Times Mirror Co. Posts 2% Increase in Earnings

Times Mirror Co., publisher of the Los Angeles Times, reported that its earnings in the first quarter rose 2% over the same period the year before, led by higher earnings from the company’s newspaper, newsprint, book publishing and cable-television operations.

The Los Angeles-based company posted earnings of $44.2 million, up from $43.3 million the year before. Revenue in the quarter rose 4% to $695 million from $670 million.

The company’s newspaper operations earned $61.7 million in the quarter, up 5.5%. The results included the newly acquired Call and Chronicle newspaper in Allentown, Pa.

Earnings from cable-television operations gained significantly, up 36.7% to $12.9 million.

Newsprint and forest products were up 188% to $9.2 million, even though revenue fell. Earnings from book publishing rose 593% to $1.5 million.

Those gains were offset by lower earnings in broadcast television, due to generally lower advertising revenue industrywide and $1.5 million that the company had to pay over a contested music-license fee.

The company’s information-services division, which includes such subsidiaries as medical- and flight-information products, also saw a 13% drop in earnings because its contract to print telephone books for the Bell system expired. Earnings from various other operations also declined by 44% to $3.4 million.

Times Mirror is a diversified communications company that publishes eight newspapers, including The Times, Newsday on Long Island, the Hartford Courant, the Denver Post and the Dallas Times Herald.