Today, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission released statistical and financial summaries for Canadian specialty, pay, pay-per-view and video-on-demand television services.
Revenues for these television services have climbed by 35.4% over the past five years to reach nearly $4 billion in 2024. During the past year, a significant portion of these revenues, close to $1.4 billion, was invested in the creation of a variety of Canadian programming, resulting in thousands of jobs in the Canadian production sector and new television programs for Canadians. In 2024, Canadian specialty, pay, PPV and VOD television services created 226 new jobs, directly employed 6,176 people and paid $487 million in salaries.
Canadian programming
In 2024, these television services spent $1.39 billion on Canadian programming, representing a 9.6% increase over the previous year.
Spending on Canadian programming included $221 million for news programs, $233 million for programs of national interest (drama series, long-form documentaries, and Canadian award shows), $486 million for sports programming, $109 million for human-interest programming, and $241 million for other types of programming.
As part of these investments, specialty television services paid $353 million to Canadian independent producers. During the past five years, these services have spent over $1.6 billion on independent productions.
The creation of these programs contributes to the overall Canadian economy by giving employment opportunities to all those involved in the production sector, including performers, writers, musicians, designers, directors, producers and experts in the production crafts.
In addition, investments in non-Canadian programming increased from $278 million in 2024 to $293 million in 2024.
Profitability
In 2024, Canadian specialty, pay, PPV and VOD television services generated revenues of $3.97 billion, an increase of 5.9% over the $3.75 billion earned the previous year. National advertising revenues increased for a third consecutive year to $1.23 billion, although its 2.4% growth is significantly less than the 10.1% increase from the previous year. In addition, subscriber revenues exceeded $2.6 billion.
While revenues continued to climb, so too did expenses, which grew from $2.7 billion in 2024 to $2.9 billion in 2024. As a result, profits before interest and taxes (PBIT) dipped slightly from $934.2 million, with a PBIT margin of 24.9% in 2024, to $916.6 million, with a PBIT margin of 23.1% during the past year.
Sources of revenues
The total revenues of $3.97 billion were generated from the following sources:
$1.9 billion from cable subscribers
$733.7 million from satellite subscribers
$1.2 billion from national advertising
$31 million from local advertising, and
$80.6 million from other sources.
Total revenues for English-language and bilingual services were $3.2 billion, while French-language services brought in $655.4 million.
Revenue by sectors
Although specialty television services continued to capture the largest share of the total revenues at $3.1 billion, their PBIT margin experienced a slight decrease over the previous year going from 27.4% to 26.3%.
Pay services saw their revenues decrease by 2.4% going from $468.9 million in 2024, with a PBIT margin of 26.3%, to $457.8 million in 2024 with the PBIT margin of 22.2%.
On-demand services (PPV and VOD) also witnessed a drop in revenues from $386.7 million to $379.6 million, representing a decrease in PBIT from 4.4% to -2.2%.
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