Times Mirror Profit Rises on Gains at Newspapers

Times Mirror Co., citing advertising gains at the Los Angeles Times and its other major newspapers, said Wednesday that its second-quarter profit from continuing operations--and before restructuring and other one-time charges--rose 14% from a year earlier.

“Our Eastern newspapers had an outstanding second quarter in 1998 and led the way for our newspaper publishing segment with advertising growth of 8.8%,” said Mark H. Willes, Times Mirror’s chairman, president and chief executive officer and publisher of The Times.

The Times’ advertising revenue climbed 7.8% from a year earlier.

Times Mirror earlier this year announced plans to divest its Matthew Bender & Co. legal-publishing unit, its Mosby Inc. health sciences publishing subsidiary and its 50% interest in Shepard’s, a legal-citation publisher. The deals are expected to close in the current quarter, but Times Mirror treated the units as discontinued operations in its second-quarter report.

Hence, Times Mirror’s profit from continuing lines, and before the charges, rose to $68.7 million, or 70 cents per diluted share, in the quarter ended June 30, from $60.5 million, or 53 cents, a year earlier. Its revenue from continuing operations climbed 6%, to $760.6 million from $719.1 million.

The charges amounted to $39.7 million before taxes; they helped reduce Times Mirror’s net income for the quarter to $49.2 million, or 49 cents a diluted share, from $66 million, or 58 cents, a year ago.

Times Mirror said the advertising and circulation gains at its newspaper group offset a 22% jump in newsprint costs and gave the group a 4% increase in pretax operating profit (before the charges), to $120.1 million from $115.3 million in the year-earlier quarter.

Besides The Times, the group includes Newsday in New York; the Baltimore Sun; the Morning Call in Allentown, Pa.; and three newspapers in Connecticut: the Hartford Courant, the (Stamford) Advocate and the Greenwich Time.

“Looking ahead to the second half [of 1998], we will continue to invest aggressively to build advertising and circulation volume, particularly at the Los Angeles Times,” Willes said.

Times Mirror’s magazine group reported a sharp drop in second-quarter operating profit (before the charges), to $2 million from $5.3 million, mostly because of expenses related to the relaunch of the Sporting News and acquisitions. Revenue was flat at $59.6 million.

The continuing operations of Times Mirror’s professional-information group, which includes training publications, showed a 16% gain in operating income (before the charges), to $17.1 million from $14.7 million, on a 5% revenue gain, to $110 million from $104.6 million.

Times Mirror’s shares closed at $60.75 on Wednesday, down 38 cents on the NYSE.