ABS-CBN targets 5-7% growth in advertising revenues this year

ABS-CBN CORP. is targeting 5-7% growth in advertising revenues this year as it hopes the expanded offerings across its platforms would offset the lack of election-related ads that helped boost last year’s figures.

“If you take out election-related spending and just focus on regular advertising, we’re looking at possible 5% to 7% in terms of growth in advertising,” ABS-CBN Chief Financial Officer Aldrin M. Cerrado told reporters at the sidelines of the company’s annual stockholders meeting on Thursday.

The Lopez- led media and entertainment giant posted P23.65 billion revenues from ad sales in 2016, up 11% from the P21.26 billion in 2015. This accounts for 57% of the company’s consolidated revenues last year.

Mr. Cerrado said advertising revenue related to the 2016 national polls amounted to P2.8 billion.

Despite digital advertising gaining traction and “moving faster” than revenue growth from the free-to-air segment, ABSCBN said bulk of its revenues will still come from its television business.

“Digital is close to P500 million as of today, so significantly it’s still free-to-air channels and significantly on Channel 2, about 90% [of our advertising] revenue is on Channel 2,” Mr. Cerrado said.

The projections for ad revenues already took into account the 3% increase in advertising rates which ABS-CBN implemented last February. —