• by Wayne Friedman , February 12, 2015

Strong advertising growth from its new “Thursday Night Football” package helped lift overall CBS revenues in its fourth quarter reporting period.

CBS advertising revenues improved 4% to $2.15 billion, thanks to the new prime-time NFL package, as well as political advertising from midterm elections. Affiliate and subscription fees gained 11% to $601 million -- with increases coming from higher retransmission revenues from CBS Television Network affiliated stations, as well as cable affiliate fee revenues.

Overall, CBS revenues gained 3% to $3.68 billion, with net earnings down 12% to $413 million. CBS stock gained just under 2% on Thursday to close at $57.77. The CBS stock price was up around the same percentage in after market trading.

Local broadcast revenues -- TV and radio stations -- gained 9% to $785 million, resulting from higher political spending and subscription fee revenues.

Cable networks' revenues were up 5% to $499 million from better affiliate revenues, mostly from growth in rates at Showtime Networks, CBS Sports Network, and Smithsonian Networks.

Headed in the other direction were content licensing and distribution revenues -- sinking 2% to $873 million -- as a result of the timing of theatrical releases.

Publishing revenues slipped to $215 million from $225 million, where the current fourth-quarter period was up against the fourth-quarter 2013 period which witness strong results from the “Duck Dynasty” series. Digital books are now 24% of total publishing revenues.

For the 2014 year as a whole, revenues slipped to $13.81 billion from $14.01 billion -- primarily coming from 4% lower advertising revenues. CBS suffered from unfavorable comparisons to 2013, when it had the Super Bowl and four additional NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship games.