• by Wayne Friedman , November 3, 2016

While CBS earned weak advertising results in the third quarter, it expects much stronger gains in the months to follow.

Network advertising was down 2% -- largely due to prime-time preemptions of to Democratic and Republican presidential conventions and a presidential debate. Results were also affected by competing Summer Olympic programming.

Overall, advertising sales for all its media platforms were roughly flat at $1.47 billion versus $1.48 billion in the third quarter of 2015.

Les Moonves, chairman/CEO of CBS Corp., says advertising is “accelerating in the fourth quarter due to higher pricing from the upfront that kicked in for the new season, and very, very strong scatter market.”

Current political advertising is gaining for CBS TV stations -- despite lower-than-expected political ad results from other TV station groups. “It will be a record breaking year for us,” says Moonves. He says presidential political advertising alone will be 74% higher than four years ago for CBS stations.

For the upfront next year, Moonves says Nielsen’s “total audience rating will be a big part of the negotiations.” Total audience ratings will measure viewership for virtually all linear, digital, VOD and other time-shifted programming.

With regard to a possible merger deal with Viacom, Moonves said: “We will only do a deal if it’s in the best interest of CBS and its shareholders... we are still in the early stages.”

For the third quarter, CBS revenues gained 4% to $3.40 billion. Much of this growth came from a 32% increase in retrans revenues and growth from digital distribution platforms.

In the third quarter, local media -- TV stations and its digital platforms -- posted revenue gains of 9% to $409 million, chiefly from retrans and political advertising.  It expects revenue revenue hikes of “mid-to high teens” percentages in the fourth quarter.

Also in the third quarter, content licensing and distribution revenues increased 6%, driven by growth in domestic television licensing sales. Cable network revenues improved 14% to $598 million; publishing was up 11% to $226 million; and radio revenues were flat at $319 million.

Net income grew 12% to $478 million. CBS stock closed on Thursday up 0.6% to $55.50.