Quebecor (TSX:QBR.B), the parent company of the Ottawa Sun, says its net income rose to $67 million, or $1.05 per basic share – due mainly to non-operating items.
Its adjusted income from continuing operations fell to $48.7 million or 77 cents per basic share from $60 million or 93 cents per basic share a year earlier.
Quebecor's overall revenue increased by $33 million to just under $1.09 billion.
Analysts had been expecting 97 cents per share of adjusted earnings on $1.1 billion of revenues, according to analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.
Quebecor president and CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau said the company's revenue was up mainly because of growth in sales at its Videotron division, which offers cable and telecom services.
"Our second quarter results were marked by the telecommunications segment's excellent results while our news media segment's results declined from the same period of 2011, mainly because of significant investments in, among other things, the distribution network and the publishing of community newspapers,'' Peladeau said in a statement.
"However, the newspaper publishing and printing operations posted the highest operating margins, expressed as a percentage of revenues, of all the major industry players in the second quarter of 2012."
"We also made major investments in expanding the specialty services of TVA Group Inc., so that their financial performance will no longer be entirely dependent on the conventional television network's results."
The Montreal-based media company already announced that its TVA Group (TSX:TVA.B) television and magazine subsidiary nearly doubled its second-quarter profit, thanks to gains the broadcaster and publisher made from the sale of its interests in two specialty services.
TVA's overall net income attributable to common shareholders rose to $23.7 million or $1 per share, including $12.9 million or 54 cents per share from the sale of its 51 per cent stake in The Cave and 50 per cent stake in Mystery TV.
Quebecor has joined Cogeco Cable Inc. (TSX:CCA) and Eastlink to launch a campaign to oppose BCE Inc.'s (TSX:BCE) planned purchase of Astral Media Inc. (TSX:ACM.A), saying the deal would give Bell too much control over the country's broadcasting landscape.
The heads of the media companies raised the spectre of Bell forcing consumers to pay more money for popular television channels, or packaging those channels with less-popular ones, or other services, if the Astral deal goes ahead.
The deal still needs approval by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and the Competition Bureau.
Quebecor Inc. is a holding company with a 54.7 per cent interest in Quebecor Media Inc., one of Canada's largest media groups, with more than 16,000 employees.
Quebecor Media Inc., through its subsidiary Videotron Ltd., is an integrated communications company engaged in cable television, interactive multimedia development, Internet access services, cable telephony service, and mobile telephony service.
Through Sun Media Corp., Quebecor Media Inc. is the largest publisher of newspapers in Canada and also operates Canoe.ca and its network of English- and French-language Internet properties in Canada.
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