MONTREAL – Quebecor’s TVA Group reported $9.4 million in net income for the fourth quarter of 2012, a decrease of $2.1 million in the same quarter of 2011. It blamed the decrease in operating income at TVA Network due mainly to a 5.6% decline in its advertising revenues.
The company’s publishing division also reported a 27% decrease in operating income from the third quarter, to $1.86 million.
In contrast, operating income for TVA’s television segment increased 5.6% to $19.1 million during that period, which TVA attributes to the deconsolidation of the results of SUN News, as well as a $2.4 million increase in operating income at its specialty services.
CEO Pierre Dion said that advertising revenues were “flat for fiscal 2012 as a whole. The combined market shares of TVA Group’s channels grew by 6.3% to 33.5 shares for the period of October 1 to December 31, 2012. The total revenues of our French-language specialty services grew 21.3% in the fourth quarter of 2012 and 33.6% in 2012 as a whole.” Dion said TVA’s publishing segment's operating margin was 10.7% despite the decreases in advertising revenues and in newsstand revenues in the last quarter of 2012. The company said it is continuing to launch new initiatives in the publishing segment in 2013.
