Good day, everyone, and welcome to the CBS Corporation second quarter 2017 earnings release teleconference. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Executive Vice President of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations, Mr. Adam Townsend. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome again to our second quarter 2017 earnings call. Joining us with today's remarks are Leslie Moonves, our Chairman and CEO; and Joe Ianniello, our Chief Operating Officer. Following Les and Joe's discussion of the company's performance, we will open the call up to questions. Please note that during today's conference call, the second quarter and year-to-date 2017 earnings per share will be discussed on an adjusted basis unless otherwise specified. Reconciliations for non-GAAP financial information related to this call can be found in our earnings release or on our website. Please note that statements in this conference call relating to matters which are not historical facts are forward-looking statements which involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ. Risks and uncertainties are disclosed in CBS Corporation's SEC filings. A webcast of this call and the earnings release related to today's presentation can be found on the Investors section of our website at cbscorporation.com. And with that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Les.

Thank you very much, Adam, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm extremely pleased to tell you today about another great quarter for the CBS Corporation. As you can see from our results, we continue to have more and more success as the landscape continues to change. Revenue was up 9% to $3.3 billion, with top line growth in every one of our four business segments. And EPS was up 12% to $1.04, representing our 30th consecutive quarter of EPS growth. Both of these totals were second quarter records for us. Clearly, our company keeps performing in the way that you've come to expect. Our base advertising business is strong and growing, and at the same time, we're laying new groundwork to ensure even more growth ahead. To do this, we are not only capitalizing on the changes in our industry, but we are shaping the direction of these changes as well. In that regard, I have some important announcements to make right here at the top. Each of them shows how we're continually positioning CBS for the future while also building on the great results we're delivering to you today. First, regarding our OTT services, we can now say that CBS All Access and Showtime OTT are set to exceed 4 million subscribers combined before the end of 2017. We're only in year two of our five-year plan, and already we're more than halfway to our goal of 8 million subs by 2020, which is obviously quite conservative now. These services are just starting to hit their stride with much more and bigger programming to come, so being this far along so early in the game is a terrific development. Next, I'm also pleased to announce today that we will be expanding CBS All Access into the international marketplace starting in…

Thanks, Les. And good afternoon, everyone. As you heard, we turned in another outstanding quarter. We had record results in all of our key financial metrics and we had top line growth in all three of our revenue types. This broad-based success is the direct result of the way we are executing on our core content strategy and diversifying our revenue sources, and it's only the beginning. We are just 17 months into the five-year strategic plan that we laid out for you, and we've already made substantial progress towards achieving the strategic and financial goals we set for our company. And we've done this while we continue to invest in our content and distribution platforms. While we're posting record earnings, we're also continuing to set ourselves up for bigger and better things ahead. Now let me give you some more details about our second quarter results. Revenue for the quarter came in at $3.3 billion, up 9%. Total advertising was up 4% led by our broadcast of the NCAA Final Four, which drove a 7% increase in network advertising. And as you know, our upfront strategy was to make sure we're getting paid for delayed viewing with C7 now the standard and even some agreements for 35 days, we are now able to monetize this consumption much better going forward. Content licensing and distribution was up 12% despite a difficult comp to last year when we booked a large international licensing deal for our deep Star Trek library. This quarter's increase was driven by our domestic and international volume deals, which included dozens of titles from across multiple platforms. In addition, we continue to benefit from the international expansion of Showtime, including a nice lift from the launch of Twin Peaks during the quarter. It's also worth mentioning that…

Thank you. We'll take our first question from Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley. Benjamin Daniel Swinburne - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Thank you. I have two questions. First, on All Access, and then I have a question on advertising. Les, when you think about the international opportunity for All Access, can you help us think about your expectations maybe relative to the U.S. now that you guys are going outside of the U.S. with All Access? And how do you weigh that opportunity against the international licensing business, which I believe is over $1 billion a year for the company and growing nicely? How do you think about the risks and opportunities of that as you guys move All Access outside the U.S.?

