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Chairman's Address - K. Rupert Murdoch

 

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Title:

Chairman's Address - K. Rupert Murdoch

Entities:

General Motors Corp.; Hughes Electronics Corp.; News Corp. Ltd.

Date:

2003

Size:

Preview shows 5KB of 20KB total

Price:

$35

ID:

#237988

 

 

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Subject Companies: Hughes Electronics Corporation
General Motors Corporation
Commission File No. 333-105851
Commission File No. 333-105853



Chairman's Address - K. Rupert Murdoch

News Corporation Annual General Meeting
Adelaide

15 October 2003

Let me welcome the many hundreds of you to this 2003 Annual General Meeting of
The News Corporation Limited and say what a pleasure it is to be with you all
again and to celebrate the year 2003 fiscal year, which delivered the
magnificent operating profit of A$4.4 billion.

While many of our competitors continued to grapple with the hangovers of the
90s excesses, we steamed ahead to end the year with the strongest balance
sheet and competitive position we have ever enjoyed.

Let me briefly summarise our results. Full-year revenues were up 15 per cent
to US$17.5 billion, while operating income increased 36 per cent to a record
US$2.5 billion. Those record profits came not from one or two operations but
from record results at a wide swathe of our businesses, including film, cable,
publishing, Australian newspapers, STAR in Asia, and the FOX Television
stations in the US. Along with record profits, we increased our cash flow,
paid down debt and significantly improved the health of our company. By 30
June 2003, we had effectively put another US$1.4 billion in the bank,
increasing our cash to US$4.9 billion, while reducing debt by US$460 million
to US$8.2 billion.

To run through the performance at each of our operating segments, let me start
with Filmed Entertainment where earnings increased to US$641 million, a 36 per
cent jump over the 2002 results, while our home entertainment business
continued to break records and our film studio continued its extraordinary run
of profitable box office releases. Movies such as "X2: X-Men United", "Dare
Devil", "Phone Booth", and a string of others gave us great returns at the box
office, while previous movie hits quickly became best-selling DVD and video
titles, including "Ice Age", "Shallow Hal", "Behind Enemy Lines" and others.
It is no secret that those DVD and video releases have added tremendous
stability to our filmed entertainment earnings and they provided the bulk of
the earnings increase in the segment. Of course, the contribution of our
television studios should not be forgotten. Twentieth Century Fox Television
is scheduled to supply 24 series for the major American networks - not just
the FOX network but ABC, CBS, NBC and the WB - in the 2003-2004 television
season. The syndication profits from existing or former hits such as "King of
the Hill", "The Simpsons" and "X-Files" as well as profits from the TV DVD
market that we pioneered last year continued to grow and buoy the segment's
bottom line.

Results at the television segment included record contributions from the Fox
Television Stations group, the first full year of profitability at STAR, and a
dramatic decrease in the losses at the FOX network. The US broadcast
television operations were dominated by the best-ever ratings at the FOX
network. Fox came within a hair's breadth of toppling NBC for the crown among
US networks, and in fact won the ratings race in both the February and May
2003 sweeps period on the back of hits such as "Joe Millionaire", "American
Idol", "24", "The Simpsons", "That 70s Show", and "Bernie Mac". The 16 per
cent prime time ratings improvement for the year at Fox helped lift operating
income, but it also gave a terrific boost to our station group, which is our
most profitable business, and which in turn increased earnings by 24 per cent,
thanks to increased market share, higher ratings,and the efficiencies we have
gained from the integrating of our duopoly stations. The station group now
comprises 35 television stations covering nearly 40 per cent of the US market
and it increased its margins to 46 per cent during fiscal 2003.

Meanwhile, we started to reap the rewards of our long-held faith and our years
of hard work at STAR in Asia. STAR's strength, particularly in India, fuelled
its first ever full year of profitability, even as the platform absorbed
start-up losses in mainland China and elsewhere in Asia. All told, operating
income at our television businesses was up a dramatic 46 per cent to US$851

 

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