Discovery Communications, Inc. (DISCA, DISCB, DISCK) on Tuesday reported a 28 percent decline in profit for the first quarter, as higher revenues were more than offset by a year-ago gain related to the Oprah Winfrey Network joint venture.
Looking ahead, the media and entertainment company raised its financial outlook for fiscal 2012 and also increased its share repurchase program by $1 billion.
The Silver Spring, Maryland-based company's first-quarter net income was $221 million or $0.57 per share, down from $305 million or $0.74 per share in the year-ago period.
The year-ago quarter's results include a gain of $102 million from the contribution of the Discovery Health network to the OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network joint venture, a pay-television network and Web site.
Excluding the gain, net income for the latest quarter rose 9 percent.
Total revenues for the quarter grew 16 percent to $1.10 billion from $951 million in the prior-year period.
The increase in revenues reflects 16 percent growth at U.S. Networks and 18 percent growth at International Networks. The revenue increase at both the segments were led by distribution revenue growth as well as advertising revenue growth.
In the latest quarter, Discovery Communications began recording 100 percent of OWN's net losses in other expense, as accumulated operating losses at OWN exceeded its equity contribution to OWN.
Looking ahead to fiscal 2012, Discovery Communications now forecasts net income in a range of $1.00 billion to $1.10 billion, and revenue between $4.55 billion and $4.65 billion. Earlier, the company projected net income for the year of $975 million to $1.075 billion, and revenue between $4.450 billion and $4.575 billion.
The company said it has repurchased 39.76 million shares of Series C common stock under its $2 billion stock repurchase program to date at an aggregate purchase price of about $1.52 billion.
Including the 13.73 million preferred shares acquired from Advance/Newhouse Programming Partnership, the company has repurchased 13 percent of the shares outstanding since buyback activity was authorized in 2010.
The company's board of directors has approved a $1 billion increase to the existing stock repurchase program, to $3 billion.
Discovery Communications owns and operates nine national television networks in the U.S., including Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Science Channel, Investigation Discovery, Military Channel, Planet Green, Discovery Fit & Health, and Velocity.
In Tuesday's regular session, DISCB is trading at $52.40, down $2.68 or 4.87 percent on a volume of 100 shares.
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