MANILA, Philippines — Media giant ABS-CBN Corp. found a way to cut its net loss by half in the first quarter, taking advantage of the election season to book more ads for core shows.
Based on its financial report, ABS-CBN trimmed its net loss by 49 percent to P425.65 million in the first quarter, from P841.54 million a year ago, by increasing revenue and cutting expenses.
Revenue jumped by four percent to P4.23 billion, lifted by P3.18 billion in earnings from content production and distribution.
ABS-CBN gained more advertising revenues in the first quarter, as companies piggybacked their products on primetime darlings “Batang Quiapo” and “Incognito.” Likewise, ABS-CBN expanded its online revenues by 32 percent on the growing popularity of its streaming platform iWantTFC.
ABS-CBN’s consumer revenues also increased on the box office turnout for films like “And The Breadwinner Is…” and “My Love Will Make You Disappear.” Girl group BINI –which is managed by ABS-CBN – also sold out a concert at the Philippine Arena.
However, ABS-CBN’s cable and broadband business endured a 27-percent reduction in revenues to P1.06 billion, as Sky Cable Corp. continued to lose subscribers.
Sky Cable is sinking in P4.48 billion in debts, and the lone positive for the company is that it was able to secure new deadlines for the payment of most of its loans.
With this, P4.25 billion of Sky Cable’s debts are listed as non-current right now, providing some elbow room to raise funds for loan payments.
Still, ABS-CBN is managing the decline in cable and broadband through cost-cutting measures. This resulted in a 12-percent drop in spending to P4.63 billion in the first quarter.