Ben, it's a very good question. And obviously, the whole key to international expansion is having the available content that we are making over $1 billion, and that is growing, as Joe had mentioned during the call. Once again, when you see a Netflix getting 50 million international subs, you say gee, that marketplace is so huge, we think there's a way to have our cake and eat it too, perhaps by selling it with the exclusion of our own OTT service. In terms of predicting numbers, it's really hard to do right now. As you saw, we're very pleased with how our domestic site is doing this fall with Star Trek and NFL and new programming. We think it should really grow quite a bit. So I think we're anticipating a great deal of success. And obviously we have the content from Showtime, from CBS, from our library, from all sorts of places that we'll be able to put on it. And once again, as each year goes by, that content should expand. Benjamin Daniel Swinburne - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: And then on the advertising side, this summer we've seen a stronger than expected upfront, as you mentioned, for yourselves, and I think overall for TV. It's been a nice story for television. But at the same time, C3 ratings have been under pressure for the industry, which has hit ad revenue a bit, and you've been talking about the leakage outside of C3 for a long time. I'm just wondering if you feel like we're any closer to capturing incremental dollars and monetizing that delayed viewing, and whether that was a driver for your ad sales reorganization, I think the hiring of Dave Lawenda from Facebook. Just talk about how close we may be to capturing those lost ad dollars from ratings issues.

All right. Ben, it's Joe. Look, I still think we're obviously in the early innings as an industry. I think this is a major step forward, this upfront. As we said on the call, C7 is now the standard. So obviously, the technological advances are giving us that opportunity again to change out advertisers if they don't want to be part of a longer advertising buy, to switch that out. So look, the opportunity is definitely there. The consumption is there, so that's the good news. And the demand I think is important that we make is there. And so clearly people are watching differently. Again, Nielsen put out the total content ratings for the season. 53%, that's a significant amount of people that are just watching it based on convenience, and that's fine. And if they consume it, our expectation is we should get paid for delivering that. And so we're now set up for that internally. We have contracts that set that up, but more to come later. Benjamin Daniel Swinburne - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Thank you both.

Great. Thanks, Ben.

Thank you, Ben. Next question, please.

We'll go next to Jessica Reif with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Thanks. I was wondering if you could talk little bit about how you're leveraging this incredible interest in news. Do you have any other plans? And there's been a lot of speculation that CNN could come on the market. How much interest would you have at this point in time? And like a second part to just M&A in general, there's obviously been some consolidation announcements in media this summer, any updated thoughts you can give us on how you're viewing M&A?

All right. Regarding news, Jessica, obviously we've expanded greatly. CBSN, as we said, is doing extraordinarily well. In addition, what's encouraging for the future is the average age of the news viewer is 20 years below what it is on the network. And then we announced our deal with BBC, so we're able to join with them and get the use of their news. And once again, 60 Minutes is still extremely profitable. The Morning Show has turned into a big hit for us, so that's a big change for us. And with CBSN, the revenues are growing and growing, and we're just trying more and more ways to exploit how we can do that. CBSN just had a primetime series on the network. Two episodes have aired already, and once again, that brand is growing greatly. And Joe, do you want to talk about the M&A?

Look, Jessica, at the M&A, look, we sit here and we feel strategically complete. We just laid out our growth plan last year. We've given you proof points along the way. We don't need any M&A to achieve the results. We're 100% focused on the operations. We look at everything that's in the marketplace. I think we've shown we're very disciplined in our approach, but our value creation is focused on the key pillars we laid out for you.

And can I just ask one last question, then? On some of these deals that you're making, the newer deals with virtual MVPDs, how did the minimum guarantees work with the new players?

Look, we don't want to get into specifics on some of the deal specifics, Jessica. I'm not going to – clearly some of these deals have MGs in them. We're not going say no to that but we want them to be all successful. And so the rate for sub is the most important rate that we look at, and obviously, it's priced accordingly to All Access, as well as the traditional big bundles. So I think any new entrant sees a huge opportunity in the marketplace to deliver a service or a bundle of channels that the consumers want where it's based on demand, and we're a key component of that, and we expect that value to be reflected.

