TORONTO – While the company’s television assets are what buoys Corus Entertainment’s fiscal 2010 first quarter results, chief executive officer John Cassaday said the company is seeing signs of major advertisers returning to the oldest of electronic media, radio.
“(Clients) are coming back in a big way, starting with Ontario,” he said during Wednesday morning’s quarterly conference call with financial analysts, reflecting on Q1 (ended November 30) as well as more recent trends the company is seeing. This proves that last year “was a cyclical downturn,” and not a permanent one.
“We started to see a real uptick in November,” added Cassaday. “There’s a lot of pending business at major national advertisers… the light went on in November, continued in December and the pacing is strong in January.”
Despite the fact that stations in Alberta and B.C. are still flagging, those in Ontario, Quebec and Winnipeg are performing well. “It appears the worst is behind us,” added the CEO.
As for the rumour the company is at or near the front of the line to buy or invest in ailing Canwest Global, Cassaday did his best to quell any of the more outlandish rumours, insisting the Corus is interested only in some of the specialty channels.
“Our interest in these assets is related to specific specialty assets, and I’ll underscore, specific specialty assets… full stop.”
– Greg O’Brien
