OTTAWA – GATINEAU – Canadian specialty, pay, PPV and VOD television services generated revenues of $4.09 billion in 2013, an increase of 3.1% over the $3.97 billion earned the previous year, according to the CRTC’s statistical and financial report for this sector released Wednesday.
For the broadcast year ended August 31, 2013, national advertising revenues for this group increased by 2.8% over 2012 to $1.27 billion, and subscriber revenues exceeded $2.7 billion.
Revenues for these television services have climbed by an annual average of 7% over the past five years, to surpass $4 billion in 2013 for the first time. During the past year, specialty, pay, PPV and VOD services invested $1.3 billion in the creation of new television programs made by Canadians, and employed 6,120 people.
Canadian programming
In 2013, specialty services spent $1.3 billion on programs made by Canadians, which included:
– $224 million for news programs;
– $256 million for drama series, long-form documentaries, and Canadian award shows;
– $412 million for sports programming;
– $77 million for human-interest shows; and
– $263 million for other types of programming.
As part of these investments, specialty television services paid $379 million to Canadian independent producers. Spending on non-Canadian programs increased from $293 million in 2012 to $340 million in 2013.
Profitability
While revenues continued to climb, expenses decreased from $2.93 billion in 2012 to $2.92 billion in 2013. As a result, profits before interest and taxes (PBIT) increased from $913.2 million to $1.08 billion, and the PBIT margin improved from 23% to 26.5%.
Sources of revenues
The total revenues of $4.09 billion were generated from the following sources:
– $2 billion from cable subscribers;
– $740.2 million from satellite subscribers;
– $1.3 billion from national advertising;
– $29.3 million from local advertising; and
– $69 million from other sources.
Total revenues for English-language and bilingual services were $3.3 billion, while French-language services brought in $687.1 million.
Revenue by sectors
Specialty television services continued to capture the largest share of the total revenues at $3.3 billion, and their PBIT margin increased slightly over the previous year from 26.2% to 29.8%.
Pay services saw their revenues decrease by 2.8%, going from $457.8 million in 2012 to $444.8 million in 2013. Nonetheless, their PBIT margin remained relatively unchanged, going from 22.2% to 22.3%.
On-demand services (PPV and VOD) also witnessed a drop in revenues from $379.7 million to $354.2 million. Their PBIT margin, however, improved from -2.2% to 0.5%.
Each year, the CRTC compiles financial data on the Canadian broadcasting and telecommunications sectors. The data compiled in these reports were drawn from the annual returns of specialty, pay, PPV and VOD television services.
For the complete reports, see:
Individual pay, pay-per-view, video-on-demand and specialty services