Our mantra has always been you can't be a new bundle without CBS, and I think we're proving that to be the case. And so we're very pleased to have joined DIRECT. And as we said, we're in the vast majority of the skinnier bundles.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jessica. Next question, please?

We'll take our next question from Alexia Quadrani with JPMorgan.

Hi. Thank you, just two quick questions. The first one, if you can give us a bit more color on the new sports streaming service that you highlighted on the call, what sports rights you think you'll be able to put on that, or is it going to be more highlights or kind of to be determined? And then a follow-up question just on the OTT subscribers. I mean, you've had such impressive growth in the ones that you own, CBS and Showtime. You've given us some good color in terms of numbers behind those. But if you look outside of the platforms that you own, you know, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live, YouTube, all those, any sense of how the numbers can or will compare? I know it's early days for a couple of those, especially DIRECTV NOW you just joined, but any sense of if the numbers in aggregate could be meaningful the way they are on your own platforms?

All right. Alexia, I'll take the sports question and I'll let Joe do the tougher question. Look, as you know we already have a very proactive online sports group down in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and as I said, we have the infrastructure that allows CBSN to thrive, which obviously will be used there as well. We have deals with the NFL, the NCAA, FCC football, PGA Tour Golf, lots of different areas. In addition, it's in the very preliminary stages of formation. But CBS is a big player in the sports world. We are going to look to differentiate ourselves from the ESPN and the Fox Sports as well, and we think we have a good opportunity to succeed. The other key, like CBSN, we can keep costs relatively minimal because we already have a great infrastructure for sports like we did with news. So the chances of profitability early on are very good.

And Alexia, on your OTT sub question, look, the virtual MVPDs are just getting launched. So if you go back to that Investor Day, we did lay out for you 4 million subs by 2020, and we had 8 million subs in total for Showtime and CBS All Access, kind of 4 million apiece. So that gives you some direction on what we think the size is. As we sit here today kind of a year later, we might've been too conservative in those numbers. So these services are just rolling out. They're rolling out kind of locally by market and stuff, so I think we like what we see. I think the user interface is attractive on some of these things, so I think it's going to appeal to a millennial. But it's a different buyer who probably buys CBS All Access. CBS All Access, for the price point is there's no value in the marketplace for it. You're getting tons of live programming, news, sports, plus a deep library and originals for under $10. These other bundles are obviously priced $30 to $40, and it's kind of a suite of services. So we want to be in both of those, and again, we have pretty high expectations on both.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Alexia. Next question, please?

We'll go next to Michael Morris with Guggenheim Securities.

Thanks. Good afternoon, guys. I want to follow-up on the sports question. I'm sure you're aware there's some concern in the marketplace about competitive bidding for sports rights over the next 5 to 10 years, particularly from digital competitors. So I'm curious if you can give us an update on your thought on that competitive dynamic, and whether the launch of the streaming service is another tool to help you position in that competitive market in the future? And then second, Joe, you mentioned the 54 shows compared to the 33 shows produced just two years ago. Is it apples-to-apples in terms of the economics on those shows, meaning it's roughly 50% growth in the production economics? And what's the – what does the runway look like for growth from here? Thanks.

Mike, on the sports, yes, the competitive bidding is becoming more and more out there, and obviously there's digital players in the sports arena. The good news is we have the NCAA tournament till 2032, so I think we're fairly secure in the near- and far-term on that. In terms of the other rights, look, the NFL has always been extremely supportive of broadcast television. Yes, there's going to be a digital component, and you're right, this service could be – allow us to be a bigger player in that and perhaps get certain digital rights as these contracts come up more and more. But once again, we have proven that broadcast is better than cable, ascertained by our NCAA ratings versus some of the cable people who have the NCAA, and I think the NFL has always stated there's a reason that the Super Bowl is always on network television. It's just higher rated, nobody has the reach that we do. There's no question that digital players will become more important, but we think they will go along with broadcast, not alone.

