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Big Oil is not so big anymore. Royal Dutch Shell posted a quarterly loss of $2.8 billion on Thursday, against a net profit of $8.5 billion a year earlier, as sliding oil prices and the global economic slump sapped earnings across nearly all the company's divisions. But even though 2009 will be a tough year for the industry, Shell has time--and production--on its side.

Although oil prices have fallen to around $40 per barrel, from a high of $147.50, in just six months, stripping out much of this extreme fluctuation--along with one-off items and currency effects--shows that Shell's profitability actually beat expectations. On a current-cost-of-supplies basis, free of one-off items, Shell's earnings came in at $4.2 billion, slightly higher than the $4.1 billion expected by analysts.

According to Peter Heijen, an analyst with Theodoor Gilissen, Shell's upstream business performed according to plan, with new production coming in from Australia and the Sakhalin-II project in Russia. Given that the lull in oil prices is not likely to last into 2010, and with Shell planning to make "significant investments" in the company, Heijen recommended buying the stock.

Shares of Royal Dutch Shell (nyse: RDSA - news - people ) ticked down 2 pence (3 cents), or 0.1%, to 17.74 pounds ($25.03), during morning trading in London. Rival BP (nyse: BP - news - people ) ticked up 0.2%. Both stocks outperformed the Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50 index, which was down 1.1%, with the financial sector and mining companies depressing sentiment.

Shell also delivered a crowd-pleaser by hiking its 2008 fourth-quarter dividend by 11.0%, to 40 cents per share, as well as boosting its 2009 first-quarter dividend by 5.0%, to 42 cents per share.

Production over the year fell by 1.0%, to 3.3 million barrels of oil a day, with the lower oil price taking its toll on earnings. The resilient price of natural gas offset some of the pain: earnings from gas and power rose 55.0% over the year, to $981 million. As for Shell's downstream operations, the lack of demand for products like gasoline predictably knocked earnings down by 34.0%, on a current-cost-of-supplies basis, to $582 million.

Look out below: Time Warner expects to record a $25.0 billion charge during the fourth-quarter.

On Wednesday the New York-based media conglomerate said an impairment charge for its cable, publishing and AOL units would result in a fourth-quarter operating loss. The firm, which owns CNN, Time magazine and the Warner Brothers film studio, also cut its full-year outlook to between $1.04 and $1.07 per share.

Time Warner also said that its results, particularly for its AOL and publishing unit's advertising operations, had been pressured by economic conditions that were more difficult than initially anticipated.

The market didn't take the news well, pushing Time Warner's shares down 6.2%, or 68 cents, to $10.31, in early-morning trading.

The rest of the broadcasting sector got the message, though it fared little better: CBS (nyse: CBS - news - people ) dropped 4.7%, News Corp. (nyse: NWS - news - people ) fell 5.0%, Walt Disney (nyse: DIS - news - people ) slipped 3.7% and Viacom (nyse: VIA - news - people ) tumbled 5.2%.

Also on Tuesday, Time Warner's (nyse: TWX - news - people ) cable-television arm Time Warner Cable (nyse: TWC - news - people ), said it expected to record a $15.0 billion non-cash impairment charge on its cable franchise rights in the fourth quarter, resulting in a loss for 2008.

Time Warner Cable, the nation's second largest cable television operator, added that it foresaw an impairment charge of approximately $350.0 million on its investment in wireless broadband provider, Clearwire (nasdaq: CLWR - news - people ).