Media

Heady Q4 for Viacom as TWC battle looms

Viacom, which reported strong results Thursday for its latest quarter, is headed for a year-end showdown with Time Warner Cable, The Post has learned.

The media giant’s agreement with the country’s No. 2 cable company expires at midnight on Dec. 31.

Few content players expect TWC to go nuclear — that is, pull the plug on Viacom’s Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and other networks — after its 30-day skirmish with CBS this summer.

TWC just signed a new agreement for A&E Networks and is in talks with other programmers to renew deals coming up in the next few months.

Viacom, known for extracting high prices for its youth-targeted networks, went dark with DirecTV in 2012 after the satellite operator dropped Viacom’s 17 channels. The move sparked outrage across the nation.

Revenue at the company’s film division increased 11 percent, benefitting from the box-office success of “World War Z” and from home movie sales related to its Star Trek and GI Joe franchises.

News of the strong fiscal fourth quarter was offset by slowing advertising growth, which set off a stock sell-off, pushing Viacom shares down 2.5 percent to $81.11 on Thursday.

The Sumner Redstone-controlled programer recorded a 24 percent increase in net income in the quarter, to $804 million, or $1.68 per share. Overall revenue rose 8.6 per cent to $3.65 billion, beating expectations.

Ad revenue rose 10 percent in the quarter but will increase only in the “mid-single-digit” range in the current quarter, the company said.