ABS-CBN earnings up 50% in January-September

MANILA, Philippines - ABS-CBN Corp. saw a 50 percent jump in net earnings in the nine months to September this year, driven by higher revenues.

ABS-CBN chief financial officer Aldrin Cerrado said the media and entertainment firm’s net income reached P2.85 billion from January to September.

The higher net income was supported by the 12 percent increase in revenues which reached P31.17 billion as of the end of September.

Cerrado said the company, had strong advertising revenues during the nine-month period due to election-related spending and the continued leadership of the network in ratings of primetime shows.

“Our ratings performance is key since we have adopted the cost per individual rating point pricing scheme,” he said.

Data from Kantar Media showed the top 10 programs for free-to-air television nationwide covering both urban and rural homes were all produced by ABS-CBN with “FPJ’s Ang Probinsyano” consistently ranking number one.

The company’s Digital Terrestrial Television or DTT also helped boost audience share with over 1.6 million ABS-CBN TVplus boxes sold as of the end of September.

Costs and expenses rose eight percent to P26.97 billion.

Given the latest financial result, Cerrado said the company expects to meet its earnings forecast for the year.

“We are confident that we will meet our earnings guidance of between P3.2 billion to P3.5 billion for 2016,” he said.

ABS-CBN chief financial officer Ron Valdueza said the company was also on track to achieve record net earnings this year.

Last year, ABS-CBN’s net income reached P2.5 billion.