THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 30, 1995 TAG: 9503300360
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
With its flagship Family Channel posting strong revenue gains in the United States and narrowing its losses in the United Kingdom, International Family Entertainment Inc. on Wednesday reported a sharp rise in operating profit for the last quarter of 1994.
Beach-based IFE said its pretax operating profit for the October-through-December period totaled $9.1 million, up from $813,000 in the same quarter in 1993.
The fourth-quarter gain pushed operating profit for all of 1994 to $25.4 million, down from $28.6 million the year before.
Early last year, IFE was battered by losses from startups and newly acquired properties. But the company gradually narrowed the losses as the year went on. Its cash cow, the U.S. version of the Family Channel, continued to provide a big cushion.
``We've got a good franchise in the core business and that allows us . . . to expand,'' said David R. Humphrey, an IFE senior vice president.
In the United States during the fourth quarter, Family Channel raked in an operating profit of $13.3 million, up 29 percent from $10.3 million in the previous year's quarter. Increases in fees charged to cable operators that carry the TV network accounted for most of the gain. The company also slashed expenses for a block of game shows, which had been performing below expectations.
In the United Kingdom, where IFE launched Family Channel in September 1993, the network cut its operating loss to $3.5 million in the latest quarter from $5 million the year before.
IFE's Cable Health Club, a health and fitness cable-TV network launched in October 1993, also reduced its operating loss - to $1.2 million in the fourth quarter from $2.3 million a year earlier.
The company's program-production and -distribution unit, largely compromised of MTM Entertainment, squeaked out an operating profit of $156,000 in the latest period, compared to a loss of $2.6 million in the 1993 fourth quarter.
Live entertainment, the only other division, reported a $244,000 operating loss during the fourth quarter. There was no comparable figure available for 1993 because IFE wasn't in that business then. Included in that division is a chain of South Carolina music theaters and the Ice Capades, which the company purchased last month from Dorothy Hamill International Inc. for $10.2 million, including assumed debt.
For the 1994 fourth quarter, IFE reported after-tax net income of $4.8 million, or 13 cents per share. That compared to a net loss of $51.5 million, or a $1.26 a share, in the 1993 period, when IFE took a special $52 million charge to buy back a large block of its own securities.
Net income for all of 1994 totaled $14.8 million, or 38 cents a share, compared to a net loss of $34.8 million, or 83 cents a share.
IFE's Class B common stock closed Wednesday at $14 a share, up 75 cents, in trading on the New York Stock Exchange. by CNB