Broadcast network ABS-CBN Corp. is spending P3.3 billion this year to expand its broadband and cable businesses.
ABS-CBN chief financial officer Aldrin Cerrado said the bulk of the capital expenditures of SkyCable Inc. would be used for direct-to-home television service and fiber cable.
“Our broadband business is doing very well,” Cerrado said.
SkyCable now has 205,000 broadband subscribers, including 161,000 DTH subscribers. It also has 672,000 cable TV subscribers.
Cerrado said the company was confident it would meet the earnings target of P3 billion for the year.
Cerrado said the company would manage costs to achieve the profit guidance for 2017. The company, he said, managed to reduce overall costs and expenses in the first quarter.
“We expect costs to go down further as we replace some of the higher cost programs which were carried over from last year,” he said.
The country’s largest media and entertainment company reported a net profit of P314 million in January to March, down 58.7 percent from last year’s P761 million.
ABS-CBN generated consolidated revenues of P9.6 billion from advertising and consumer sales in the first quarter, down 3.2 percent from P9.89 billion a year ago.
Advertising revenues went down 13.4 percent in the first quarter to P4.84 billion from P5.58 billion a year ago in the absence of election-related advertising placements from first quarter of 2016.
Excluding election related placements, advertising revenue went up 1 percent year-on-year.
Consumer sales increased 10 percent to P4.7 billion from P4.30 billion resulting from the sale of ABS-CBN TVPlus and higher revenue from Sky Cable’s broadband business.