DREAMWORKS - MEDIA MOGULS ALL'S WELL

MEDIA MOGULS ALL'S WELL

Top media execs expressed confidence Wednesday that their companies will be able to weather the hurricane that slammed into Wall Street this week. Speaking at a Goldman Sachs conference in New York, DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg said, "Both traditionally as well as recently, we have seen that our product is, at worse, recession-resistant and, more optimistically and historically, has actually been recession-proof." Similarly Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said that about 75 percent of his company's revenue comes from sales of content, including movie and TV productions, and cable and magazine subscriptions that "for decades have not been particularly sensitive" to economic turbulence. The other 25 percent comes from advertising -- but that, too, he said, has remained strong during the current downturn. News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch said that Fox Broadcasting has shown particularly strong growth in ad sales and that several of his cable networks are showing solid profitability for the first time. (He acknowledged that his 20th Century Fox studio "had a bad summer" but "great films" will be coming later in the year.) "Hard times are good for big companies," he remarked. And CBS Chairman Les Moonves suggested that, although advertising from auto makers and financial institutions will be down this year, it will be more than offset by political ad sales. Even as the media moguls were speaking, their stock was being hit hard, with CBS and News Corp hitting new 52-week lows.

18/09/2008