Internet media conglomerate IAC/InteractiveCorp. released fourth quarter earnings Tuesday that showed a profit  slightly short of Wall Street forecasts and cited a drop in the number of Web searches at its Ask.com and other online properties as a factor in revenue that fell by 19 percent during the quarter. IAC said that Ask.com, the fourth most used Internet search engine site, saw decreased search query activity due to a drop in the amount it spent on marketing, resulting in revenue that fell to $187.7 million for the quarter. First IAC Results Since Splitting Into Five Separate Companies IAC chief executive Barry Diller restructured the Ask.com parent firm in August, splitting it into five separate companies led by Ask.com, which had a decrease in revenue per search for the quarter, while Ask's collection of some 34 other Web properties saw an overall search revenue increase. Net profit at the newly reshaped IAC was $227.4 million, or $1.57 a share, a turnaround from the losses reported during the fourth quarter one year earlier of $369.9 million, or $2.53 a share, the company announced Tuesday. The results were the first since IAC split into five offshoot firms. A more modest increase of 18 cents a share was reported when excluding a benefit of $1.64 a share that IAC received when it sold a 30 percent investment worth $242.5 million in Japanese television shopping firm Jupiter Shop Channel in December 2008. Adjusted to account for the Jupiter benefit and a $26.4 million investment portfolio write-down, IAC fell 2 cents a share short of the 20 cent a share increase forecast by a survey of analysts conducted by Thomson Reuters Estimates. Fewer Ask.com Searches Drive IAC Interactive To Fall Short Of Earnings Forecasts Revenue at IAC fell to $351 million, falling short of analysts' average expectations of $367 million. Some Wall Street analysts saw the IAC fourth quarter financial earnings results announced Tuesday as a slight miss and not the type of major loss other Internet firms had reported for the quarter. Last Tuesday Sunnyvale, California-based Web pioneer Yahoo released its quarterly earnings results showing revenues down 1 percent to $1.80 billion from the same quarter one year earlier. Since an October 2008 re-launch of Ask.com aimed at providing speedier and more robust first-page answers to users who type questions into the site's search box, in an effort to gain market share from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, the search company has signed an agreement with racing organization NASCAR, and on Tuesday the company announced a Web security partnership with online security firm Symantec. At the end of 2008 IAC held $95.8 million in long-term debt and some $1.9 billion in cash, and for the entire year it reported revenue that rose 8 percent to $1.45 billion, with a year-end loss of $156.2 million, or $1.08 a share, more than 2007's loss of $144.1 million, or $1.01 a share. Calls from Wall Street analysts for Diller to either buy back stock or pay out some of the $1.9 billion cash in the form a dividend have so far gone unanswered. Ask Jeeves was purchased by IAC in 2005 for $2.3 billion and renamed Ask.com, and since then has spent years trying to compete against Google and Yahoo in the mainstream search market. Related Links:
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