LOS ANGELES (AP) - CBS Corp. said Tuesday that it earned $202 million in the first three months of the year by cutting its costs for sporting events.
Although revenue dipped, CBS was able to save money by sharing coverage of the NCAA college basketball tournament with cable TV networks. It also didn’t have to pay to broadcast the Super Bowl, which was shown on Fox this year. CBS didn’t say how much it saved.
Net income in the first quarter came out to 29 cents per share, compared with a loss of $26 million, or 4 cents per share, a year ago. Last year’s income was 5 cents per share after excluding special items.
CBS said the results were helped by advertising revenue growth, after excluding the absence of the Super Bowl from its programming this year. The combined effect of not carrying the Super Bowl and shifting some of the NCAA basketball tournament games to Time Warner Inc.’s Turner Broadcasting trimmed about $350 million off of revenue.
Still, revenue fell less than 1 percent to $3.51 billion.
The results beat analysts’ expectations. Analysts polled by FactSet expected earnings of 19 cents per share on revenue of $3.46 billion.
The New York-based company, which airs “Hawaii Five-O” and “CSI,” also doubled its quarterly dividend to 10 cents per share. The dividend is payable on July 1 to shareholders of record as of June 10.
Shares rose $1.01, or 4 percent, to $26.25 in extended trading after the results were announced.
Later this month, CBS will meet major advertisers in New York to sell its upcoming fall line-up. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves said on a conference call with analysts that he expects “double digit” percentage increases in ad prices from a year ago.
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