• by Wayne Friedman , February 11, 2010

Viacom joins the parade of other media companies on the financial upside, reporting strong profits in its film unit as well as cost-cutting efforts.

The company almost tripled its net earnings to $661 million in its fourth-quarter 2009 reporting period, on slightly lower revenues at $4.1 billion -- down from $4.2 billion in the fourth quarter 2008.

Its media networks were down 6% in revenue to $2.3 billion. Worldwide ad revenues lost 3% to $1.30 billion, with domestic ad revenues down 4%. The company says much of these results were driven primarily by lower sales of "Rock Band" video game packages.

While its film entertainment unit slipped 1% in revenues to $1.8 billion, the unit witnessed rocketing profitability to $298 million from $84 million in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Other positive news came from stronger affiliate fees -- like that of all major media companies with big cable network holdings. They grew, on a worldwide basis, 11% to $741 million. Also in the plus column from its TV unit, worldwide television license fees grew 27% to $445 million.

Filmed entertainment had lower revenue results, coming mostly from a 73% year-over-year decrease in theatrical revenues to $93 million.

But helping its profitability was its home-entertainment revenues, which went against the grain of the industry overall, getting a 12% increase to $1.15 billion from strong performances of the DVD and Blu-ray releases of "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen," "Star Trek" and "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra."

Philippe Dauman, president and chief executive officer of Viacom, stated: "Despite a global recession that impacted all aspects of our business, the multiple revenue streams of our cable networks helped temper the impact of an industry-wide downturn in advertising and retail, and also allowed us to continue to invest in new programming to build our brands.

"The resurgence of BET and MTV's recent ratings gains are strong examples of the relevance our brands have with their target audiences," he noted.