Canada’s burgeoning specialty, pay and pay-per-view television services broke the $2-billion threshold in 2004, growing revenues 9% over 2003, says the CRTC in its Pay and Specialty Statistic and Financial Summaries 2000-2004 report.

Overall, advertising and subscription revenues totaled $2.05 billion in 2004, up from $1.88 billion a year earlier. Earnings growth, meanwhile, was even more robust, growing 46.8% over the year to $418.1 million from $284.8 million in 2003.

Cable distribution revenues rose 7.6% to $892.2 million and direct-to-home satellite distribution grew 2.5% to $428.3 million. Revenues from national advertising increased 16.8% to $691.2 million, while local advertising brought in almost $16 million.

The number of services has increased over the past five years from 59 in 2000 to 115 in 2004. Among digital services, there were 16 Category 1 and 36 Category 2 digital specialty television services in 2004. Cat 1 services had revenues of $47.7 million (or $3 million on average per Cat 1 signal), while Cat 2 services generated $70.1 million (or almost $2 million on average per Cat 2 signal).

Canada’s eight ethnic specialty services generated $49.8 million in 2004, up 15.9% from the year before.

According to the CRTC, expenditures on Canadian programming increased 8.8% in 2004, rising from $695.3 million to $756.8 million and representing 36.9% of the revenues of specialty, pay and PPV television undertakings. Specialty, pay and PPV companies employed 4,805 people in 2004 and paid out $317.6 million in salaries.

-www.crtc.gc.ca