Sans election windfall, ABS-CBN profit down 10%

ABS-CBN Corp., the media holding company of the Lopez family, said net income last year hit P3.16 billion, lower than in 2016 but in line with internal forecasts.

The decline of about 10 percent was attributed to the absence of an election advertising windfall seen the previous year. In 2017, however, revenues rose 9 percent to P40.7 billion, driven by consumer sales.

“Overall, we are pleased with our performance for 2017 and we are particularly happy to have exceeded our guidance for net income,” ABS-CBN chief financial officer Aldrin Cerrado said on Friday.

ABS-CBN adopted the cost per individual rating point pricing (CPIRP) scheme in 2015, which rewards the company for an increase in ratings. The company claimed a lead in ratings for 2017, citing data from Kantar Media.

Total costs and expenses in the same period were flat compared to the previous levels.

ABS-CBN underscored other parts of its business, which helped offset weaker advertising revenues. It said movie arm Star Cinema recorded over P2.9 billion in ticket sales while SkyCable saw revenue increase 4 percent to P9.1 billion last year.

By yearend, SkyCable had over one million PayTV subscribers and more than 200,000 broadband subscribers, bringing its total subscriber base to over 1.2 million.

ABS-CBN added its digital TV (DTT) footprint had expanded significantly last year with the sale of over two million TVPlus boxes. To date, the company has sold over 4.3 million TVPlus boxes. It hopes to bring this number to six million boxes by end-2018, according to ABS-CBN group chief financial officer Ronaldo Valdueza.