QUIETLY POSTED TUESDAY on the CRTC’s web site were the 2009 aggregate financial data of the large Canadian broadcasters and BDUs. And, as we all knew, the BDUs are doing pretty well. The broadcasters, not so much.
CTV EVP Paul Sparkes tried to quickly introduce some of the data during its Q&A session Tuesday during the ongoing hearing into a broadcaster compensation regime because of the dramatically different bottom line numbers for his company compared to the big carriers. However, he was interrupted by Commission chair Konrad von Finckenstein before he could spit out the admittedly huge profit before interest and taxes figures for the big Canadian BDUs.
The combined overall PBIT for the top three terrestrial BDUs (Shaw Cable, Rogers and Videotron) during the 2009 broadcast year (ended August 31, 2009) was an impressive $2 billion.
In that shadow, the broadcasters don’t fare well. They lost a ton of money in 2009, posting losses of $38.7 million at CTVglobemedia, $52.4 million at Canwest Global, $15.3 million at CBC and $64.2 million at Rogers Broadcasting on the 2009 PBIT line. Those are much larger numbers than the 2008 losses.
Now, we can hear the BDUs reading this saying, yeah, but that’s for ALL of our services, not just video. Both Rogers and Videotron said during the hearing this week that the video portion of the business basically breaks even, but the aggregate data doesn’t offer PBIT based just on the video component of their businesses, except for DTH, which has no phone or Internet component. BellTV, then, posted a $145 million loss in 2009, and Shaw Direct had positive PBIT of $129 million.
While broadcasters cut some of their spending in certain areas in fiscal 2009, dropping employees and other expenditures, expect to hear very loudly from the creative community and BDUs that while ad revenue dropped (it was down 5% at CTV and 8.4% at Canwest) and people were laid off from newsrooms around the country (with two stations closing) spending on American programming still rose during the 2009 broadcast year.
Together, the four English-language broadcasters mentioned here spent just over $800 million outside of Canada (mostly in Hollywood). CTVgm spent $385.4 million on non-Canadian TV (an 8.6% increase); Canwest spent $292 million (an 8.2% jump); Rogers Media spent $103 million (a 16.3% increase); and CBC $39.7 million (a 53% increase).
(Ed note: Now that Canwest no longer owns CHCH Hamilton, CJNT Montreal or CHEK Victoria, its U.S. programming spend will likely drop by at least $60 million in 2010 broadcast year.)
On the plus side, newsrooms took some hits in 2009, but those hits were modest overall compared to CTVgm’s cuts to its administrative and general spending, for example (travel, phones, real estate insurance, consultants, etc.), which was chopped to $56 million in 2009 from $125.7 million in 2008.
And, spending on Canadian content with independent producers rose to $66.6 million at CTVgm and $44 million at Canwest. CBC spent a whopping $428 million on Cancon.
Turning back to the money spent in America, the big four BDUs (Shaw Cable, Rogers, BellTV and Videotron) spent $215 million on U.S. specialties, which was down 7% over 2008. The primary reason for that is Rogers took its spending in the States to $69 million from $99 million in 2008. The aggregate data, of course, doesn’t say how it did that.
And as for spending on programming on this side of the border, fees paid to Canadian specialties went way up with these four BDUs, to $1.63 billion, an increase of 13.5% in a year. Add in Shaw Direct DTH and Cogeco and that number tops $2 billion.
– Greg O’Brien