CBS Corporation (CBS), the media conglomerate, recently asserted that it still expects its full year 2009 operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) in the range of $1.725 billion to $1.925 billion.  The uptrend seen in the second-quarter 2009 revenue has made management optimistic and forecasted better results in the third and fourth quarters compared to the earlier quarters in 2009. The company also indicated some signs of revival in advertising demand in core categories like retail, telecom, pharmaceuticals and quick service restaurants.   Although the sluggish advertising market continues to hurt total revenue, which declined 11% to $3,006.3 million in the second-quarter 2009, but CBS saw a 3% improvement in quarterly revenue compared with a 14% drop in the first-quarter 2009.  In a separate story, National Amusement Inc., the holding company of media tycoon Sumner Redstone plans to sell its stake in CBS Corporation and ...

Investors need to be ready for a downright nasty earnings season. Already, we are seeing some companies cut their earnings estimates by drastic proportions. If you are not prepared, it could get painful.

My day did not get off to a good start. After rolling out of bed, my first stop is always the coffee pot. Then, I grab the newspaper and flick on the TV.

As usual, my newspaper (at least I hoped it was my newspaper) was tossed on my neighbor’s driveway, but when I tried to tune into the local news, the screen was black. Instead of waking up to my favorite weather girl, I was forced to listen to the pre-dawn silence.

While my troubles were trivial and caused by an overnight ice storm, the problems throughout the cable that provides my morning media fix industry continue to brew. For proof, just look at the nation’s largest media

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A full 7% of the Viacom, Inc. (VIA) workforce -- 850 jobs -- is to be terminated by the media conglomerate. And 500 more media industry workers' jobs will be cut at NBC Universal, the media wing of General Electric Company (GE), amounting to 3% of that company's workforce. This comes at a time of slowing box office sales for some film studio businesses, not to mention a pending Screen Actors Guild (SAG) strike. Who says the entertainment industry is recession-proof? While these hundreds of jobs lost do not match the thousands and tens of thousands being lost in other industries amid the broad U.S. economic downturn, they do illustrate that the economy is worsening for just about all facets of the American workforce -- even those formerly considered "safe" and far removed from the mortgage-led credit crisis that got this downhill ball rolling....