GATINEAU – There are always some interesting figures which emerge with the publishing of the annual aggregate returns of the large carriers and broadcasters by the CRTC.
Below are a few highlights from the data filed by Canada’s cable, satellite and IPTV companies (we’ll look at the conventional TV, pay and specialty and radio numbers later) for the broadcast year ended August 31, 2014.
- Of the subscriber losses suffered by the large, established TV carriers (cable and satellite brands Rogers Cable, Shaw Cable, Shaw Direct, Videotron, Bell Satellite TV, Cogeco Cable and Eastlink) almost all went to the newer IPTV players Telus Optik TV and Bell Fibe.
- While the cable and satellite companies collectively lost 408,000 customers between August 31, 2013 and August 31, 2014, Optik and Fibe gained 382,000. (Data from smaller independent cablecos, or from smaller IPTV providers like Aliant, MTS and Sasktel are not published).
- Despite the customer losses, cable companies did an admirable job maintaining profits (through broadband and other product sales, cost-cutting, and rate increases). The best example was Shaw Cable, which lost 83,000 customers between 2013 and 2014 but its profits before interest and taxes rose 24% to $967.3 million. On the other end of the scale was Rogers Cable, whose profits before interest and taxes sank 18% to $809.7 million as it lost over 113,000 subscribers.
- While Fibe and Optik are pulling in tons of new TV subscribers for Bell and Telus, respectively, they were not close to turning a profit at the end of August 2014. Telus’ TV service was $475 million in the red, more than double the prior year’s loss, while Bell’s terrestrial service lost $185 million, a 16% improvement over 2013.
- There were still about half a million analog cable subscribers at the end of last August. While Shaw Cable did not break out how many analog subs they had left, Rogers reported 274,000, Videotron had 78,000, Eastlink (Bragg) had 53,000 and Cogeco had 29,000.
