TORONTO – Double digit gains in television advertising revenues lifted third quarter revenues at Corus Entertainment, the company said Wednesday.
Consolidated revenues for the three months ended May 31, 2019 were $458.4 million, up 4% from $441.4 million last year, while consolidated segment profit of $170.5 million was virtually unchanged from $170.4 million in the same period last year.
Net income attributable to shareholders for the period rebounded to $66.4 million from a net loss of $935.9 million last year, and includes business acquisition, integration and restructuring costs of $2.3 million, a gain on debt modification of $3.9 million, and a loss on disposal of the Telelatino Network of $0.3 million. Adjusting for the impact of these items results in an adjusted net income attributable to shareholders of $66.1 million for the quarter.
"Corus delivered a third consecutive quarter of consolidated revenue growth, driven primarily by a double-digit increase in Television advertising, partially offset by lower subscriber revenues and softness in our radio segment," said president and CEO Doug Murphy, in the company's press release. "Significant innovations such as the debut of STACKTV on Amazon Prime Video Channels and expansion of Corus' social and digital content offerings, combined with our robust new slate of owned content and a strong programming line-up demonstrate our commitment to optimize our core business and build for the future. Importantly, these strong Q3 results have enabled us to achieve our leverage target one quarter ahead of our goal, once again improving our financial flexibility."
Corus’ television segment revenues for the quarter increased 5% to $421.5 million from $403 million year-over-year, while radio revenues fell 4% to $36.9 million from $38.4 million last year.
Television segment profit grew 4% to $166.7 million from $160.8 million year-over-year, while radio segment profit was down $1.7 million to $9.8 million.
Other highlights from Corus’ Q3 financial report include:
Television
– Advertising revenues increased 10% in Q3 2019;
– Subscriber revenues fell 4%;
– Merchandising, distribution and other revenues were down $1.2 million; and
– Segment profit margin of 40% in Q3 2019 was unchanged from the prior year.
Radio
– Segment profit margin of 26% in Q3 2019 compared to 30% in the prior year.
