Cap Cities Profit Leaps but Outlook Is Gloomy

Capital Cities/ABC on Monday reported an increase in its second-quarter profit but gave a grim outlook for the rest of the year because of soft advertising demand and higher programming costs.

The media concern, which operates the ABC television and radio networks, said it earned $67.02 million on $1.06 billion in revenue. That compared to $41.22 million on revenue of $267 million a year ago.

Despite the improved quarterly performance, Capital Cities/ABC said the earnings “are not indicative of the expected results for the balance of 1986” due to a weakness in network advertising demand and higher costs for sports rights and programming.

“The business outlook for the rest of the year is uncertain,” the New York-based firm said in a statement.

For the first half of the year, Capital Cities/ABC said earnings rose fivefold to $348.99 million from $68.96 million, after the sale of certain broadcasting properties and all of the cable television systems acquired from ABC. Capital Cities acquired ABC on Jan. 3.