• by Wayne Friedman , February 2, 2010

Riding the double-high of good earnings results and big Oscar nominations, News Corp. had a lot to celebrate on Tuesday.

News Corp.'s second fiscal quarter ending Dec. 31 saw big growth stemming from its record-breaking "Avatar" theatrical film release and higher cable network financial growth. It posted a hefty $254 million in new profits from a $6.4 billion net loss in the same period of 2009.

Revenue followed suit, rising 10% to $8.68 billion from $6.42 billion a year ago.

James Cameron's "Avatar" is now the biggest revenue-grossing movie ever, with more than $2 billion worldwide sales. (It didn't sell as many individual tickets as James Cameron's earlier movie, former box-office champ "Titanic.") "Avatar" was also nominated for nine Academy Awards.

Film entertainment operating income for the division almost tripled to $324 million from $112 million in the comparable period.

Better ad trends for its TV divisions benefited the Fox Broadcasting network and its local TV stations. A $2 million operating loss in the second quarter of 2009 turned into a $29 million operating income.

The Fox network, to date, is again the No. 1 network among 18-49 viewers, the dominant metric for TV advertisers and a key measure of a broadcast network's success.

News Corp. newspapers gained operating income as well, rising to $259 million from $200 million the previous year. The 30% growth was driven by increased advertising revenues at The Wall Street Journal and lower operating expenses throughout all the newspaper businesses.

Cable networks had operating income of $604 million -- a 35% increase or $156 million over the second quarter a year ago. This came from the Fox News Channel, its regional sports networks, the Fox International Channels and STAR. Fox News had its highest ever quarterly profit and increased its operating income 51%.

Concerning the testy ongoing negotiations over payment from cable companies for its Fox stations, Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp., and Chase Carey, deputy chairman, president and COO of News Corp., reiterated that the company wants more value for its stations from cable systems.

Regarding the highly discussed Time Warner retransmission deal in which Fox wanted $1 per month per subscriber, Carey did not disclose terms. He only said: "We feel we achieved the goals we set to achieve."