The move was announced as News Corp posted its second-quarter results. The write-off, which also includes Nascar motor racing, will offset the profit made by its sale of the Fox Family Network to Disney in October.
Shares in News Corp, listed in New York, fell by 1.9% to close at $27.35 last night, down 53 cents on the previous close.
The company, headed by chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, saw operating income fall by 12.5% to $492m, narrowly beating analysts' predictions earlier this week of $486.2m. For the second quarter last year, News Corp reported operating income of $562m.
Hardest-hit was News Corp's Fox Broadcasting, which saw operating income fall from $176m for the quarter ending December 31 2000 to $113m for the same quarter last year. Fox was hit by lower ratings, high sports programming costs and the inevitable problem of lower advertising revenues. Fox's television stations recorded a 10% decline in operating income.
Murdoch described the current advertising market as the worst since World War II. He said: "Despite our best efforts, operating income for the quarter was down versus the prior year. This was due in part to losses sustained from our broadcast contracts with the National Football League, Nascar and Major League Baseball."
He added: "While ratings for both regular and post-season baseball and football remained strong, the anaemic advertising market unfortunately prevented us from reaching our revenue or profit forecasts."
However, the statement from Murdoch was not all gloom, as he said there were "hints of a modest upswing in the US advertising market".
In the UK, News Corp's newspaper interests saw operating income fall by 13%. Although the titles, which include The Times and The Sun, saw circulation revenue gains, these were offset by a 19% decline in advertising revenue.
Overall, the newspaper division, including News Corp's UK, Australian and US titles, reported operating income of $113m, down by 16.3% from the same period last year, when it posted operating income of $135m.
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