CanWestMARK BLINCH
CanWest Global Communications says overall revenue in its latest quarter fell to $624-million, down 13 per cent from a year earlier, but adds that most of its business units continued to perform better than the industry average.
The Winnipeg-based media company, which has put its conventional television operations under court protection while working out a restructuring plan with its major creditors, also said its net loss improved but operating profit fell.
CanWest's net loss for the fourth quarter was reduced to $111-million or 62 cents per share from $1.02-billion or $5.74 per share a year ago, when the company recognized a number of extraordinary expenses.
CanWest said its operating profit - which excludes a number of items counted in net earnings - fell by 58 per cent to $25-million from $60-million.
Without restructuring costs, impairments and other one-time expenses, the operating profit would have been more than twice as high - $52-million, down a more moderate 14 per cent from the fourth quarter of 2008.
Like other advertising-dependent media companies, CanWest has felt the impact of a global economic slowdown that began gripping Canada in October, 2008. It is also grappling with a huge debt load, which was accumulated several years earlier as the broadcaster expanded into newspaper publishing and specialty TV.
"While the abrupt and unprecedented decline in advertising revenue had a significant impact on CanWest, most business units continued to perform better than the industry average with online and specialty television reporting growth even in the face of the recession," CanWest president and CEO Leonard Asper said in a statement Friday.
"During this difficult time we have taken swift action to not only adjust our business model through aggressive cost reductions, but have taken actions including developing new online platforms, launched and rebranded new channels, that have allowed us to expand our audiences and position the business units to be even stronger competitors as the economy begins to rebound."
Aside from Global Television, the conventional television network that's operating under court protection, CanWest owns several large-market daily newspapers and has a stake in specialty cable channels that aren't under creditor protection.
Revenue from publishing fell to $238-million in the quarter spanning the months of June, July and August, down 20 per cent from $299-million for the same period of fiscal 2008 - which predated a major global economic slowdown.
Publishing operating profit of $25-million for the fourth quarter was down 54 per cent from $54-million in the same period of fiscal 2008, CanWest said.
CanWest's Canadian conventional and specialty cable operations reported fourth-quarter revenues of $184-million, 11 per cent lower than the same period in the previous year.
Operating profit in the fourth quarter was $12-million, compared with a loss of $400,000 the previous year.
CanWest's Australian television operations, which have been sold, accounted for $171-million of revenue and $19-million in operating profit in the fourth quarter.
For the full year ended Aug. 31, CanWest overall revenue was $2.87-billion, down 8 per cent from $3.13-billion in fiscal 2008. Net loss was $1.69-billion for fiscal 2008, or $9.51 per share, up from $1.04-billion or $5.87 a share.
Operating profit, which is a non-standard measure of profitability, was $310-million including restructuring and other expenses, down 44 per cent from $551-million in fiscal 2008.