A hefty $454 million restructuring charge to account for severance, and write-downs of its film inventory, along with some other charges, sharply lowered the fourth-quarter earnings of the New York-based media corporation Viacom Inc.

Viacom had cautioned about the charge beforehand late last year, while announcing nearly 7 percent cut of its workforce - the company's attempt to offset foreseeable losses due to the crash in the market for advertising sales.

Other 'contributory' factors necessitating cost-reduction efforts by the media company included the not-so-good rankings of its chief TV networks and a weakening DVD market.

The company's results for the fourth quarter posted Thursday point towards a 69 percent plunge in its net profit - from a substantial nearly $560 million, or 86 cents a share, in the year-before quarter to $173 million, or 28 cents a share.

Excluding all charges whatsoever, Viacom earned 76 cents per share, almost close to the expectations of the analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

The fourth-quarter revenue figures of Viacom - which owns Paramount movie studio and MTV Networks - basically remained level at $4.24 billion, quite along the lines of the estimates by the analysts.