Viacom Profit Rises 3% Despite Dips in Advertising

• Delivered Year-over-Year Growth in Reported and Adjusted Diluted Earnings Per Share
• Sequentially Improved Domestic Advertising Revenue Growth, Driven by Acceleration in Advanced Marketing Solutions
• Delivered Ninth Straight Quarter of Year-over-Year Improvement in Paramount Adjusted Operating Income
• Saw Early Momentum in Pluto TV Integration, with Monthly Active Users Growing to Approximately 16 Million in April
• Achieved Significant Distribution Gains, with Renewed and Expanded AT&T Agreement, Carriage on Charter and fuboTV OTT Packages, and Content Deal with T-Mobile

Viacom Inc. today reported financial results for the quarter ended March 31st, 2019.  It eked out a profit in its fiscal second quarter, even as revenue from several of its main business lines decreased.

“This quarter we executed strongly on our strategic priorities and made significant progress in advancing our evolution, state Bob Bakish, president/CEO.

"We grew viewership share at our flagship networks, accelerated our Advanced Marketing Solutions and continued our momentum at Paramount Pictures. We also achieved important milestones in expanding our distribution across traditional, digital and mobile platforms, while dramatically improving our audience reach through the integration of Pluto TV. As the media landscape continues to segment across price points, we’re confident in our strategy, strong results and the opportunities ahead as we continue to position Viacom for the future.”

Highlights:

• Domestic advertising revenue growth rate improved for the second quarter, driven by accelerating growth in Advanced Marketing Solutions (AMS).
• AMS revenue increased 76% in the quarter compared to 54% in the fiscal first quarter, benefiting from the Pluto TV integration.
• This year’s late Easter timing had a 1% unfavorable impact on the domestic ad sales growth rate.
• Domestic affiliate revenue declined due to SVOD library licensing, which was halted while finalizing Pluto TV’s content strategy. Contractual rate increases were largely offset by subscriber declines.
• International revenue was impacted by foreign exchange, macroeconomic headwinds in the U.K. and the timing of SVOD.

Operational Highlights

• Viacom maintained the #1 share of basic cable viewing with key domestic audiences in the quarter, including the 2-49, 2-11, 12-17, 18-34 and African American demos.
• In Live+SD viewing, Viacom flagships grew share by 2% YOY.
• Comedy Central delivered its eighth consecutive quarter of share growth – up 12% YOY.
• MTV was the fastest growing network in primetime among the top 30 broadcast and cable networks, and increased share for the eighth straight quarter – up 5% YOY.
• Paramount Network earned its second consecutive quarter of share growth – up 3% YOY.
• Viacom had more top 10 and top 30 original cable series in the quarter than any other cable family among key demos.