News Corp: New Cable Sports Champion?

Over the last few months, there have been growing murmurs about the moves News Corp. (NASDAQ:NWS) could possibly make, and the rumor of the arrival of a new cable sports network from the company has added to the buzz. It appears now that News Corp’s entertainment section may in fact be getting a little added strength on the sports side.

Firstly, News Corp. will be divorcing its entertainment business from its publishing business. Though Rupert Murdoch will remain chairman for both, the publishing wing will split off to include assets such as The Wall Street Journal and Times of London, while the entertainment side will have 20th Century Fox film studio, Fox television assets, and more.

Between the fourth quarter of 2011 and 2012, revenue from the company’s publishing division was rather stagnant, staying around $2.1 billion. The division was hurt by about $367 million in charges related to investigations into hacking and similar activities.

However, the entertainment division wasn’t faced with so much trouble and performed better than publishing, with $2.6 billion from its cable-network programming alone. The film division struggled a bit more, but the combined entertainment unit was still stronger than publishing, and that fact may emphasize the logic behind splitting up the sections.