News Corporation has announced that its profit for the last three months of 2006 dropped to $822 million (£417 million).
News Corp attributed the fall in profits to a one-off gain recorded a year earlier, when $1.075 billion (£545 million) of profits included a $381 million (£193 million) gain from an asset disposal.
Income was up by 18% on a continuing basis, driven by growth in filmed entertainment, cable network programming, newspapers and satellite broadcasting.
There have been rumours that James Murdoch, head of BSkyB, of which News Corp is a 39% shareholder, could leave the broadcaster in the summer to move to News Corp (see Ulster TV Sees Airtime Revenues Up 10% In Q1 2004).