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"Rock Band" sales boost Viacom

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Date: Friday 02 May 2008

LONDON (ShareCast) - MTV and Nickelodeon owner Viacom saw first quarter earnings grow by a third, driven by strong demand for the video game “Rock Band” and a rise in home video revenues.

The cable operator said first quarter earnings rose to $270m, or 42 cents per share, from $203m (29 cents) a year earlier. Revenue jumped 15% to $3.12bn from $2.72bn.

Excluding write-downs, earnings per share were 44 cents, some 3 cents higher than analysts had been predicting.

The company made no change to its previous forecast for earnings from continuing operations to grow by 10% or more per year between 2008 and 2010.

The company’s cable channels benefited from the recent writers’ strike as its flagship shows are less dependent on scripts, with large parts of its content consisting of reality shows and re-runs of animated series such as “SpongeBob SquarePants”.

Operating losses at the entertainment division, which includes the film studios Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks, were trimmed to $63m from $108m a year earlier.

The film division is pinning its short-term hopes on “Iron Man”, released today in the USA, and the new “Indiana Jones” film to be released next month.