• by Wayne Friedman , November 6, 2013

CBS Corp. says third-quarter advertising revenue for the CBS Television Network grew 13% -- with some continued strong ad sales activity for the fourth quarter.

During an earnings call with equity analysts, CBS executives said current CBS Television Network scatter pricing is up double-digit percentages versus upfront prices set in June of this year.

Analysts say some of the CBS Television Network gains were due to better comparisons versus the third quarter a year ago, when it was up against a strong NBC’s Summer Olympics in August 2012.

Advertising revenue from all CBS media platforms rose 4% to $1.86 billion; content licensing and distribution climbed 18% to $1.1 billion; and affiliate fees climbed 23% to $611 million.

Overall, CBS revenues -- which also include content licensing, distribution, and affiliate fees -- rose 11% to $3.63 billion. Net earnings grew 22% to $469 million.

CBS says the TV broadcast business continues to be a healthy one -- especially when you look at TV viewership in a given week, as well as out 30 days -- for an individual episode.  “When you add everything in there, the numbers are up consistently,” says Leslie Moonves, president/chief executive officer of CBS Corp.

For example, he says that new show “Hostages," which he says some critics have viewed as “mediocre” so far, would show a different picture looking at a longer viewing period. While its premiere episode posted 8 million viewers, for the Nielsen live-plus-same-day metric, viewership through 30 days -- from all the time-shifted viewing -- pulled in 16 million viewers.

“Those numbers are going to be more and important, and we are going to be paid for them,” says Moonves.
Concerning expanding the current national TV buying currency of C3, commercial ratings plus three days of time shifted viewing, Moonves says, “We already have some C7 deals out there.”

He says for some advertisers,  there is certain value that comes with C7 ratings -- commercial ratings plus seven days of time-shifted viewing. The lift in viewership from C3 to C7 is “pretty substantial.”

Third-quarter revenues for CBS’ Entertainment unit climbed 12% to $1.88 billion mostly from higher domestic licensing revenues, coming from first-time syndication sales of “NCIS: Los Angeles” and “The Good Wife.” Included in its Entertainment revenues are advertising revenues at the CBS Television Network, which gained 13%. There were ad gains at CBS Interactive as well.

Revenue for its cable unit -- Showtime Networks, CBS Sports Network, and Smithsonian Networks -- climbed 37% to $596 million from $436 million. Increases here were from the Floyd Mayweather pay-per-view boxing event, licensing revenues for “Dexter” and higher overall affiliate fees.

Publishing revenues grew 7% to $224 million, while digital book sales increased 39%. Now digital book sales represent 27% of publishing’s total revenues -- up from 21% a year ago. Big titles for the period included “Doctor Sleep” by Stephen King and “Si-cology 1” by Si Robertson.

Local broadcasting was down 3% in revenue to $641 million because of lower political advertising. Outdoor Americas grew 2% to $341 million, coming mostly from 4% U.S. revenue growth in billboard and transit businesses .