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Revenue reported by cable and satellite television companies rose 14.4% in fiscal 2008, the third year of growth exceeding 10%, Statistics Canada said.
The figures come as the CRTC holds hearings that could reshape the Canadian television industry. The fee-for-carriage issue, a.k.a. value-for-service, has attracted much commentary from all sides of the debate, and is it the centre of broadcast regular discussions.
StatsCan figures, although dated, put the total revenue in the cable and satellite sector at $10.3 billion.
Wireless providers had a profit margin of 4.1% while cable operators had a profit margin of almost 26%, both before interest and taxes.
StatsCan notes that the figures are for the year up to August 2008 and do not reflect the meltdown in advertising revenue in the wake of the global financial crisis.
The profit margin in the cable industry has risen more than 15% every year since the beginning of the decade and has been higher than 20% annually since 2004, StatsCan said.
Growth in Internet services has boosted profitability. As of August last year, cable operators had almost as many web and phone subscribers as television clients, StatsCan said.
Cable companies' subscriber growth at 2.3% outpaced that of satellite providers at 1.5% for a second year.
At the end of fiscal 2008, there were 2.7 million wireless television, mainly satellite subscribers, compared with 8.1 million cable TV subscribers.
Source: Broadcaster, 12/09/2009
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