The CBS Corporation, which represents half of Sumner M. Redstone’s media empire, reported a quarterly loss Thursday as its core business, broadcast television, continued to be battered by a steep advertising recession.
But the company’s executives, like others in the media industry, said they were seeing signs that the economy was improving.
“I have no doubt that a recovery is coming in the not-too-distant future,” Mr. Redstone said in a conference call with Wall Street analysts.
The company reported a net loss of $55.3 million, in contrast to a profit of $244.3 million in the same quarter last year. This translated to a loss of 8 cents a share. Revenue declined to $3.2 billion, compared with $3.7 billion in the same quarter last year.
According to analyst estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters, Wall Street expected CBS to report earnings of 7 cents a share on revenue of $3.3 billion.
Revenue at CBS, which is more exposed to the advertising market than its peers, declined at each of its business segments. In addition to television, which includes the CBS broadcast network and the pay-TV channel Showtime, CBS owns radio, outdoor advertising and book publishing businesses. It also owns a digital unit that includes CNET.
In the conference call, Leslie Moonves, the company’s chief executive, said, “we are seeing early signs of improvement in the advertising market, both locally and nationally.”
He added later in the call that, “indications are we’ve seen the bottom of this downturn.”
The company said that earnings in the same quarter last year were particularly robust — making the current quarter look extremely weak in comparison — because of special circumstances. Those included a big gain from shifting to self-distribution in international markets of the “CSI” franchise, reduced production costs because of the Hollywood writers’ strike and political advertising from the presidential election.
Even though its earnings declined, CBS has continued its successful run in the ratings. In the recently completed week, the network, with programs like “The Mentalist,” “NCIS,” and “Two and a Half Men 1-5 dvd box set,” had eight of the top 10 scripted shows on television, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Last week, Viacom, which is also controlled by Mr. Redstone and is the corporate parent of MTV Networks and the Paramount film studio, reported a 34 percent drop in quarterly earnings.
Other media conglomerates, like Time Warner, the News Corporation and the Walt Disney Company, have also recently reported earnings that reflected the sour economy.
Even so, some executives have also sounded upbeat about the direction of the economy, which has been a reversal from their tone in previous quarters. Philippe P. Dauman, the chief executive of Viacom, said the company thought that the advertising market was stabilizing. And Rupert Murdoch, who controls the News Corporation, said he believed that “the worst is over.”
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