CBS Corporation has released its fourth quarter and full-year fiscal reports for 2017, which includes the company’s last quarter to feature CBS Radio‘s numbers. The Entercom deal to purchase CBS Radio closed on November 17, 2017, essentially in the middle of the quarter.
In Q4, CBS Corp’s overall revenue was up by 11 percent to a record $3.92 billion. For all of 2017, CBS Corp saw a four percent increase in total revenue to $13.69 billion, another record for the company.
However, CBS saw a net loss of $41 million in the fourth quarter, compared to a net loss of $113 million a year prior. This was attributed to non-cash losses in the CBS Radio sale. Adjusted net earnings for the fourth quarter fell one percent to $473 million from $476 million a year ago. For the full year, net earnings included the results of CBS Radio, which were presented as discontinued operations. For 2017, discontinued operations included a net loss of $105 million from the split-off of CBS Radio and a market value adjustment of $980 million recorded prior to the split-off to reduce the carrying value of CBS Radio, and for 2016 included impairment charges of $444 million ($427 million, net of tax) at CBS Radio. Adjusted net earnings were down three percent to $1.79 billion for 2017 from $1.84 billion for 2016.
“I’m very pleased to report that CBS turned in outstanding fourth-quarter results, including double-digit revenue growth and our 32nd consecutive quarter of EPS growth, capping off a very strong year in 2017,” said Leslie Moonves, Chairman/CEO of CBS Corporation. “The CBS Corporation produces many of the most-valuable programming franchises in the world, reaching more viewers than anyone else. This gives us a tremendous advantage as streaming becomes more central to our distribution strategy. As a result, we now have nearly five million subscribers at CBS All Access and Showtime OTT combined. When you add this to our retrans and skinny bundle subscribers, our total subscriber base continues to grow at an accelerated pace. With the backdrop of this changing business model, and the completed separation of our radio business during the fourth quarter, we now have even greater visibility into our operations. Specifically, we expect 2018
to be another strong year for the CBS Corporation, with revenue growth in the high-single digits and EPS growth in the high teens from the record $4.40 we’re reporting to you today. So we feel very good about the growth path before us, and we continue to have great confidence in our ability to deliver for our shareholders.”
