CBS beats expectations, sure, but the dividend has been slashed!

Okay, CBS is not alone in its suffering. Competitors like Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC, General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC, and News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) Fox are all feeling the pinch from the loss of value in the advertising marketplace. Nevertheless, this changes the story on CBS as a potential investment idea.

I used to look at CBS as a nice, high-yield way to play the media space. And if you looked at past comments from management about the dividend, you'll see that they thought the same thing (you can peruse this transcript from Seeking Alpha). Though management sees that maintaining the current dividend would be too much of a financial hassle.

Interestingly enough, free cash flow for the year was $1.7 billion, enough to cover the roughly $700 million in dividend obligations. Of course, a check of cash and cash equivalents shows a huge drop. At the beginning of 2008, CBS had roughly $1.3 billion on the balance sheet. At the end, there was just $420 million left. I certainly hope CBS intends on scrutinizing every single programming deal it makes with an eye toward cutting costs, especially costs related to talent. Shareholders should not stand for overcompensation of talent while their dividend checks have been substantially reduced.

So, the big news here is the dividend cut. CBS is no longer an attractive income idea. Shares of CBS opened more than 13% higher Thursday morning. Seems Wall Street likes when a company admits that its yield is too high and decides to reset things. Still, I can tell you that I wouldn't be a buyer of the stock on the earnings news. I'd rather wait to get more data on the situation. Before, management was all high on its dividend. Now, they admit that the situation is too uncertain. Maybe they should have been aware of this a little earlier in the game...

Disclosure: I own Disney, GE; positions can change without notice.