Montreal: Telescene Film Group is showing a major increase in year-end net profits of 87% in fiscal ’98/99 to $7.1 million, up from $3.8 million last year.

In line with forecasts made last fall, gross revenues in ’99 for the 12 months ended Feb. 28 are $60.3 million, up 35% from the $44.8 million in top line recorded in ’98, while eps is $0.79 based on 9,021,566 weighted average shares outstanding compared to $0.55 in ’98.

The company says the cost of sales in fiscal ’99 was $43.9 million.

Library revenues jumped more than fourfold this year to $9.6 million compared to $2.2 million last year. Library revenues made up 16% of all revenues. The balance of revenues, 84%, is based entirely on production.

One of the highlights of the past year at Telescene has been the series launch of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, the first Action Adventure Network project. In the u.s., New Line Syndication has cleared the Lost World series in close to 100% of the market, with pickups by the WB Network, the 13 Tribune Broadcasting stations as well as superstation wgn. The series premiers on DirecTv in August and in syndication in September.

Telescene delivered 77 half-hours in ’99, in addition to one AAN Movie pilot.

The deliveries include 19 episodes of erotic anthology series The Hunger, hosted by pop star David Bowie, 26 episodes of teen sitcom Student Bodies, 16 episodes of Big Wolf on Campus and 16 episodes of Misguided Angels. All series episodes were shot in Montreal.

In the fourth quarter, net earnings for Telescene are $3.7 million, up from $1.2 million last year. Revenues during the quarter are $27.7 million compared to $14.4 million for the corresponding period in ’98.