MTV owner Viacom's profits more than tripled in the fourth quarter following the addition of the DreamWorks studio last year, which swung its movie business to a profit, an Associated Press report said.
The report said Viacom, which also owns BET, VH1 and several other cable channels, said it earned $480.8 million, in the October-December period versus $129.5 million, in the same period a year ago.
Viacom also reported a lower tax bill and had accounting adjustments to its year-ago figures following its split-off from CBS, the Associated Press report further said.
On a comparable basis, Viacom's operating income increased 28% to $855.6 million from $669.6 million a year earlier, the report said.
The improvement was largely due to its movie business, which earned $86.3 million in the quarter versus a loss in the year-ago period of $39.6 million, the report added.
Viacom recently signed a deal with a startup company called Joost to distribute programming from its cable networks online, shortly after demanding that the Google-owned video sharing site YouTube take down more than 100,000 unauthorized clips from Viacom-owned properties, the report said.
Like other media companies, Viacom is trying hard to find ways to get its programming distributed online in a legal and controlled way that it can profit from, rather than seeing unauthorized clips show up on Web sites, the report added.