Updated:4:15 p.m. ET
The stock market plunge continued Wednesday and media companies took another beating.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 519.83 points, or 4.6% at 10,719.94 as late selling erased Tuesday's 429-point bounce upwards. Investors continued to be concerned about the growth prospects for the American economy.
Walt Disney Co. was hard hit, dropping 9.11% to $31.54. Disney announced earnings that looked good to analysts initially late Tuesday. But in reports today, analysts said it appeared that the earnings included revenues at ESPN that were realized in the third quarter that they'd expected in the fourth quarter, dampening their expectations for the rest of the year.
News Corp., which announced its fourth-quarter and full-year after trading ended, dropped 4.69% to $14.21 a share. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch was expected to answer questions about how its phone-hacking scandal will affect the company's non-newspaper operations during its conference call with analysts.
Also suffering losses were CBS, down 5.43% to $23.25, Scripps Networks, down 4.90% to $40.01, Time Warner, down 4.63% to $29.07 and Comcast, down 4.47% to $19.78. Crown Media, which runs the Hallmark channels, was down 12.86% to $1.22.
