Rupert Murdoch's News Corp posted a 47 percent drop in operating income on Wednesday because of falling advertising revenue at its television stations, newspapers and other businesses.

The media conglomerate reported third-quarter net income of $2.7 billion, or $1.04 a share, compared with $2.7 billion, or 91 cents a share, in last year's quarter.

The results included a gain of $1.2 billion for selling an ownership stake in another company, and a $1.2 billion non-cash tax benefit. Operating income fell 47 percent to $755 million.

Revenue fell 15.7 percent to $7.37 billion.

News Corp owns a host of media properties around the world including Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, satellite TV network Sky Italia and newspapers around the world.

The recession has damaged the company's heavily advertising based-businesses, notably its newspapers and local TV stations in the United States.

News Corp's television segment operating income fell 99 percent to $4 million because of lower ad revenue and higher programing costs. Newspaper division operating income fell 97 percent because of lower ad sales.

Cable Network Programing rose 30 percent to $429 million.

Its other segment, which includes social network MySpace, reported an operating loss of $89 million, due in part to lower ad revenues and higher costs for its MySpace music project.

Shares were flat in after-hours trading after rising 42 cents to close at $9.45 on the Nasdaq stock market.

(Reporting by Robert MacMillan)

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