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Viacom Earnings Report: Plenty of Pain to Go Around — and TV Is Largely to Blame

Nov 10, 2016  •  Post A Comment

Viacom took the wraps off an unusually painful quarterly earnings report Wednesday, with profits from continuing operations plummeting 71% in Q4 on a 15% decline in revenue, The New York Post reports.

“Domestic advertising revenue continued to be a drag on the media conglomerate, falling in the three-month period by 8 percent, due to falling TV ratings,” The Post reports. “US affiliate revenue was down 19 percent due to the absence of a big subscription video on demand (SVOD) in the period last year.”

The report notes that the pain wasn’t shared by the recently departed Chief Executive Philippe Dauman and Chief Operating Officer Tom Dooley, both of whom received big paydays on their way out the door.

“Viacom took a pre-tax charge of $206 million for the separation agreements of the two executives,” The Post reports. “Separation payments were $138 million, while accelerated equity-based compensation expenses were $68 million, the company said.”

Revenue for the full year was down 6%, operating income fell 19% and net earnings from continuing operations were down 25%. But as bad as they were, the results weren’t as bad as Wall Street had been expecting. The report notes that shares rose 1.7% to $37.98.

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