BCE is bigger than its media rival Rogers, but how much of an edge does that give it? The Faceoff.

A 23.9 per cent profit margin on quarterly revenues of almost $800 million would have many companies breaking out the champagne to celebrate a resounding success. Instead, BCE Inc. broke out the chainsaws.

Those numbers, by the way, were from the fourth quarter results at Bell Media, the BCE division which has been getting pared back since Wade Oosterman took over as CEO in early January. In addition to parting ways with several senior executives in January, Bell Media also eliminated hundreds of jobs at radio and TV properties across the country in the last few weeks.

Why torch a division that is still making money? Because it’s a relatively tiny piece of the empire, and BCE is trying to focus on the vastly more lucrative wireless division.

Of the company’s three main areas — wireless, wireline and media — the media business is by far the smallest generator of revenue, and the least profitable. In the fourth quarter of 2020, Bell Media brought in $791 million, just 13.1 per cent of BCE’s overall revenue. It had a profit margin of 23.9 per cent in the quarter. In comparison, the wireless division brought in $2.4 billion, with a margin of 37.5 per cent. The wireline division, which includes satellite and fibre optic TV and internet, as well as the disappearing act of what was once Ma Bell’s mighty landline telephone empire, came in at $3.1 billion, with a margin of 42.4 per cent.

But the wireless division is growing increasingly more vital to BCE’s fortunes; one sign of the importance is the company’s recent announcement that it would be spending more than $1 billion over the next two years to help double the size of its 5G network.