DATE: Tuesday, March 25, 1997               TAG: 9703250259

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   41 lines

IFE REPORTS 8% INCREASE IN NET PROFIT

International Family Entertainment Inc. said its net profit increased 8 percent in the 1996 fourth quarter thanks to a strong performance by its main subsidiary, the U.S. version of The Family Channel.

The Beach-based IFE posted a net profit of $5.73 million in last year's final quarter, up from $5.31 million in the same period of 1995. Revenues climbed 13 percent in the same period, to $104.2 million in the latest quarter.

IFE, chaired by Pat Robertson, said the latest results brought its total net income for 1996 to $24.1 million, after subtracting a special one-time gain of $8 million from the previously reported sale of the company's stake in the British version of Family Channel. In 1995, IFE recorded net income of $18.7 million. That translated into a profit increase for all of last year, after excluding the special gain, of about 29 percent.

Revenues for all of 1996, meanwhile, climbed about 13 percent from the year before - to a total of $332.8 million.

Without The Family Channel, IFE wouldn't have had any profit. The cable-TV network rang up an operating profit of $92.1 million last year, up 47 percent from $62.8 million in 1995. Ratings improvements helped drive up the network's ad revenues. It also benefited from higher subscription fees paid by cable system operators.

Every other IFE subsidiary had operating losses last year: $5.5 million at the FiT TV health and fitness cable network; $9 million at IFE's overseas programming ventures; $19 million at the MTM Entertainment operation; and $2.8 million at IFE's chain of live-music theaters.

Nevertheless, IFE President Timothy B. Robertson, Pat Robertson's son, called the money-losing operations ``promising businesses.''

In a prepared statement, he said MTM's big loss was caused by its beginning production of four original TV series in 1996 after having had ``a limited production slate'' the year before. Recovering the investment from now on will depend on renewals and ratings increases for the shows, which in their first year of production were licensed to broadcast on networks or syndicated to U.S. TV stations.

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