And Mike, for your 54 shows, yeah, that's produced across broadcast, cable, streaming services. So the economics vary, meaning the revenue we generate might vary across the board there, but so do the costs of the shows, as well. The way we look at it, Mike, it's always got to be margin-accretive. And so as it's margin-accretive, it adds to our margin and it builds our library and we monetize it around the world. So again, it's the best probably ROI we can allocate with the use of a dollar.

Great. Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mike. Next question.

We'll go next with Doug Mitchelson with UBS.

Thanks so much. I'm trying to gauge what content rights overseas are available for CBS All Access. Are the shows sold to Netflix or Amazon Prime overseas typically exclusive and how long do those deals tend to be?

Some of them are. Obviously, we sold Star Trek to Netflix and they will have the worldwide rights going forward. However, a lot of our newer deals, we'll do it. For newer shows, we will sell with the exclusion of a CBS-owned streaming service. So once again, as time progresses there will be more and more available content that we'll be able put on CBS All Access internationally, same with Showtime content, same with CW content. The good news is we have so many different pipelines at CBS that produce content, we think we're going to have a pretty nice suite of shows available and that will grow as each year goes by.

And I think you mentioned having your cake and eating it too. I mean, how do you balance – sustain your growing margins at CBS versus billing out a CBS All Access or a CBS All Access internationally? You highlight it's a really big opportunity. How aggressively do you go after that with deficits financing a build out versus your desire to continue to grow earnings for investors?

Yes. Our international content obviously sells for a lot of money, and it certainly covers our deficit financing. There is a way to do it where we'll be able to sell to international channels, as well as have them on All Access, or there'll be certain shows that will be direct for All Access. So there will be – it's something, obviously, we're aware of, and it's something we'll monitor. And as we've done with All Access like with Star Trek, we could've put Star Trek on Showtime, on the CBS Television Network, or Netflix, Amazon. They all wanted it for a lot of money. We determined that Star Trek would be far better for All Access and will earn us more money. So we're pretty smart about content monetization. We figure out each property and how to best monetize it, and that will continue in the international marketplace.

And last one for Joe. Joe, I'm not sure – I've heard the description 10% ratings versus 2% distribution fees from you guys before.

Do you like that, Doug?

You know...

Go check my math.

It's good news/bad news, because at a 20% growth rate which is great. I think investors are pretty happy with the retrans and reverse retrans story at CBS, there's still a step function opportunity. How do you pursue that?

We start with pursuing it when the deals come up and that's why we mentioned on the call that all of our deals on retrans and reverse comp through 2020 come up for renewal. So that's when we have the opportunity to kind of reset the marketplace. But when you have the data, everybody likes to talk about data, so we have the data on this and it kind of supports our thesis so it gives us a lot of confidence when we go into those negotiations. So the only thing that really stops us is time.

I guess what I'm asking is now having this data, do you think that you will be more aggressive than you might have been before?

Wow, Doug...

Joe Ianniello can't be more aggressive on anything.

Fair enough. He doesn't have to, right?

I appreciate that comment there, Doug. Apparently, I've been lagging, so I'm going to take it up a notch. So those on the call, beware, but I will take that to heart. Look, we shoot for fair value and we believe that markets correct themselves when they're out of balance. And the data suggests that we have a good story to be told and we need to go out to prove to the marketplace that we've earned that money. And the more and more subscribers we get that pay us $6, the more and more confidence we have in the rates we ask for from our distributors.

Thanks so much, guys.

All right. Thanks, Doug. Next question, please.

We'll go next to John Janedis with Jefferies.

Thank you. Hey, guys, I think there's been some uncertainty in the marketplace around the margins on the OTT products, meaning either All Access or Showtime given the programming investments. So can you talk about how you think about scale? I assume it's something way less than the 4 million subs for each. And does the margin profile look dilutive to their respective segments?

No, the margin is going to be accretive. Look, we obviously invested and had to get the services up and running, and we will have content cost. But as the sub base grows, John, we're looking to grow our overall margin. And so I think you can see that Showtime, as evidenced this quarter and year to date, grew its margin 2 percentage points for the year. For the year to date it's 45%, as we're expanding more content and more platforms. And so we're being prudent on how we do that and again like a step function theory. But it's all margin accretive, and that's the way we're modeling this. And I think again, we laid that out at our Investor Day for you guys.

