"We are proud of the full-year financial growth achieved over the last 12 months," said Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corporation – but the beleaguered US media company continues to suffer.
It posted a loss of $1.6bn (£1.2bn) in the last quarter, compared to a profit of $683m for the same period last year. The sharp fall was largely down to weaknesses at News Corp's publishing assets (including newspapers such as the Times and the Sun), which will soon be split off from its more profitable film and television assets, including Fox Broadcasting and Twentieth Century Fox.
News Corp has reported a net income of $1.4bn, or $0.47 per share, for the fiscal year ended 30 June 2012, a long way down from $2.89bn, or $1.04 per share, for the same period last year.
Revenues increased by 1 per cent to $33.7bn (2011: $33.4bn), primarily due to a 14 per cent growth in the cable network programming segment.
Murdoch, said:
Not only did we execute on our operating plan and deliver on our financial targets, we returned over $5bn to shareholders through an aggressive buy-back programme and dividends.
In addition, significant progress has been made in opportunistically addressing the Company's non-consolidated assets, as demonstrated by the purchase of Fox Pan American Sports, the sale of NDS and the announced intention to purchase the remaining ownership stake of ESPN STAR Sports and Consolidated Media Holdings.
Our company has continued to innovate, grow and consistently adapt to the rapidly changing media industry landscape. We find ourselves in the middle of great change, driven by shifts in technology, consumer behavior, advertiser demands and economic uncertainty and change brings about great opportunity. News Corporation is in a strong operational, strategic and financial position, which should only be enhanced by the proposed separation of the media and entertainment and publishing businesses.