OTTAWA –GATINEAU – Despite a slumping advertising market, Canada’s specialty, pay, pay-per-view television services, and video-on-demand services saw total revenues grow 6% in the 2009 broadcast year, says the annual CRTC report released Thursday.
From September 1, 2008 to August 31, 2009, revenues increased from $2.9 billion to $3.1 billion, as subscriber revenues offset advertising declines, while expenses rose from $2.2 billion to $2.3 billion.
As a result, profits before interest and taxes (PBIT) improved to $728.7 million, up from $648.2 million in 2008. These services posted a PBIT margin of 23.5%, slightly better than the previous year’s margin of 22.1%.
Cable TV subscribers generated the greatest share of the revenue at $1.4 billion, followed by $624.1 million from direct-to-home satellite subscribers, $982.2 million from national advertising, $18.2 million from local advertising, and $53.1 million from what the Commission termed other sources.
When compared with the 2008 results, revenues from cable and satellite subscribers increased by 12.9% and 3.6%, respectively, while national and local advertising revenues dropped by 2.4% and 11.1%, respectively.
English-language services earned $2.5 billion of the total revenues, while French-language services brought in $501.4 million.
Specialty television services captured the largest share of the total revenues at $2.4 billion, which included $2.08 billion from 49 analog services, $100.6 million from 18 Category 1 digital services, and $223.9 million from 77 Category 2 digital services. Pay, pay-per-view and VOD services saw their share of revenues increase by 16.6%, going from $596.4 million to $695.6 million in one year.
In 2009, these services spent $1.08 billion on Canadian programming, which was roughly the same amount as the previous year. Of the overall programming expenditures, $357.1 million was paid to independent producers to acquire Canadian programs.
Spending on Canadian programming included $163.1 million for news programs, $226.8 million for other information programs, $302.6 million for sports programming, $194.7 million for drama, $47.5 million for musical and variety shows, and $73.7 million for general-interest programming. These services also directed $521.8 million to foreign programming, up 36.7% from the $381.6 million reported in 2008.
The data compiled in the CRTC report were drawn from the annual reports of specialty, pay and pay-per-view television services, as well as video-on-demand services. Click here to read the full report.
