quarters, so Armstrong doesn’t need to do much to meet them. After factoring out one-time charges, AOL posted earnings of 71 cents per share on revenue of $810 million. Wall Street expected earnings of either 62 cents or 66 cents per share, depending on who you ask, on revenue of around $766 million.

Time Warner Gives Wall Street a Pleasant Surprise, but Has Bad News for Time Inc. Employees

in Media on November 4, 2009 at 4:09 am PT

Yesterday, Viacom told Wall Street that its third quarter had been better than most analysts expected. Today Time Warner delivered a similar report: Revenue was on track, but cost savings improved the bottom line. That won’t help hundreds of Time Inc. employees who face job cuts this quarter. Meanwhile, the company can’t ditch AOL soon enough: It has already spent $100 million prepping it for a spinoff this year.
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A Slow-Motion Recovery: Viacom Says Things Aren’t Getting Worse

in Media on November 3, 2009 at 4:25 am PT

Here’s another quick glimpse of the advertising market, courtesy of Viacom. The cable giant says ad sales are still down, but that the rate of decline is slowing. And in the fall of 2009, that constitutes pretty good news.
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Sirius XM: Cash for Clunker

in News on August 6, 2009 at 7:19 am PT

This week has been a good one for Sirius XM Radio. The company’s shares spiked, rising about 20 percent to 54 cents on news of the government’s expanded “Cash for Clunkers” program and the positive impact it should have on new car sales and, by extension, new Sirius subscriptions. That analysts had been predicting a second-quarter loss for the satellite radio company, along with the loss of thousands of subscribers, did little to temper enthusiasm.
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A Mixed Bag From the New York Times: Q2 Costs Got Better, Ads Got Worse, and Web Dollars Disappeared

in Media on July 23, 2009 at 6:00 am PT

We saw a mini-rally in newspaper shares yesterday, based on the notion that the worst may be over for the industry. But the New York Times’s Q2 results are pretty inconclusive: The publisher was able to take a big chunk out of costs, but revenue kept plunging, and Web ads dropped by more than 15 percent. The paper did say, though, that things got less bad as the quarter progressed, and that they’ll get slightly less bad next quarter, too.

Cisco: Expectations Easy to Beat if You Set Them Low Enough

in News on May 6, 2009 at 2:15 pm PT

Cisco opened its books this afternoon and what they revealed wasn’t exactly pretty: declining profit and slumping sales. Not the sort of performance you hope for in a tech bellwether. But clearly Cisco has been beaten into submission by the econalypse just like everyone else.
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