CBS Corporation has released its fiscal results for the second quarter of 2017, and while the company’s overall revenue was up, CBS Radio saw a decline. CBS Radio revenue fell from $313 million a year ago to $306 million in Q2 2017. Net earnings showed a $339 million loss in the quarter. However, adjusted for restructuring charges and the stock valuation of Entercom as part of the pending sale, CBS Radio had $30 million in net earnings for the quarter. CBS Radio is classified by CBS Corp as “held for sale,” which takes Entercom’s stock price into account when calculating its figures.
As for CBS Corp overall, its revenue rose nine percent to a new record $3.26 billion from $2.98 billion a year ago. Operating income was up by three percent to $669 million from $651 million in Q2 of last year. Net earnings in the quarter were $58 million, which included “a noncash charge of $365 million in discontinued operations to reduce the carrying value of CBS Radio to the value indicated by the stock valuation of Entercom Communications Corp.”
“CBS delivered outstanding second quarter results while continuing to take a number of steps to achieve our long-term financial goals,” said Leslie Moonves, Chairman/CEO of CBS Corporation. “First, we had a terrific upfront with gains in pricing and volume, including more and more deals that better reflect how people are watching our programming on a delayed basis. In addition, we took significant steps during the quarter to grow our affiliate fees from both traditional and ‘skinny’ bundles. Retransmission consent and reverse compensation increased 25% in the second quarter. And we are now seeing the benefit of our recent skinny bundle deals with Google’s YouTube TV, Hulu, and fuboTV, and just today we announced that we will be part of DIRECTV NOW as well. At the same time, our in-house over-the-top subscription services, CBS All Access and Showtime OTT, continue to grow beyond our expectations and are on track to surpass a combined four million subscribers by the end of 2017. We are now gearing up to take the next strategic step with All Access by expanding it into the international marketplace, starting with Canada in the first half of 2018. Showtime also had a terrific quarter, led by the successful return of Twin Peaks, which boosted OTT subscriptions dramatically, and we continue to expand the Showtime brand overseas with new deals to license our entire portfolio in France, India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and others. So, 2017 is turning out to be a great year for the CBS Corporation even without the Super Bowl and political spending that we had in the prior year. And as we look ahead, we are positioned to have an even better year in 2018.”
