Viacom CEO Discusses Q3 2010 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
Viacom, Inc. (
)
Q3 2010 Earnings Call
November 11, 2010 8:30 AM ET
Executives
Jim Bombassei – Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
Sumner Redstone – Chairman
Philippe Dauman – President and CEO
Tom Dooley – Chief Operating Officer
Jimmy Barge – CFO
Analysts
Michael Nathanson – Nomura
Imran Khan – JPMorgan
Doug Mitchelson – Deutsche Bank
Richard Greenfield – BTIG
Jessica Reif Cohen – Bank of America Merrill Lynch
David Miller – Caris & Company
Anthony DiClemente – Barclays Capital
Spencer Wang – Credit Suisse
Jason Bazinet – Citi
Presentation
Operator
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Viacom Inc. Q3 2009 Earnings Call Transcript
Please standby, we are about to begin. Good day, everyone. And welcome to the Viacom Earnings Release Teleconference for the Quarter and Fiscal Year ended September 30, 2010. Today’s call is being recorded.
At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Senior Vice President of Investor Relations, Mr. Jim Bombassei. Please go ahead.
Jim Bombassei
Good morning, everyone. And thank you for taking the time to join us for our earnings call for the quarter and the fiscal year ended September 30th. Joining me for today’s discussion are Sumner Redstone, our Chairman; Philippe Dauman, our President and CEO; Tom Dooley, our Chief Operating Officer; and Jimmy Barge, our CFO.
Please note that in addition to our press release, we have slides and trending schedules containing supplemental information available on our website. Let me refer you to page number two in the web presentation and remind you that certain statements made on this call are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in more detail in our filings with the SEC.
Reconciliations for non-GAAP financial information discussed on this call can be found in our earnings release or on our website.
Now, I’ll turn the call over to Sumner.
Sumner Redstone
Thanks a lot, Jim. Good morning, everyone. We are indeed more than pleased to share our results with you this morning from our outstanding September quarter performance, which capped off an even more impressive fiscal 2010.
Our business is strong. Our growth firepower continues to grow. There is no question that we have the focus to continue to excel and most importantly, the management expertise to deliver quarter-after-quarter and to deliver year-after-year.
As we told you, throughout the difficult period we all experienced over the past 18 months or so, the Viacom team led by Philippe has been taking all the steps necessary to position us continuously for the eventual economic recovery.
And today, we are seeing the economy beginning to turn and Viacom with its industry-leading global entertainment brand, continues to capitalize on the new opportunities that are emerging, particularly those that the evolution in technology provide, whether it’s new windowing opportunities, our 3D technologies or even new screens, there has never, never been a better time to be in the content and there is no better global content creator than Viacom.
Our continued investment in programs is giving a success of array and our cable networks are enjoying, it is also what has set our motion picture studio back on its great foundations, with a really rich pipeline of projects based on franchises and brands.
This operational success is a direct result of our dedication to creating the best content and delivering it to (inaudible) everywhere on the planet. For decades, I have consistently said that content is king and content is king.
This has been our legacy that will grow our future, indeed as we’ve seen the digital addition pathways emerge and in turn create promising ancillary revenue streams, the promising in this declaration takes on even new meaning and importance. This will benefit not only our audiences but indeed our shareholders as well.
Now, I would like to turn the call over to my very close friend, Philippe Dauman.
Philippe Dauman
Thank you very much, Sumner, and good morning, everyone. I am pleased you could join us. Today, we reported our results for both the quarter and the fiscal year, which in the case of 2010 comprises nine months. We chalked up an impressive list of achievements in 2010.
The headlines include accelerating the creative engines across the company to forge even stronger connections with our audiences, attracting more viewers on television, online and on the movie screen.
We improved our ad sales results, boosting our revenue growth rate for three consecutive quarters, continued to build and strengthen our affiliate partnerships, which are delivering double-digit revenue growth, achieved innovative distribution for our joint venture EPIX to make it profitable within one year of launch and creating significant asset value.
And we maintained our focus on operating efficiently and generating strong free cash flow, returning value to our shareholders with the initiation of a quarterly dividend and the resumption of our share buyback program.
As the world around us continues to revolve with new technologies transforming how people experience entertainment in their daily lives, it is our relentless focus on our audiences, understanding them and respecting their entertainment choices, our singular focus on creating great content and our disciplined operational and financial strategy, these are the factors that will continue to fuel our success. From our vantage point, the economy is improving, with the noise of the election season behind us. I believe that by a disruptive event the pace of economic recovery will accelerate.
Today, I will briefly review our financial results and spend a little more time talking about the highlights from our divisions. Tom and Jimmy will provide additional detail on our performance and then we will be happy to take your questions. As we discuss our results this morning, we will speak to the adjusted numbers.
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