All right. Thanks, Joe. And then maybe – hey, Les, with some of the ratings erosion at certain cable networks, it seems like they're losing the ability to sell certain demos. And with the success of late night and news, are you seeing advertising share gains from cable in some of these younger demos? And do you still think some dollars are shifting back from digital, or is that largely done?

No, I think look, at the last upfront, which was only a couple of months ago, we definitely saw digital money move to broadcasting. And in terms of cable, I assume the same thing is happening. Once again, the fact that we're doing much better in late night than we've ever done before, a lot of money is going into Colbert. That's a huge difference from where we were previously. And the same thing with the morning news, but it's not all demo related because a lot of what we sell is the little older 25 to 54, and that's doing very well. So we're in a very good position.

All right. Thanks, guys.

Thank you, John. Next question, please?

We'll go next to Vijay Jayant with Evercore ISI.

Thanks. One question that keeps getting asked on a lot of these conference calls is what's the trend of the underlying subscriber base? I think that CBS as a platform, given it's in most of the skinny bundles within the ecosystem and a whole host of new virtual MVPDs as well as your CBS All Access. Is it fair to say that – and also your reverse comp is not a per-sub metric, I understand. Could you confirm that? Is it fair to say that the CBS platform is actually growing its subscriber base on what you have under your control? And second, any way you can share with us what the mix was between C3, C7, and even some C35 you saw on the sub front? Thanks so much.

Okay, Vijay. It's Joe. Here's what I would tell you. First, I can confirm the reverse comp deals are – it's a flat fee. It's a license fee as opposed to tied to subscribers. And the second thing is I think when you look at it across the traditional retrans base plus the skinny bundles plus the direct OTT, we're not seeing any sub erosions here. And I think again, it's consumers find the content they want to consume, and that's really what we're seeing and that's what you can see in the numbers of growing 25% quarter after quarter is what we're posting. As far as the C3/C7, we don't have specifics. We said the C7 is now the standard. The way we describe it is the vast majority of the deals. And as Les said, we're starting to get some at C35 – 35-day deals, which again is also important. So I think more to come there. It's a proof point, and I think we have to show that it works. It works for an advertiser and there's true value and we will monetize it.

Thanks so much.

Great. Thanks, Vijay. Next question, please?

We'll go next to David Miller with Loop Capital Markets.

Hey, guys. Congratulations on the stellar results. And this just follows up on the previous question. Les, I think it was a year ago after your 2016 upfront results had come out that I had asked you about C3 versus C7. And I think that I had positioned my question in suggesting, at least rhetorically, that there really wasn't a lot of traction with C3 at the time, and that perhaps going forward the currency would just be live and C7. It seems like that's what happened this year. It just seemed like there really wasn't a lot of traction with C3 at all. Do you agree with that? Am I wrong in stating that?

No, look, going into this year's upfront, I would venture to say that 75% of the deals last year were C3. I think that has shifted a great deal to C7. By the way, it's a positive for advertisers, it's a positive for us as well that more of the people are counted. So I think going in, we had to get the top advertising agencies on board with the C7 metric, and they did. And by and large, every single one of them is there and it is the standard of the day. What is interesting, as we've talked about the total content ratings, when you get up to the C35, which is going to become even more important going forward, you see ratings going up in certain cases literally over 50%. We used The Big Bang Theory from day 2 to day 35. It was up over 50%. It went from something like 17 million viewers to 24 million viewers. So that is substantial, and that's going to mean a lot of money going forward.

Excellent, thank you very much.

Great. Thank you, David. Next question, please?

We'll go next to Laura Martin with Needham. Laura Martin - Needham & Co. LLC: Hi there. Can you hear me, you guys?

Yes. Laura Martin - Needham & Co. LLC: Okay, great. So, Joe, so I know you guys are really good at managing over-the-top growth offshore with this margin because you're trading at 12 times earnings. But I cover Netflix, the trade is at six times revenue. So talk to me about why we don't spin off 15% of this and lose money and get there faster? Because actually, first-mover advantage does better in some of these markets. So talk to me about that logic.

