The News Review:
- Disney Sees 46% Drop In Net Income
- National CineMedia Q1 2009 Earnings Call Transcript
- Upfronts 2009: Discovery’s Zaslav Says Market’s Hard to Gauge
Disney Sees 46% Drop In Net Income
Broadcasting & Cable
 perating income at the broadcasting unit dropped 38% to $162 million for the quarter while cable networks increased by 5% to $1.  ESPN saw ad revenue fall but was helped by higher affiliate revenue. ABC Family saw ad growth and higher affiliate contributions. In broadcasting the company said attributed the 38% drop in operating income to higher programming costs at ABC and lower ad sales at the owned TV stations. The company?s interactive media unit which will house its new stake in online video venture Hulu alongside its interactive studio was also hurt reporting a $61 million loss for the period.  A 17% decline in revenue was explained by lower sales of self published video games.
National CineMedia Q1 2009 Earnings Call Transcript
Seeking Alpha
While our local advertising business is clearly being adversely impacted by the effects of the recession the impact still does not appear to be as severe as many other local mediums. We continue to benefit from our high quality theaters strong box office attractive audience and solid value proposition relative to other mediums. Fortunately our local advertising revenue only represented approximately 12% of our total revenue and our growth in our higher margin national revenue more than offset the impact of the lower local revenue. While the local business is still very soft and expected to continue to track behind 2008 as the news of the strong box office and the marketing campaigns of the summer blockbusters begin filtering into the local markets we are hopeful that our local business will being to recover. As we had mentioned while a strong film schedule and overall box office provides a tailwind for our overall business it has more of a direct impact on our local advertising business. ur combined meetings and events business continues to post strong growth with revenue up 49% in the first quarter compared to Q108. This was driven primarily by the growth of our Fathom division as it benefited from the expansion of our live broadcast capabilities and stronger metropolitan opera titles including Madame Butterfly which was our largest attended event ever.
Related from Homegrownrecords: Sandy Spring Bancorp Inc. Q1 2009 Earnings Call Transcript
Upfronts 2009: Discovery’s Zaslav Says Market’s Hard to Gauge
Multichannel News
affiliate revenue rose 11% and ad revenue rose 2% for an overall increase of 5% year over year to $509 million in the first quarter the company said as part of its. Discovery has affiliate-fee increases built into its contracts and saw subscriber growth from its digital networks officials said during a conference call with analysts.