STAMFORD, Conn., August 2, 2012 – WWE (NYSE:WWE) today announced financial results for its second quarter ended June 30, 2012. Revenues totaled $141.6 million as compared to $142.6 million in the prior year quarter. Operating income was $19.6 million as compared to $21.0 million in the prior year quarter. Net income was $11.9 million, or $0.16 per share, as compared to $14.3 million, or $0.19 per share, in the prior year quarter. There were several items that impacted comparability on a year-over-year basis, including expenses incurred in conjunction with our potential network in the current quarter and film impairments in the prior year quarter. Excluding the impact of these items, Adjusted Operating income declined 12% to $21.3 million from $24.3 million in the prior year quarter. Adjusted Net income was $13.1 million, or $0.17 per share, as compared to $16.5 million, or $0.22 per share, in the prior year quarter.
“In the second quarter, we made important progress on our key strategic initiatives, expanding our content and distribution and enhancing our brand strength,” stated Vince McMahon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “The production and licensing of a third hour of Raw and the launch of a new program, WWE Main Event, for ION Television, as well as our exploding social media presence which now reaches over 100 million global fans, exemplify our achievement of these goals. In order to cultivate further the unique passion of our global fans, we continued to integrate social media in our program content and entered a strategic investment agreement with Tout, which enables users to capture and share 15-second videos. Integrating our fans’ voice in our programming enables us to escalate fan interaction, enhance our programming content, and drive the value of our investment.”
“Our results were highlighted by the strong performance of our pay-per-view business, which offset an anticipated decline in video game sales,” added George Barrios, Chief Financial Officer. “Key audience measures, including a 17% increase in pay-per-view buys and the attraction of 6 million viewers to our 1,000th episode of Raw in July demonstrate our staying power and our continuing ability to build consumer interest. Based on our earnings growth in the first half of the year and the recent positive trends in our pay-per-view business, we are raising our financial forecast for the full year. We expect that our 2012 earnings, measured by either earnings per share, or EBITDA, will be roughly 5% to 15% above our 2011 results on an “as reported” basis.”
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