CBS Marketwatch: Profit Jumps With Local Ad Sales Recovery

The second-quarter shows a good profit jump for the TV and radio broadcaster CBS Corporation as the sales, licensing fees and the subscriptions have increased sharply, as reported by Market Watch.

Les Moonves, Chief Executive of CBS, said in an official statement, "Looking to the second half of 2010, all signs point to ongoing growth and profitability." He adds further that the trends of advertisement indicates that it is the continuation of recovery and hence CBS should get a lift in the political advertising till the elections in November this year.

Chairman of CBS Sumner Redstone described the success as "superexcellent".

According to the official data from CBS, the company earned $150.1 million where as the profit for the same period last year was only $15.4 million. Putting an eye on the share value benefits, it is 22 cents a share this year which was only 2 cents a share last year.

CBS mentioned the earning would have been $175.2 million i.e. 22 cents a share if the company excludes those items which are related to early extinguishment of debt and of a restructuring in the latest three months.

In the three months the total advertisement sales of the company was up by 9 percent and the affiliate and subscription fees rose by 12 percent. It was seen a 19 percent growth in content licensing and distribution revenue.

The TV shows of CBS such as "CSI," "NCIS: Los Angeles" and "The Good Wife" helped the entertainment division to raise the profit to $1.67 billion from $1.52 billion last year, reports the New York Times.

The CBS Films division has released only two films and the third one is about to release on Thanksgiving weekend this November. The first venture in films, "Extraordinary Measures," was a flop, but the second film, "The Back-up Plan", farely did well.

On Monday CBS hit the business headlines by announcing a ten-year carriage agreement with Comcast. The company calls it a milestone agreement.