CBS TV Station 3Q Revenue Falls 6%

CBS Corp. on Thursday reported that its television stations revenues for the third quarter ended Sept. 30 decreased 6%, “reflecting the lack of significant political advertising revenues.”

But the company added that revenues for CBS Television Stations also reflected higher retransmission revenues and improvement across key advertising categories, including financial services and domestic auto.

Local broadcasting (TV and radio stations) revenues dropped 3.2% to $656 million from $677 million in the year-earlier quarter. It said this was due to substantially lower political spending.

Entertainment revenues (CBS Television Network, CBS Television Studios, CBS Studios International, CBS Television Distribution, CBS Films and CBS Interactive) for the third quarter of 2011 increased 1% to $1.63 billion from $1.62 billion for the same prior-year period as the comparison was challenged by the timing of domestic syndication sales. Revenue growth reflected the impact of new multi-year domestic and international licensing agreements for digital streaming, higher international syndication sales, increases in retransmission revenues and higher primetime advertising.

Cable networks revenues for the third quarter of 2011 increased 14% to $420 million from $370 million for the same prior-year period, driven by higher licensing revenues from international syndication and digital streaming of Showtime original series. Revenue growth was also the result of higher affiliate revenues reflecting rate increases and growth in subscriptions at Showtime Networks, CBS Sports Network, and Smithsonian Networks.

Revenues for the company as a whole increased 2% to $3.37 billion from $3.30 billion last year.

Read the company’s report here.