CBS Corp. Beats Estimates With Higher Second-Quarter Profit

NEW YORK - CBS Corp. on Tuesday reported a higher second-quarter profit that exceeded Wall Street expectations as TV advertising and other revenue streams continued to grow. After the market close, the media and entertainment giant reported quarterly net earnings of $395 million, compared with $150 million in the year-ago period. Revenue rose 8 percent to $3.6 billion, slightly ahead of analysts' consensus estimate. Advertising revenue edged up 3 percent despite a tough year-ago comparison. The year-ago period had featured higher political advertising and higher revenue from the NCAA men's basketball tournament, which the company this year split with Time Warner networks. CBS Corp. also recorded a 21 percent gain in content licensing and distribution revenue, which benefited from a new licensing agreement with Netflix for the digital streaming of select library titles. Affiliate and subscription fee revenue climbed 12 percent driven by rate increases and subscription growth, as well as higher retransmission revenue from TV distributors, which has been a key focus for broadcasters. "CBS's second quarter performance built on our tremendous first quarter, posting strong results throughout each of our businesses," said executive chairman Sumner Redstone. "The company continues to operate at an exceptionally high level as we remain focused on creating the absolute best content and distributing that content in strategic and profitable ways." CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves called the latest results "extraordinary" and said they "demonstrate the power of the strategic actions we've taken to strengthen our business model." He added: "We delivered stellar growth across every single key financial metric, nearing record levels in all profit measures. These remarkable results reflect our increasing ability to monetize our content, while at the same time, diversifying and de-risking our company for the future, including recent new licensing deals with leading online video distributors." Moonves in a statement also said that the strong upfront selling season will set the company up for strong advertising growth next year. Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com Twitter: @georgszalai Related Topics Leslie Moonves Sumner Redstone CBS Corporation