ABS-CBN 2016 profit hits record P3.5B, up 39%

ABS- CBN Corp., the country’s leading media and entertainment network, reported a record net income of P3.5 billion in 2016 on higher revenues boosted by election-related spending.

The company said net income last year was 39 percent higher than the P2.5 billion recorded in 2015. Consolidated revenues reached P41.6 billion in 2016.

“We are very pleased to have exceeded our earnings guidance for 2016,” said ABS-CBN Chief “Full-year growth in advertising revenues, boosted by electionrelated spending, was about 11 percent,” he said.

ABS-CBN adopted the cost per individual rating point pricing (CPIRP) scheme in 2015, which rewards the company for an in full year of implementation.

“We have also been able to manage our costs and expenses that cost and expenses were up only 6 percent last year.

Based on Kantar Media national TV ratings covering both urban and rural homes, the top 10 programs for 2016 for free-toair television were all produced by ABS- CBN, with “FPJ’s Ang Probinsyano” consistently topping all programs.

The company’s roll-out of its Digital Terrestrial Television or DTT helped boost audience share with over 2.3 million boxes sold as of the end of December 2016.

Total assets rose to P72.7 billion compared to P69.9 billion in 2015. The company’s equity base increased to P31.7 billion at end-2016.

ABS-CBN Group CFO Ron Valdueza said, “We are also extremely happy with the performance of our subsidiaries last year. The healthy growth in our advertising revenues coupled with the accomplishments of our different business units enabled us to deliver record earnings performance for ABS-CBN.”

Star Cinema generated over P2.9 billion in ticket sales both here and abroad, while SkyCable - enues, driven by the introduction of SkyDirect, its newly launched Direct-to-Home Pay TV offering. By year- end, the company had over 112,000 SkyDirect subscribers and more than 200,000 broadband subscribers, bringing Sky’s total subscriber base to over one million.

Meanwhile, the Filipino Channel (TFC) is now being watched by over three million Filipinos abroad, while Kidzania, the company’s educational theme park, has attracted over 360,000 visitors for 2016. The network’s TV shopping channel O Shopping gener