Political advertisements boosted the incomes of the two leading broadcast companies in the first quarter.
GMA Network Inc. said Thursday net income jumped 148 percent in the first quarter, on higher political and regular advertising.
The broadcast company said net income hit P1.01 billion in the January-to-March period, up from P408 million in the same period last year.
“We expect our company’s financial performance to continue to trend upward and we hope to further improve the growth, particularly in regular advertising,” GMA chairman and chief executive Felipe Gozon said.
Consolidated revenues from all platforms rose 30 percent to P3.9 billion in the first quarter from P3.01 billion in the same period last year.
Revenues from regular advertising increased 32 percent in the first quarter to P3.57, while political advertising revenues hit P640 million in the first three months, up 6,710 percent from P9 million in 2015.
The network said it expected to post P1.5 billion in revenues from political advertising until May 8.
Gozon said full-year net income was expected to hit P3 billion in 2016, up from last year’s P2.13 billion.
Meanwhile, rival ABS-CBN Corp. said net income was expected to grow 37 percent this year on higher television ratings and political advertising.
ABS-CBN chief financial officer Aldrin Cerrado said during the stockholders’ meeting the profit guidance 2016 was P3.2 billion to P3.5 billion.
ABS-CBN posted a net income of P2.55 billion in 2015, up from P2.03 billion in 2014. The network’s revenues remained strong at P38.278 billion last year, up 14 percent from P33.54 billion in 2014.
Cerrado attributed the increase in net income this year to higher TV ratings, consumer business and political advertising.
“You’ll see the primetime ratings of ABS-CBN has gone up and for our noontime shows as well. And our consumer business is also helping us. SkyCable Direct-to-home will be launched on May 9, so hopefully that will also help meet our profit guidance,” Cerrado said.
ABS-CBN president and chief executive Carlo Katigbak said election-related spending this year would be close to or slightly higher than P2.3 billion in 2010.
“I actually don’t think it’s been very different from 2010. The bulk of spending is still on TV and radio. From our perspective, there hasn’t been significant move either to online or cable,” Katigbak said.