AOL (owner of TechCrunch) today reported its Q3 earnings with a 6% rise in revenues over a year ago to $561 million, led by growth in its advertising business, specifically around the premium ad formats like video that AOL is pushing as a counterbalance to the dominance that Google has in other formats like search. Those sales figures easily beat Wall Street estimates of $549 million. But a cloud continues to hang over the company in the form of Patch, the hyperlocal content and advertising effort that has yet to convert into a money spinner for AOL; as well as restructuring costs.
Today, the company noted that net income of $2 million, as well as operating income, net income and diluted EPS ($0.02) “were negatively impacted by pre-tax restructuring costs of $19 million as well as $25 million related to non-cash asset impairments in our Patch operations.” It will be worth seeing on the call today whether Armstrong notes any more about the fate of Patch, which this year has seen a hundreds of layoffs and other cost-cutting measures.
Continuing in the department of legacy services, AOL's subscription and dial-up business, its Membership division, continues still to be the company's biggest division, reporting some $204.5 million in revenues. That's down 7% of last year.
More to come. Refresh for updates.
