Earnings Preview: News Corp.

News Corporation (NWS) is expected to report Q1 earnings Thursday after the close with a conference call scheduled for 5:30 pm ET on November 6.

Guidance

Analysts are looking for a profit of 23c on revenue of $7.66B. The consensus range is 19c to 28c for EPS, and revenue of $7.3B to $8.03B, according to First Call.

Analyst Views

Oppenheimer analyst Jason Helfstein cuts his rating on News Corp to Perform from Outperform and lowered his EPS estimate to 22c from 24c, citing the poor performance of its Twentieth Century Fox film studio as well as a rapid decline in advertising revenue. Helfstein wrote to clients that core newspaper revenues in Australia and Britain are expected to fall, although the inclusion of Dow Jones & Co, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, should boost revenues nearly 40% over Q108. Helfstein, who reduced U.S. advertising forecasts to levels "approaching the worst periods in advertising," sees slowing ad growth at MySpace and believes the Fox Interactive Media group will post a loss.

News Corp recently agreed to sell its 35% indirect stake in Puls TV, a small Polish television broadcaster, to the remaining shareholders; terms of the deal were not disclosed. In an effort to expand into new territories, News Corp's mobile content operation will rebrand and reorganize into three units: Fox Mobile Studios, Fox Mobile Entertainment and Fox Mobile Distribution.