Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

CBS Corp., which last week won higher programming fees from Time Warner Cable after a very public fight, is helping to prove wrong predictions that the broadcast TV business would tank in the near future.

CEO Leslie Moonves has led broadcasters toward an economic model more like the cable industry's, drawing subscription as well as advertising revenue. Large audiences for "NCIS," "The Big Bang Theory," and National Football League games have given CBS the clout, like ESPN and Fox News, to demand higher fees from pay-TV services such as Time Warner Cable -- while allowing the company to sell digital rights to new distributors such as Amazon .

"People wrongly believed they were dinosaurs," said Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research Group who recommends buying CBS stock. "Many had argued the death of television for a very long time. And sentiment around it reflected that. This medium isn't dying, it's thriving."...