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BROADCAST/CABLE by Marauder

BROADCAST/CABLE

Discovery Channel’s 21st annual “Shark Week” of programming attracted more than 29 million viewers from July 27 to Aug. 2. “Shark Week” also performed well online, where Discovery racked up a record 7.5 million page views and more than 600,000 total visits. Multichannel News (8/5)

News Corp. reported revenue of $8.59 billion for Q2, up 16.5% over the previous year on income of $1.48 billion. Television was hard hit due to lower ratings and revenue, with income dropping 28%, while investment costs at Fox Interactive Media were high, driving operating income at FIM down to just $6 million. A silver lining was MySpace’s new contextual display advertising efforts; advertisers are paying double CPMs on hypertargeted branding campaigns within the social network. (Cynopsis 8/6)

Time Warner Cable added 200,000 digital-video subscribers in the second quarter and earned a profit that exceeded the expectations of Wall Street analysts. The company, which is being spun off from Time Warner, said that revenue was up 7%, to $4.3 billion, and that net profit hit $277 million, up from $272 million in the comparable period a year earlier. Reuters (8/6) , American City Business Journals/Buffalo (8/6)

Cablevision Chief Executive Officer James Dolan said the company was “actively looking” at a number of strategic alternatives to boost the firm’s stock price. One of those alternatives, according to analysts, would be to spin off Rainbow Media — which holds cable networks such as AMC, the Independent Film Channel, the Sundance Channel and WEtv — for an estimated $4 billion. Los Angeles Times/Associated Press (free registration) (8/5) , Bloomberg (8/5)

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