Media powerhouse Viacom reported a 32 per cent slump in second-quarter profits Tuesday, but said the outlook for the US advertising market is improving, according to dpa. The company said US advertising revenue at its cable networks, including MTV, VH1 and Comedy Central, dropped 6 per cent from the year-earlier period, after declining 9 per cent in the first quarter. Chief Executive Officer Philippe Dauman said he was "very pleased" with the way advance sales of advertising were picking up. "Sentiment in the general economy has certainly improved," Dauman, said on a conference call. "The feeling on the part of advertisers that perhaps they could extract dramatic reductions in prices because the economy was going to hell in a hand basket - that feeling has dissipated." Viacom said sales dropped 14 per cent from a year ago to 3.3 billion dollars, while profits dropped from 407 million dollars in the year-ago quarter to 277 million dollars. Along with a drop in TV advertising, Viacom said it had been hit by weak sales of its Rock Band video game. Theatrical earnings from its Paramount studio were also down as Star Trek and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen failed to match last year's hits Iron Man and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
