The Simpsons Movie and growth in Italian satellite television helped News Corporation, parent company of The Times, to shrug off profit declines in its British newspapers and US television network.

News Corp generated operating income of $1.05 billion (£500 million), up by 23 per cent, in its first quarter, on revenues 19 per cent ahead at $7 billion, although exceptional gains last year depressed net income by 13 per cent to $732 million between July and September.

The company also reported a modest $4 million profit on MySpace and its other internet properties, on revenues of $188 million, up 88 per cent.

Rupert Murdoch, chief executive, said that MySpace was comfortably ahead of Facebook. which, although it was growing rapidly, had only “45 per cent of the unique users and 33 per cent of the page views” of MySpace.

Twentieth Century Fox contributed $362 million in profit, up 51 per cent. The cinematic debut of the Simpsons grossed $524 million worldwide, and further contributions came from Bruce Willis’s Live Free or Die Hard, which generated $375 million.

Fox News and other cable channels boosted profits 16 per cent to $289 million, with the Fox News Channel alone doubling profits. Sky Italia lifted earnings significantly, to $48 million, compared with a loss of $13 million a year ago, as it took subscriber numbers to 4.24 million.

That more than offset reversals in print. Newspapers in Britain, Australia and New York earned $93 million, down from $124 million. In the UK, where News Corp also publishes The Sun, The Sunday Timesand News of the World, profits fell to an unspecified level “primarily as a result of increased accelerated depreciation on the printing presses that will be replaced”. News Corp is investing about £600 million in full-colour presses, the first of which opened in Scotland last month. Mr Murdoch said that “all newspaper groups [at News Corp] were showing year-on-year revenue growth”.

Network television income was 5 per cent down at $189 million, as the Fox network was hurt by lower political advertising and the fledgeling MyNet-workTV ran up a full quarter of losses.

The results emerged as the company indicated that it was close to appointing a 27-year-old opera singer based in London to its board, as the representative of the Bancroft family, the sellers of Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal. Natalie Bancroft was selected by News Corp after bickering among the Bancroft clan meant that they missed a 30-day deadline to nominate their own candidate.

There was little further detail about plans for Dow Jones, although Mr Murdoch did say the international editions of the Journal were “a lot less than satisfactory” and that they would be invested in after changes were made to the core US edition.

Dow Jones said that it would hold a shareholder vote on the sale on December 13. Mr Murdoch said he hoped to close the deal “on the 13th or 14th” once the vote went through.

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