Disney's first-quarter profit up 12% Strong performances at Walt Disney Co.'s domestic theme parks and by ESPN and the Disney Channel helped drive a 12% increase in the company's first-quarter net income compared with a year earlier. Earnings per share rose 18%, to 80 cents, from 68 cents in the prior year's first quarter. "Our results reflect the benefits of our ongoing strategy to invest in and leverage our core brands - Disney, Pixar, Marvel, ESPN and ABC," Disney President and Chief Executive Bob Iger told analysts. Before Disney reported its results, media analysts said they would be watching advertising trends at ESPN, the powerhouse cable sports network that Morgan Stanley estimates contributes about 8% of the company's revenue. ESPN's prime-time ratings tumbled 15% in the December quarter compared with a year earlier, according to TV ratings firm Nielsen. Viewership for "Monday Night Football" declined "due to an underwhelming lineup," said Morgan Stanley. ESPN was hurt by the NBA player lockout, which delayed the start of the professional basketball season. Disney's media networks group, which includes its cable channels as well as its ABC television network and locally owned stations, continued to fuel the company's bottom line. Revenue for the quarter rose 3% to $4.8 billion and segment operating income rose 12% to nearly $1.2 billion compared with the same quarter a year earlier. Iger also said the company had already sold all the available commercial advertising time for the upcoming 84th annual Academy Awards. "The trends we're seeing in advertising are good," he said. Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne had expected theme park margins to improve as new attractions opened and the effect on Tokyo Disneyland royalties from last year's devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan faded. Disney said revenue for parks and resorts rose 10% to $3.2 billion in the quarter compared with a year earlier, and operating income increased 18% to $553 million. Though the company scored with "The Muppets" and acted as distributor for movies including DreamWorks' "War Horse," the studio had fewer Disney-branded movies in theaters over the holidays, the company said. Iger told investors that Disney's film studio is in discussions with Redbox and other services about imposing a 28-day delay before directly selling newly released movies. It's a bid to protect sales of newly released DVDs and Blu-ray discs. "The reason [the studio] hadn't gone to that window before is the studio felt that it was not seeing any effect from these dollar rentals on their sell-through business," Iger said. But Iger said the entire industry continues to suffer from an erosion in once-lucrative DVD sales and that neither movie rentals nor digital purchases have made up for the shortfall. "So they've decided to take a step in the direction of further protecting the initial window of the sell-through," Iger said.