MONTREAL – Thanks to a strong advertising market, Bell Canada Enterprises’ media division, Bell Globemedia, posted revenue of $399 million in the second quarter of 2005, an increase of 8% over the same time frame a year ago.
Year to date revenue at the division which houses assets such as CTV, TSN, The Globe and Mail, Discovery, Comedy Network and Animal Planet, among others, was $755 million, an increase of 5.9% from the end of the second quarter of 2004.
“Improved profitability both at CTV and The Globe and Mail delivered a 28% increase in operating income over the same period last year,” said the release. Q2 ended June 30th, 2005.
“CTV’s strong schedule once again made it the most watched network in the country. During the summer season, for example, CTV has nine of the top 10 programs in Canada. The network’s ever-popular Canadian Idol series continues to perform well in all markets. CTV’s marathon 18-hour broadcast of ‘Live 8’ was one of the biggest events in the network’s history, reaching 10.5 million viewers, or approximately one in every three Canadians. The strength of its line-up allowed the network to post double-digit growth in its conventional television advertising,” says today’s BCE release.
Plus, stronger subscriber and advertising revenues on specialty channels such as Discovery and the Comedy Network helped mitigate revenue challenges at TSN and RDS – the company’s two sports specialty networks hit by the loss of NHL programming.
Television advertising revenues grew by 10.4% this quarter and by 8.2% on a year-to-date basis, mostly due to the main network’s strength of schedule, where CTV had 18 of the top 20 regularly scheduled programs from September 2004 to early July 2005, added the company.
Bell Globemedia’s subscriber revenues grew by 5.4% this quarter and by 4.7% on a year-to-date basis, reflecting specialty channel growth and online subscription growth at The Globe and Mail.
