WHILE MASSIVE SPENDING cuts at one bankrupt broadcaster led it back into the black in 2010, another that was home to the Olympics saw the Games both boost – and drag down – results.
According to the aggregate financial data submitted to the CRTC by all English and French language OTA broadcasters and posted to the Commission web site recently, all lost money, save two.
• Those two are Quebecor Media’s TVA (which recorded a PBIT of $49 million in the 2010 broadcast year (ended August 31, 2010) and the former Canwest Global stations (now part of Shaw Media) which ended 2010 with a PBIT line of $32.7 million.
• For Canwest, that was an $85 million improvement over 2009’s $52.3 million loss but was only achieved in bankruptcy protection and through massive cost-cutting. Global finished 2009 with 1,382 staffers, but saw the end of the 2010 broadcast year come with just 1,064 employees. The company also spent 21% less on Canadian content ($137.2 million) and 18% less on foreign programming ($238 million).
• At CTV, total revenue climbed 18% to $933.5 million in 2010, likely propelled by the Vancouver Winter Olympics (national advertising also jumped 18% compared to 2009 to $734 million). However, expenses also soared, yes 18%, to $949 million.
• In fact, CTV’s revenue line was fully 50% of English OTA TV revenue of $1.8 billion in 2010 (not counting CBC’s taxpayer funding).
• CTV’s Canadian content expenditures jumped a whopping 57% to $332 million in 2010, which the data shows was driven by $137 million in spending on sports, a.k.a. the Olympics. CTV spent $358 million on foreign programming, or 7% less than 2009.
• What this all meant for the number one ’caster was a 40% larger loss in 2010. Its PBIT line was -$54.1 million as compared to -$38.6 million at the end of 2009.
• At Rogers Broadcasting (Citytv and OMNI), the company saw its far larger spend on foreign programming ($142 million, a 38% increase) pay off on the revenue line, if not on the PBIT line.
• Rogers sold 32% more national advertising in 2010 ($190.3 million) and 8% more local ads ($48.3 million) compared to 2009. The company also spent marginally less on Canadian content (including news and local) but still saw its PBIT fall further into negative territory to -$44.6 million (28% worse than 2009).
• At CBC English TV, the Corp’s national advertising sales folks had a pretty good 2010, bringing in $193 million or 35% more than in 2009. But local sales were a drag with just $27.7 million (a 43% drop).
• As usual, the French language broadcasters put their English TV counterparts to shame on the Canadian content front, especially in relation to their spend on foreign content. Together, Radio Canada, TVA and V spent $420 million on Canadian content ($277 million by Radio Canada). CTV, Canwest Global, CBC and Rogers together spent $904 million on Canadian programming ($407 million from CBC).
• However, while the French broadcasters spent $32.3 million on foreign programming (just 8% of what they spent on their Cancon), the English ‘casters spent an amount that was 86% the size of what they invested in Cancon, or $780 million.
• It’s not entirely clear at this point what’s being done with the Local Program Improvement Fund established by the CRTC for the 2010 broadcast year. The six major satellite and cable distributors collected over $95 million from their subscribers but not all of that is reflected in the data filed by the broadcasters. For example, Canwest’s filing doesn’t have an entry for it, and Rogers’ is empty (although its large-market stations are not eligible for it).
• CTV’s data shows it received $23.5 million in LPIF funding in 2010, but increased local spending by just $2 million, to $140 million. On the other hand, CBC TV received $15 million in LPIF funding and increased its news spending by $14.3 million to $99 million. Radio Canada got $17.6 million from LPIF and increased news spending by $23 million to $68 million.
– Greg O’Brien
