*Peace Arch down in Q1

Fewer delivered hours of television have precipitated a decline in earnings and revenue at Vancouver’s Peace Arch Entertainment for the first quarter of fiscal 2000.

Earnings for the quarter were $364,000 ($0.09 per share), off 57% compared to the same quarter last year. Revenues, meanwhile, were off 44% to $8.5 million.

The drop was expected, says company cfo Juliet Jones, but earnings were better than projected because of improved margins on both proprietary programming and service production. ‘Pretax profit margins from operations improved to 7.9% of revenues in the most recent quarter from 6.4% in the comparable prior-year period,’ she says.

Citing the cyclical nature of television revenues (that rely on program delivery), Jones reports that the second quarter will also be down, specifically because of a delay in production of First Wave. The series’ star underwent back surgery, which put the show on hiatus.

Peace Arch is projecting stronger third- and fourth-quarter results.

At press time, a-class shares of Peace Arch were trading at $6.35 per share compared to a year low of $2.75 and a year high of $23.75 per share (prior to a share consolidation). b-class shares were faring better, trading at $7 per share. Year low is $3.75 per share and year high is $11.50 per share.

*Telescene net up 38%

telescene Film Group reports net earnings of $3 million for the quarter ending Nov. 30, 1999, a 30% increase over the previous year. Revenues are up 19% to $24.2 million compared to $20.4 million for the same quarter a year earlier. eps is $0.30 based on 9,846,590 shares outstanding compared to $0.23 based on 9,430,000 weighted average number of shares outstanding a year ago. Library revenues for the third quarter are pegged at $6.3 million, a major jump from the $1.5 million recorded for the period a year earlier.

Nine-month earnings are up 38% over last year to $4.7 million on top-line revenues of $47.2 million, a 45% increase. The nine-month eps is $0.47.

In the period, Telescene delivered 36 half-hours of television including 14 one hours of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, the first original series to premiere on DirecTv; and two, two-hour Action Adventure Network movie/series pilots, Fearless and Matthew Blackheart.

tfg.b stock was trading at $6 at press time.

*New CEO, new highs at Videotron

groupe Videotron founder Andre Chagnon has handed the reins of power to son Claude Chagnon, who takes over as the cable tv company’s new ceo. Father Andre retains the chairman’s title.

Montreal-based Videotron announced net profits of $126 million ($1.09 per share) for the first quarter ended Nov. 30, 1999, compared to a net loss of $35.8 million last year. The profit is mainly from an exceptional gain of $115 million from the sale of its wireless cable holdings in the u.s.

Consolidated operating revenue for the quarter reached $257 million, a 5% increase over last year. Operating income before depreciation and amortization is $87.8 million.

Income from cable operations rose 5% to $176 million in the first quarter, while the subscriber base increased 21,300 to 1.56 million. Of the total, 250,500 subscribe to the Videoway, the premium and pay service terminal, 186,700 subscribe to pay-tv and 25,000 are signed up to the new digital tv service. High-speed Internet access subscriptions number 47,000.

Revenues from Videotron’s business telecommunications sector reached $16.5 million in the period while broadcaster Groupe tva reported revenues of $71.6 million. Videotron employs 5,700.

*Margins up at Covitec

montreal technical services company Covitec Group reports net earnings of $1.1 million or $0.02 a share on sales of $16.7 million for the first quarter ended Nov. 30. ebitda was $3.4 million, while cash flow from operations was $2.6 million.

At the Jan. 27 agm, company president and ceo Claude Gagnon said certain Covitec divisions were now linked by fibre-optic network. ‘Aside from improving profitability, this strategy will enable us to accelerate our growth in English Canada and the United States,’ Gagnon said.

‘Consistent with our objectives, the ebitda/sales ratio rose from 14.7% for the period ended Aug. 31, 1999 (204 days since the Feb. ’99 merger with AstralTech) to 20.2% for this first quarter. We intend to maintain this profitability for the whole of the current fiscal year,’ added Alain Baccanale, Covitec vp, finance.

Covitec provides services in eight sectors: soundstages and equipment rental, post-production, video reproduction, film laboratory, original sound, dubbing, closed captioning and 2D animation. Covitec is an Astral Media subsidiary and is traded on the tse under the symbol ctk.