Cost Cutting Boosts Times Mirror Profit

Cost cutting helped Times Mirror Co. to a first-quarter profit of $36.6 million, or 28 cents a share, up 57% from $23.3 million, or 18 cents a share, a year earlier.

Revenue for Times Mirror, parent of the Los Angeles Times, reached $867.8 million in the quarter ended March 29, compared to $854.5 million in the year-ago period. Because of a continuing advertising slump, revenue remains depressed from the levels of 1990, when it was $875 million in the first quarter.

First-quarter operating profit hit $80 million this year, up from $47.8 million in 1991.

Newspaper publishing revenue was $464.8 million, down 3% from the 1991 first quarter. In addition to The Times, Times Mirror owns several eastern newspapers, along with TV stations, cable systems and book, magazine and other publishing interests.

Daily circulation at The Times averaged 1,164,388 in the six-month period ended March 31, a decline of 78,476, or 6.3%, from the year-earlier period. Sunday circulation averaged 1,531,527, down 44,898, or 2.8%.

Publisher David Laventhol said the declines were a result of planned circulation cutbacks outside the primary Southern California market, the elimination of the P.M. Final Edition, pricing steps and the imposition of a sales tax on California newspapers, as well as circulation fall-off after last year’s Gulf War.

Over the same period, in Orange County--where The Times is in a major competitive struggle with the Orange County Register--daily circulation averaged 194,368, up 9,720, or 5.3%. Sunday circulation was 287,682, up 25,207, or 9.6%.

In another competitive sphere, The Times reported circulation gains in the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County. Daily circulation for those editions averaged a combined 232,597, up 815, or 0.4%; Sunday circulation climbed to 328,572, up 5,431, or 1.7%.

Earnings, D10