IACID: 100mil $ Ask.com adv Campaign

The sub-prime mortgage crisis took its toll on the quarterly results of IAC/Interactive Corp.'s real estate and lending units, but growth at the diverse company's media and advertising properties, including Ask.com, helped buffer the blow. IAC reported its Q3 revenue increased by 7 percent compared to the same quarter last year, reaching $1.5 billion. It reported $173 million in operating income before amortization, a $3 million increase on the year, and adjusted earnings per share of 37 cents, two cents more than the year-ago period. In a conference call discussing the results, IAC EVP and CFO Tom McInerney and President and COO Doug Lebda said they were pleased with the progress being made in the company's media and advertising branches. "Media and advertising businesses all benefited from continuing growth in queries from our syndicated search business as well as queries and revenue-per-query growth at our Fun Web Products business and query growth at Ask," said McInerney. The officials said IAC's media and advertising sector revenue increased by 40 percent during the quarter. That segment's operating income before amortization was $27.6 million, about $12 million more than the year-ago period. On top of this IAC launched a $100mil adv campaign to support brand image and centralise traffic to their search product. Yet it seems that Ask.com turnover accounted for $50mil last year. The point is if IAC is going to spin out 4 of it's cash cows, is the internet side going to make it to profit? I say there is going to be some thinking over the new strategy.