Laura, we have Netflix envy, and we try to present our results in a way to give you the ability to value us on an equivalent metric. So we'll leave the valuation to you guys. We'll post the results and you tell us what it's worth.

We would love to take all of our profits and put it back into content. We'd be very good at that. Laura Martin - Needham & Co. LLC: Okay. And then staying on this, so, Les, I'm really interested. Is the notion that we're going into news and sports because – is that being driven by the execution of we have this big infrastructure, so now we can go get another revenue stream, or is it that you feel there's a big over-the-top bundle being created and you have entertainment lockdown? So let's get to news, and basically CNN and ESPN which were the two big verticals that were first in the cable bundle? Which one of your theses drives this push into news and sports as it relates to the (55:21)?

Look, obviously, CNN was doing very well, Fox News was doing very well. To begin a brand-new Cable News Network would not be smart and it also wasn't the new modern form of distribution. So it seemed logical for us to go into streaming having the infrastructure we already did in terms of news. Seeing the success we had with news, we say, all right, there's an opportunity there and sports as well. Not that other people aren't there, but our sports networks are doing extremely well online. And once again, it's a great opportunity to be all things to all people and I think we can do it successfully. Laura Martin - Needham & Co. LLC: Thanks a lot, guys.

Thanks.

Thanks, Laura. Next question, please?

We'll go next to Steven Cahall with Royal Bank of Canada.

Thank you. Just a question on maybe programmatic buying. I think Fox announced earlier that they're starting to do some programmatic buying on local and we saw one of the Group M executives head over to AT&T to do the same there, possibly with Time Warner coming in. So how are you looking at the possibility of an arms race in programmatic or maybe just something more dynamic in terms of ad insertion, particularly as more of your content goes to a virtual format?

Look, we've been competitive because of our ratings, our programming, et cetera, and every place that we can sell, we can't sell, one of the reasons we restructured our sales division was because we wanted to look at every possible way of selling to achieve maximum revenue. Programmatic is one of those ways. So we're there as well, and as we've done in every other form of advertising, we've competed very successfully. So we think that we're in very good shape with our new construction of our sales division.

And then maybe just a quick follow-up on Thursday night football, you're pretty close to that contract coming due. So I was just wondering if you can give us any thoughts as to where do you think the league is going to keep that on the roster, and if so how you look to be in the next round? Thanks.

Obviously, we have five games. NBC has five games. We expect the NFL to continue and we expect to continue to be a part of it. We love the NFL and we want to continue as we do on Sundays.

Great. Thanks, Steve. Let's take one last question, please.

We'll take that question from Marci Ryvicker from Wells Fargo.

Thanks. Just how do you view your relationship with your affiliates in the broadcast business model overall? I think what's going on between Fox and Sinclair had the entire market spooked, and we know that you're aggressive in your negotiations with stations, Joe. So any comment just on the business model and your relationship there would be helpful. And then secondly, is there a point where Entercom's stock price get so low that you feel like you need to walk away from the sale of CBS Radio?

Marci, it's Joe. Look, I think we have a great relationship with our affiliate body. Obviously, we just did a very comprehensive deal with them addressing virtual MVPDs, part of All Access. So we've demonstrated to work with them. We like the model. We want them to be successful. We want to obviously be paid for our success as well. So I think we have a lot of examples of the way we can do it where it's win-win. And so we're pretty proud of that relationship. As far as Entercom goes, look, we assumed Entercom's stock is low and we hope it goes up. I think David Field is the best operator in the industry. I think he's going to have a whole bunch of synergies and opportunities, really, to grow that asset base. And in the coming months, we obviously have to convince investors that that's the best game in town. So we don't have any expectation that the Entercom stock price is going to go lower, but the outs in the deal are there. There's obviously maxim and things of that nature that are in the deal, but we're fully committed to getting this deal done with Entercom.

Okay, thank you.

Great. Thank you, Marci.

And thank you, everyone, for joining us this evening. Have a great night.

This does conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.