It is to be seen how this is going to be played/portrayed by Shari Redstone and Phillippe Dauman in the on-going court battle.

The owner of Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon, has reported a higher than expected revenues for this quarter. This can be attributed to higher licensing fees and an increase in revenues from the theatre. Thus, despite a drop in domestic ad revenues Viacom has come out with results beatings analysts’ estimates.

The company is currently caught up in a legal battle for control between Sumner Redstone and Phillippe Dauman, its CEO. Its revenues have surged by 1.6% in the third quarter defying analysts’ forecast of a fall of a similar magnitude.

Shari Redstone and her father, are waging a two pronged legal battle with Dauman and the other Viacom directors. The war started when Dauman wanted to sell a minority stake in Paramount Studio.

Earlier in June, Viacom had issued a quarterly profit forecast, which fell far short of Wall Street’s expectations. The company had then cited disappointing performance of its box-office Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as well as the on-going roiling of its board as a reason for its expected reduced performance.

Surprisingly, despite the movie’s weak performance, Viacom’s movie business registered a jump of 30% to $621 million, as of June 30.

Revenues from international advertising have also smashed expectations and have risen by 13% compared to the average analyst’s expectation of 1.6%, as per FactSet StreetAccount, a research firm.

However, its revenues from domestic advertising have reduced by 4% for the 8^th straight quarter. Analysts had expected a drop of 3.8%, as per FactSet.

Viacom’s shares have lost almost 47% of their value in the last two years, as younger viewers, a key demographic for networks such as MTV, turn from traditional television to online content such as Netflix and YouTube.

With the news hitting the market, its stock rose by 1.2% to $43.99 on Wednesday, in light premarket trading.

Excluding one-time items, Viacom earned $1.05 per share, beating the average analyst estimate of $1.01, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Viacom’s total revenues touched $3.11 billion from $3.06 billion. Analysts had expected it to hover around $3.01 billion.

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