MONTREAL – Consolidated net earnings for the first three months of fiscal 2007 increased by 9% over last year, rising to $32.6 million, said Astral Media today.
The owners of such assets as The Movie Network, Super Écran, Canal Indigo, vrak.tv, Z, a number of eastern radio stations and an outdoor advertising company continues its string of growing quarters thanks to increased advertising on its French specialties and subscriber growth in English Canada.
Consolidated revenues totaled $165.1 million for the first quarter, an increase of 7% over the same period last year. EBITDA for the first three months increased 9% to $53.1 million and cash flow from operations rose 3% totaling $35.5 million.
"We are very pleased with the company’s results for the first quarter of fiscal 2007, with growth in both subscriber and advertising revenues," said Ian Greenberg, president and CEO.
"Our Television group recorded particularly strong growth for the quarter with subscriber-related revenues up 8% and advertising revenues increasing by 14%. These increases in our television results generally reflect the overall strong performance of our networks, as well as the impact of acquiring an additional 10% holding in Teletoon. In our radio group, advertising revenues were up by 3% in Québec, while those of our Outdoor Advertising group were slightly lower. Once again, the unique revenue mix that we have at Astral Media allows us to post solid results."
Of course, during the conference call this morning with media and financial analysts, Greenberg was asked if he bid on Alliance Atlantis, which signed a sale agreement with CanWest Global Communications and Goldman Sachs yesterday.
Greenberg almost sounded disinterested, calling AA "a complicated file… quite different than CHUM in every way," he said, pointing to the company’s CSI franchise and movie distribution unit, two businesses Greenberg said his company knows little about.
He says Astral is in good shape and growing right now, as it has been for a while and there is no pressing need to do anything. "Our view is Astral is and continues to be in a unique position," he said.
