Date: 15th February 2001

Dot-Com Drought Brings "Tough" Times To CBS


With much of its revenue from dot-com advertisers gone, CBS is going to face some "tough" revenue comparisons during the first half of this year, Viacom president and COO Mel Karmazin told analysts and investors during a conference call Wednesday.

Indicating that he expected an upturn in the second half, Karmazin added, "Everything will be normalized." Earlier in the day, Viacom, whole holdings include CBS, UPN, Paramount Pictures, Showtime and the MTV networks, reported that profits during its fourth quarter were down 77 percent from last year to $30 million on revenue of $6.35 billion versus profits of $133 million on revenue of $6.04 billion during the same quarter in 1999.

Source: Studio Briefing