Osbournes help Viacom weather downturn in advertising

The Osbournes, America's favourite dysfunctional family, helped Viacom to record a sharp increase in advertising revenues during 2002 - setting the US media group apart from rivals including AOL Time Warner and Disney still struggling with the industry's long downturn.

Viacom's MTV division, which created 24-hour music television and is behind the reality TV show, enjoyed double-digit increases in advertising revenues during the year.

The improvements also gained pace as the year progressed. The cable networks division, also including cartoon channel Nickelodeon, music station VH1, African American station BET and general entertainment network Showtime, reported 12% advertising growth over the year accelerating to 23% in the fourth quarter.

The company said that strong programming was behind the growth, including the number one television show in the United States, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, which airs on CBS.

Almost half of Viacom's revenues are advertising based and the performance of the group is eagerly watched. Across the entire group, advertising revenues were 5% higher for the year and 14% higher in the fourth quarter.

The performance outstripped current forecasts for 2003. The most recent estimates from Zenith Media put growth in worldwide advertising at just 0.2% during 2002, increasing to 2.9% in the next 12 months.

The figures were released ahead of second-quarter results from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, due after the close of Wall Street.

Before the results News Corp moved to head off further criticism of its corporate governance practices with a reshuffle of the audit committee on its board of directors.

Stanley Shuman, managing director of the investment bank Allen & Co, will step down as chairman of the committee after his independence was questioned at the media company's annual meeting in August. Allen & Co has been retained to sell the News Corp-owned baseball team, the LA Dodgers.

Viacom, which also includes the TV networks CBS and UPN, Paramount Pictures, book publisher Simon & Schuster and a controlling stake in the Blockbuster rental chain, posted fourth-quarter operating profits of $1.3bn (£805m).

"Viacom has the right assets, the right management and the right strategy to continue to grow year after year," said chief executive Sumner Redstone. He described 2002 as "but a forerunner" of what the group hopes to achieve in 2003.

Mr Redstone, 79, attempted to assuage investor concerns about a rift with his likely successor, the chief operating officer Mel Karmazin.