Cable / Telecom News

Linear TV revenues were trending up, pre-pandemic



By Ahmad Hathout

GATINEAU – For the first time in five years, private conventional TV revenues increased nationwide in 2019, according to CRTC data released earlier this month.

The accumulated broadcasting data from the Regulator for the year ended August 31, 2019, show an increase to $1.55 billion from $1.54 billion in 2018 for all Canadian OTA TV revenue streams, including local and national time sales, network payments, infomercials, syndication, small market and independent local programming funds and government grants. National ad sales grew a healthy 2.5% to $1.05 billion. The 2019 revenue increase effectively stopped a continued revenue slide since 2015.

The annual data over that five-year period was culled from 93 conventional over-the-air TV stations, with only last year having one more reporting station than the other years.

The increased revenues came despite overall reduced staff, which have consistently declined over the past five years, as well as slightly reduced expenditures on technical, programming and production.

From a provincial viewpoint, Ontario saw slightly increased revenues in the private traditional TV space to $648.4 million; Atlantic Canada saw increased revenues to $67.1 million last year compared to $62.1 million in the year prior; the prairies increased revenues to $323.5 million from $309.7 million the year prior; British Columbia and the territories saw a jump to $198.3 million from $191.2 million in 2018; and Quebec saw continued revenue decline in the private to $316.3 million, a 4.4% drop over 2018.

The data also show broadcasting distribution undertakings are making gains, at least on the IPTV platform side, while shedding traditional cable TV subs. Total revenues for regulated IPTV services across Canada have increased every year since 2015, with last year’s figure sitting at $2.2 billion. Subscribers for IPTV services were similarly up every year, with 2019 seeing a total of nearly three million subscribers. The largest IPTV-driven services are Bell Fibe and Telus’ Optik TV.

Cableco revenues came in at $4.39 billion in 2019, down 2% over the prior broadcasting year on 5.77 million subscribers (a 5.1% dip from 2018 – and a 14.2% drop from 2015). Satellite TV revenues were $1.8 billion, a 3% decline over 2018, which isn’t a bad result given subscribers fell by 7.6% to 1.78 million.

For all subscription TV segments, including cable, IPTV and direct-to-home satellite, revenues were down less than 1% to $8.3 billion, continuing a downward trend that is similarly reflected in overall subscriber losses. While there were still 10.53 million traditional pay-TV households in 2019, that’s down 6.5% over 2015. Despite this, BDU staff count increased 5.8% in 2019 over 2018, however overall average remuneration per staffer fell 9% year-over-year to an average salary of $76,900.

Discretionary and on-demand services revenue was essentially flat at $4.2 billion (which includes subscription and ad revenue), with an associated decrease in expenses. With subscription levels falling as noted, it was national ad revenue that provided a boost for Canadian specialties, rising 2.5% over 2018 to $1.26 billion.

However, the relatively good news on the advertising front from 2019 (which was modestly continuing through February 2020) has of course been crushed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the midst of second quarter earnings — and telecoms now reporting the full brunt of the damage wrought by the virus — data out of New York-based Standard Media Index found Canadian advertising spend fell 36.2 per cent in the first wave of the crisis (after rising slightly in January and February. A more recent report from SMI shows the declines in advertising beginning to flatten in May, though upticks in spending have mostly been on digital.

The CRTC data also show nationwide radio revenue declines, continuing a downward slide from 2015, to $1.45 billion in 2019 compared to $1.5 billion the prior year. English FM radio saw a 3.7% decline to $935.7 million, compared to 2018, with reduced staff and reduced expenses. In contrast, English FM’s revenues in 2015 were slightly above $1 billion.

Ethnic FM and AM radio across the country, however, saw an increase in revenue to $47 million from 26 reporting entities, that’s up by around a million dollars from the year prior, while staff and expenses have also gone up.

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