OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Offering local telephone service just might be working out for Canadian cable operators.
For anyone paying attention to the increasingly positive results for Canadian cable operators of late, the CRTC’s figures on the industry, released today, will come as no surprise.
Total revenues for cable companies passed $6 billion in 2006, a 12% increase over 2005. Subscribers also grew and profits before interest and taxes (PBIT) for cable companies totalled $1.4 billion in 2006, and the PBIT margin was 22.92%.
However, within the report itself on the Commission’s site, comparisons from year to year are not possible because the 2006 data is from all cable systems in the country. In prior years’ calculations, only regulated Class 1 systems were included in the report while the Class 2 and 3 cable systems were left out. That’s why, for example, it looks as though there has been a $30 million increase in community programming between the 2005 and 2006 broadcast years.
Starting in 2006, the revenues for exempted services are included in the total revenues for cable companies, whereas they were excluded in previous years. To determine the increase of 12 per cent, the CRTC used the total revenues for exempted cable services estimated by Statistics Canada for the year 2005, says the CRTC release.
Total revenues for DTH and MDS increased by 17.7%, rising from $1.5 billion in 2005 to $1.7 billion in 2006, and the number of subscribers increased by 5.6% in one year, to 2,627,662.
PBIT for DTH and MDS companies totalled $37 million in 2006, compared with $44.9 million in 2005. The already ultra-slim PBIT margin also decreased, from 3.06% in 2005 to 2.14% in 2006.
In 2006, contributions from cable, DTH and MDS companies to Canadian programming totalled $271.6 million, an increase of 8.6%. Of that amount, $137.2 million went to the Canadian Television Fund, $33.4 million to independent funds, and $100.9 million to local expression.
