Viacom reported Friday that the success of its hit movie The Transformers and its strong music sales has generated an 80 per cent surge in third quarter profits.

Viacom, the media conglomerate which owns the cable TV's MTV Networks and the Paramount Pictures movie studio said net income was 641.6 million dollars, or 96 cents a share, compared with 356.8 million dollars, or 50 cents a share, in the third quarter of 2006. Revenue jumped 24 per cent to 3.27 billion dollars in the quarter as both revenue and profit handily beat the estimates of Wall Street analysts.

"Viacom delivered solid growth at the top and bottom lines in the third quarter," Chief Executive Philippe P. Dauman said.
”In filmed entertainment, we enjoyed phenomenal success with our new global franchise Transformers, which is continuing with the recent release of the film on DVD. Looking ahead, we are very pleased with our 2008 movie slate, which includes a broad spectrum of film genres across our family of brands."

Transformers is the year's third-highest grossing film in the US, and has taken in worldwide sales of 702.4 million dollars since opening in late June, according to researcher Box Office Mojo. Paramount also sold 8.3 million copies of Transformers in the week after the DVD went on sale in mid-October the company said.

During Q3 quarter, MTV Networks announced plans to develop two dozen new targeted websites that will allow users to get closer to their favorite music, entertainment, comedy and pop culture content. Bringing MTVN’s global website portfolio to approximately 300 sites by the end of the year, this new slate of sites reflects the company’s 360-degree development process across all platforms.