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United Online: Dialup Shrinks, Classmates Grows

Woodland Hills-based United Online reported its results Thursday, saying that the firm's revenues from its communications segment decreased by 17% in the fourth quarter, made up by a similar 17% increase in its Classmates Media business. The firm announced it had revenues of $256.2M for the quarter, including results from its recently acquired FTD business. Excluding results from FTD, the firm had revenues of $122.5M, compared with $125.4M in the prior year. United Online purchased FTD last year, as it began diversifying away from its shrinking dial-up Internet business. United Online said that the firm's FTD segment was hit by a "weakening consumer spending environment," and that the firm took a charge of $175.9M during the fourth quarter to write down the carrying value of goodwill and certain intangible assets of FTD. As a result, the firm said it had an operating loss of $133.8M for the fourth quarter. Without FTD, United Online would have reported operating income of $31.2M from the combined Classmates and communications businesses.