Media giants see better quarter

Posted by Leah McBride Mensching on July 28, 2010 at 3:00 PM

U.S. media companies are expected to report quarterly increases of 5 to 15 percent over the next two weeks - the best results in two years, Reuters reported exclusively this afternoon.

The reason for improved results is the upswing in advertising spending. The New York Times Company, for example, has seen an improvement in ad sales, and Standard and Poor's media index increased by almost a third in the past 12 months.

However, spending in some categories, such as retail, is still risky because unemployment is still high in the country, Wall Street analyst Anthony DiClemente, of Barclays Capital, told Reuters.

"As for earnings, all the media companies should also post increases from a year ago, with top analysts predicting that Walt Disney and News Corp are most likely to beat Wall Street estimates, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine," the article stated.