Montreal: Most recent figures from Statistics Canada indicate revenues for specialty television rose to $1.2 billion for the 12-month period ending Aug. 31, 2001, up 13.9% from 2000. Specialty TV’s share represented 26.6% of total television industry revenues of $4.5 billion in the period, compared with only 19% three years earlier.

Pay-TV revenues reached $286 million in 2001, a 33.8% gain from 2000 and 6.3% of total revenues. The profit margin in the pay segment increased to 21.7% in 2001 from 18.1% in 1998, while the margin for specialty TV rose year over year to 17.4% from 14.5%.

Canadian television broadcasters sold airtime worth more than $2.5 billion last year, up 4.3% from 2000, the biggest increase in the last three years. Airtime sales accounted for 56.6% of all industry revenues.

The strongest growth in airtime sales occurred in the specialty TV segment, where sales jumped 15.1% to $438 million, or 17% of the industry total.

Private conventional broadcasters still accounted for the lion’s share, with almost $1.8 billion in airtime sales last year, up 1.5% from 2000.

About 58% of conventional TV stations reported profits in 2001, down from 67% in 2001, while the percentage of specialty services in profit remained unchanged at about 75%.

Average weekly employment in the television industry declined slightly in 2001 to 19,500 after two years of marginal gains. This downturn was attributable to the public and non-commercial segment, where the workforce fell more than 11%. Employment among private broadcasters rose 3.7%.

According to Statistics Canada’s June 18 bulletin on television broadcasting, Canadian broadcasters spent 59% of revenues on programming and production in 2001, compared to 57% in 2000.

-www.statcan.ca