As the television writers' strike continues, the impact on television studios so far has been muted. That's a good thing for News Corp. (NWS), which has done a great job lately of pushing the envelope in the United States with its Fox Broadcast unit's programming. Goldman Sachs, in a note this week, observed that it is the "momentum story" in an otherwise difficult fall season for the networks. Fox is up 8% year over year in the key adults aged 18 to 49 category, and it jumped into second place among all contenders in the just-completed seventh week of the season. Its "House" franchise is gaining a lot of ground, with a 6.8 rating, up 10% from last week and 5% from last year, according to Goldman. Its "Bones" show, meanwhile, is gaining an audience that's up 23% year over year.

My 15-year-old son and I have been helping out by watching its "Prison Break" show, which just completed its fall season and left us on a cliff hanger until winter. Fox has had success with its dramas that have eccentric casts, strong production values, unusual plot twists and solid writing and acting, which is not something that you can say about all the networks.

So far this season, CBS leads in total households with a 7.2 rating that is actually down 10.5% from last year, while ABC and Fox are tied for second with 7.1 rating and NBC falls in last place with a 5.1 rating, down 21% from last year.

Elsewhere in Murdochland, the media conglomerate's first-quarter results beat expectations by 9% when released last week, with contributions coming from rising margins and revenue -- not just financial engineering. Filmed entertainment accounted for half of the entire company's upside surprise, while cable networks provided another 30%. A big contributor in the broadcast unit was Fox news channel's affiliate fee increase, although results were hampered a bit by the launch of the new Fox Business Channel. Also in the quarter, MySpace saw 137% revenue growth year over year, even amid an onslaught by newcomer Facebook.

Overall, I expect NWS to continue to push forward with its international media strategy, with film, SKY Italia and MySpace all contributing. And especially once the sting of the high price paid for The Wall Street Journal fades and the benefits of that purchase begin to pay off, the stock should find more favor.