GMA income doubles as election fever sizzles
GMA NETWORK Inc., one of the country’s largest television broadcast companies, said profit more than doubled in 2015 after receiving a boost from election advertising.
In a stock exchange filing on Friday, GMA said net income last year hit P2.13 billion, up 111 percent as total revenues rose 15 percent to P13.73 billion compared to the same period in 2014.
GMA mainly earns from television advertising. It said airtime revenues rose 16 percent to P12.38 billion compared to a year ago.
GMA said it benefited from political ads, but even removing these, airtime revenues were still up 12 percent.
“Our financial performance in 2015 was a result of multiple factors, but mostly from our reclaimed lead in nationwide ratings and continued dominance in Urban Luzon and Mega Manila,” GMA Network chair and CEO Felipe L. Gozon said in the filing.
“We are determined to replicate, if not surpass, what we were able to achieve last year this 2016, as we remain committed to strengthening our core business and other new and emerging ventures,” he added.
GMA, citing data from Nielsen TV Audience Measurement, said it edged out main rival ABS-CBN Corp. in nationwide ratings last year. ABS-CBN uses data from Kantar Media to dispute this claim.
In the same filing, GMA said total operating expenses (Opex) rose 2 percent to P10.745 billion on higher production costs.
GMA’s other revenue streams included production and subsidiaries operations, which saw a 3 percent improvement in between periods. This was partly due to GMA New Media Inc. (NMI), which manages and operates the Network’s Internet play, and GMA Worldwide Inc. (GWI), which syndicates GMA’s programs to the international market.
NMI ended 2015 with a 50 percent increase in total advertising revenues over 2014. GWI, on the other hand, exceeded 2014ís sales by 34 percent as it sold 4,003 program hours in various countries across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond, the filing showed.
GMA said partnerships with Internet television companies iflix and HOOQ, described as threats to the traditional television business, also boosted revenues.
