Media Outlook

News Corp. (NWS) today reported operating income of $1.04 billion, an increase of 9 percent on revenues of $7.2 billion, despite an 82 percent drop in income in the company's Newspaper division. After all, the Wall Street Journal is such a tiny part of Rupert Murdoch's empire.

Revenues were up at News Corp's Filmed Entertainment division ("Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" and the Wolverine movie contributed to this) and at its cable stations (including Fox News Channel, which reported its highest-ever quarterly profit).

Of the company's newspaper division, News Corp had this to say: ad revs are down. (Surprise, surprise.) The declines were partially offset by reduced expenses at the Wall Street Journal and increased circulation revenues.

A billion and a third, that is. Time Warner Inc. (TWX) reported a profit of $1.3 billion on revenues of $7.1 billion, leading chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes to announce that "Time Warner is firmly on track to post solid results this year in spite of the tough economic environment."

Revenue at Time Warner's Publishing segment, which includes Time Inc's 22 magazines and 25 web sites, declined 18 percent to $914 million, mainly because of declines in advertising and subscription revenues, but income fell 40 percent, so despite "better-than-expected" results at Turner Broadcasting & HBO (where revenues rose 5 percent and income grew 3 percent thanks to lower costs), the company will probably still be announcing layoffs at its magazines later today.

Revenues at AOL decreased 22 percent and income fell by half, so Bewkes is probably pretty happy that he's about to get the online company off Time Warner's books. And Tim Armstrong, meanwhile, has a big job on his hands...

Barry Diller's IAC turned a profit for the second quarter in a row, this time of $.34 per share or $46.3 million, despite a 9% drop in revenue.

Media & Advertising sustained an 11% drop in revenue while Emerging Businesses (aka The Daily Beast) watched revenues fall 19%.

Ironically, the revenue declines in Media & Advertising, including at IAC's Ask.com, are a result of a redesign that makes Ask.com more efficient. In October 2008, the site was relaunched to allow users to find their desired information with fewer clicks, which results in fewer ads being shown and also a decrease in cost per click, IAC's release said. Meanwhile, lower income in Emerging Businesses "reflect[s] continued investment in InstantAction.com and The Daily Beast..." so Diller isn't giving up on Tina Brown just yet.

Media companies don't usually top the lists of great places to work right now. At best, your perks are cut; at worst, you're fearing for your job as you watch your colleagues get escorted out of the building.

But in D.C., there's one company bucking that trend.

The Motley Fool, a financial advice company that runs fool.com, is the only media company's logo appearing on the November issue of Washingtonian. It's been on the mag's Great Places To Work list for years.

Motley Fool is known for having no set number of vacation days for employees—as long as you get your work done, take as long as you want. There's a game room, free on-site yoga classes, 15 weeks maternity leave (and $400 worth of take-out meals for new parents). The Washingtonian's 2007 Great Places To Work issue (the 2009 writeup isn't yet online) quoted senior vice president of human resources Lee Burbage on the dress code: "We have only three types of unacceptable dress at the Fool. Viking helmets with strapless evening gowns, plaid with polka dots, and more than three colors not found in nature."

The company employs about 180, with a third each in tech, marketing, and writing/editing/analysis.

The McGraw-Hill Companies (MHP) reported earnings of $336 million, down 13 percent from $390 million in this quarter last year. The Information & Media division, including J.D. Power & Associates, assorted trade magazines, and BusinessWeek (at least until the company can get the mag off its books and onto Bloomberg's), saw revenue decline by 10 percent as the company cut expenses by 8 percent.

"Cost containment remains a priority," Harold McGraw III, chairman, president and chief executive officer said in a statement, warning that the company predicted another soft quarter ahead.

The BusinessWeek sale, company execs said, will be worth $5.9 million after taxes.

The Reconstruction of American Journalism by Leonard Downie Jr (former WaPo executive editor until last year) and Michael Schudson (sociologist studying journalism) has made quite a splash in the blogosphere.

It proposes to maintain journalism as we know it through a nonprofit model—through grants, private donations, etc. It suggests that public broadcasting shift its focus to cover more local news. And it suggests that FCC fees go into an endowment for news, similar to the National Endowment for the Arts.

Matt Slocum at Nieman Lab called the paper a "welcome palate cleanser."

Lots have called the report "mile-wide, inch-deep."

Michelle McLellan at The Knight Foundation said the report's suggestions "fall well short of the impressive build up."

Have you read the thing? Are you convinced?

The rate at which newspapers and magazines die off appears to be slowing, reports PR software company Vocus on its blog, InVocus.

According to the company's media outlets database, thirty five newspapers closed in the past three months, the majority being community weeklies, and the U.S. lost only one large daily paper—the Ann Arbor News.

flickr: nDevilTV

Radio stations have stayed about the same in number but many local programs have been dropped in favor of syndicated content.

Vocus says about 377 magazines, both business and consumer, folded in the past three months while 82 launched. (Note: Samir "Mr. Magazine" Husni has, as usual, a different total—he recently posted that 71 consumer-only magazines launched in the month of September alone. For more about his methodology, read our post here).

Does this mean media jobs for all? Not likely, but it may mean that some of those who are holding on may have weathered the worst.

flickr: ogimogi

Engagement is key: his experiences with TechTV, a cable channel that dissolved in 2004, showed him that a smaller but more passionate audience means more than a larger disengaged one.

The video gets good around the 6:30 mark, unless you want to hear Laporte talk about playing a virtual reality barista during the height of the dot-com boom, in which case, start at the beginning.

Southwest's in-flight magazine Spirit leads this month's issue with the Entrepreneur Handbook, featuring advice, reading list recommendations, and even some Twitterers to follow.

The PDF version (or print edition, if you're flying and can get your hands on the magazine) is much more fun to read, with plenty of infographics and charticles and whatnot.

Will this get your business off the ground? Hardly. We'd call it less of a "handbook" and more of an "inspiration book" but hey.

We liked Zappo's founder Tony Hseih's words of wisdom to an aspiring business founder:
"Chase the vision, not the money. Make sure that your business has a greater purpose beyond the bottom line. Figure out what you'd be so passionate about doing that you'd be happy doing it for 10 years even if you never made any money from it. And then go do it. The ironic thing is that if you are actually chasing the vision and not the money, the money will follow because your customers and employees will be able to sense your passion, and they will want to help you succeed."

Word.

In California, two new reporting startups will pay the salaries of "more than dozens" of journalists and pay up to 120 Berkeley grad students for their work.

Financier Warren Hellman is investing $5 million in an as-yet-unnamed nonprofit journalism venture that will launch next year and cover politics, social issues, and education. That site will employ "dozens" of journalists, use content from and provide content to NorCal's public radio station KQED, and pay Berkeley grad students.

And the Center for Investigative Reporting's newly-launched California Watch employs an editorial team of eight, in addition to managers and directors.

This may be outside the norm, the Wall Street Journal and The Business Insider report, as new business starts are actually down per the Bureau of Labor Statistics' most recent reports. And venture capital funding was down 44% in the first half of 2009.

After the last recession officially ended in November 2001, it took about a year and a half before folks began launching startups again. So while everyone's talking about how small businesses create jobs, remember that you have to have the small business before it can create anything.