Sumner Redstone always kicks off conference calls by proclaiming “content is king.”

This time on CBS’ quarterly call on Thursday, the company’s chairman praised CEO Les Moonves as a “super genius,” saying, “There are no words to describe the spectacular manner you operate CBS.”

That kind of hyperbole seemed to even strike Moonves as awkward. He said he “was blushing” and then proceeded to run through record earnings of 65 cents, six cents better than expected, and to explain why revenue declined from a year ago.

Quarterly revenue came in at $3.48 billion, but Moonves explained that it was because of one-time items a year ago — streaming revenue and NCAA Basketball revenue — which was included in the prior quarter this year.

CBS is often singled out as being more reliant on advertising than any of the other media companies, but that’s something that Moonves is working to change. This quarter non-advertising revenue grew to 39 percent of the pie, and Moonves says syndication, retransmission fees, and digital revenue, will continue to outpace advertising and become an even bigger piece of the pie.

“We continue to increase the ways we get paid,” he said.

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