ViacomCBS absorbed a 27% drop in ad sales during the COVID-plagued second quarter of 2020, when the company also reported a 52% increase in streaming subscriptions revenue.
On Thursday, ViacomCBS said its domestic streaming subscriber count, which includes both CBS All Access and Showtime OTT customers, reached 16.2 million by June 30, 2020, which was 74% better than a year ago.
ViacomCBS posted net income of $481 million, a 49% decrease from Q2 2019’s net earnings of $977 million.
With almost all movie theaters closed, the company’s theatrical revenues plummeted 98%.
Pluto TV’s monthly average users (MAUs) rose to 26.5 million, up 61% year over year.
Putting another checkmark in the “win” column Thursday morning, ViacomCBS topped media analysts’ expectations for the unique Q2.
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Wall Street forecast earnings per share (EPS) of 93 cents on $6.17 billion in revenue, according to a consensus compiled by Yahoo Finance. ViacomCBS reported adjusted EPS of $1.25 on $6.275 billion in revenue.
Despite 25% growth in digital video and streaming revenue, the company’s overall revenue figure was down 12% from the comparable quarter last year; per-share earnings declined 16%.
Most media companies were financially rocked in the second quarter of 2020, which is when the greatest impact (thus far, at least) of the coronavirus shutdown was felt.
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“ViacomCBS delivered another solid quarter, with clear operational momentum and sequential improvement in key earnings and cash flow metrics,” ViacomCBS president and CEO Bob Bakish said in a prepared statement accompanying the financials. “Despite the impact of COVID-19 on revenue in the quarter, we’re successfully managing through the effects of the pandemic, reaffirming the strength of our combined operations.”
“Our results underscored our strong progress delivering on our value-creation initiatives, including integration cost synergies, expanded and new distribution agreements, as well as the rapid acceleration of our streaming business, where we achieved record users and revenue in free and pay while building toward the relaunch of our diversified super service.”
ViacomCBS stock closed Wednesday at $26.00 share. The regular U.S. stock markets will reopen at 9:30 a.m. ET.
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Bakish and other ViacomCBS executives will host a conference call at 8:30 a.m. ET to discuss the quarter in greater detail.
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