Net earnings rose 16% to $391 million, or 65 cents a share,
from $338 million, or 50 cents a share, a year ago.
Revenues rose 2% to $3.4 billion.
"The transformation of CBS continues as reflected in these
record third quarter results," CEO Leslie Moonves, said in a statement. "We
have taken a number of significant steps during the last several months to
execute our strategy and grow the Company. These include three major
retransmission consent agreements, an important reverse compensation deal, new
international and domestic streaming contracts, and the sale of our two new hit
dramas, Vegas and Elementary, into international
syndication.
"As we continue to take actions like these, we are
increasing our recurring revenue from non-advertising sources and setting
ourselves up for even more record results in the future," Moonves added. "Going
forward, we will continue to expand the ways we achieve value for our content,
and we are confident we will hit our goal of a record 2012 and an even better
2013."
CBS said its content licensing and distribution revenues
rose by 8%. Affiliate and subscription fee revenues rose 12%, as its cable
networks grew and its retransmission and reverse compensation payments from
affiliates increased.
Advertising revenues were down 3% because of the pre-emption
of six nights of primetime because of the political conventions and because of
currency rate fluctuations, plus a decline in radio advertising.
Operating income for CBS' entertainment group, which
includes the broadcast network, TV studio, distribution group and CBS Films,
dropped 5% to $384 million because of costs associated with the timing of
theatrical film releases. Revenues were up 3%. Ad revenues were down because of
competition from the Olympics and political pre-emptions.
CBS' cable networks' operating income rose 12% to $227
million. Revenues were up 4% to $436 million, because of higher affiliate fee
revenue at Showtime. CBS Sports Network and Smithsonian Networks.
Local broadcast operating income was up 16% to $213 million
because of lower programming and production expenses and lower music royalty
costs. Local broadcast revenues rose 1% to $661 million. TV station revenue
rose 7% as political advertising rolled in. Radio revenues were down 5%.
