Times Mirror 1st-Quarter Earnings Rise

Times Mirror Co. said Thursday that its first-quarter earnings from continuing operations, excluding extraordinary items, rose to $12.5 million from $7.5 million in the year-ago period.

The media company’s net income for the three months ended March 31 soared to $1.65 billion, or $13.32 a share, from $22.7 million, or 18 cents a share, a year ago because of a $1.63-billion gain from the February merger of Times Mirror’s cable television holdings into Cox Communications Inc.

Times Mirror said the exclusion of that and other one-time gains, along with an after-tax restructuring charge of $1.9 million in the latest quarter, produced the $12.5 million in earnings from continuing operations.

Times Mirror, which publishes the Los Angeles Times and other publications, said the higher earnings came on a 5.5% increase in its first-quarter revenue, to $774 million from $733.7 million.

The company’s newspaper publishing line, its biggest segment, posted a 1% increase in revenue to $476.2 million. But the group’s operating profit slipped 2.3% to $35.3 million, partly because of a $3.2-million charge for a voluntary employee-retirement plan at the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

Higher revenues were reported by Times Mirror’s two other main groups: its professional-information division, which provides education and trade publications, and its consumer-media segment, which produces magazines and multimedia programming.

Times Mirror also said its previously announced spending plans for acquisitions and other new initiatives reduced its first-quarter profit by $4.4 million and are expected to pare its full 1995 earnings by up to $30 million.