Anthony DiClemente at Barclays Capital has been looking at ad trends in television and decided to pull back a little bit on his expectations for CBS Corporation in the second half of this year. He is, however, sticking with his $30 price target for the stock.
For Q3 the analyst has lowered his network ad revenue growth assumption to 5% from 7%. He notes seasonal weakness in the summer months and a later start in September to the new season. “Also, in spite of the extremely strong primetime upfront, we are moderating our Q4 network ad growth assumption to 4% from 5.5%,” DiClemente noted, saying he believed non-prime ad revenues are growing more slowly than primetime.
At the local broadcasting level, which at CBS includes both TV and radio, the analyst has dropped his Q3 revenue estimate to minus 4% from up 1% “as a result of more difficult political comparison which was not fully reflected in our prior estimates.
