Corus Entertainment chief Doug Murphy addressed potential changes to the broadcaster’s regulatory obligations on Friday (Oct, 27), as the company continues to face financial challenges.

The president and CEO told investors in a call that the CRTC’s decision to consider Corus’ proposed licence conditions is “the most substantive move toward regulatory change our company has seen in years.”

He also pointed to the CRTC’s acknowledgement in a letter published on Oct. 19 that Corus is in “a unique position as Canada’s largest non vertically integrated private broadcaster” as an important distinction that Corus has “been trying to make for years.”

Corus proposed that the CRTC reduce its programming of national interest (PNI) expenditure to 5% of revenues, down from the current 8.5%. Murphy said flexibility on PNI requirements is “helpful for content planning and helps us, conceptually, to make the kind of shows that work for our networks.”

In a statement on Corus’ year-end financial results, Murphy pointed to “ongoing weakness” in the TV ad market and the impacts of the U.S. writers and actors strikes as negative effects on the company’s quarterly and year-end performance. Corus reported that consolidated revenue was flat in Q4 and down by 5% for the fiscal year. Consolidated segment profits were down by 18% for the quarter and 25% for the year.

Moving forward, Murphy said, debt, cost reductions and changes to the company’s operating model will be priorities.

“We are focused on what we can control as we navigate through these challenges,” said Murphy. “We will prudently redirect capital from dividends to debt repayment. Our intense pursuit of efficiencies and improved productivity is resulting in significant expense reductions as we streamline our operating model and evolve our business into a multi-platform aggregator of premium video with leading cross-platform monetization capabilities. Corus will benefit from a more normalized content supply in the quarters ahead with an improved cost structure as we await a concurrent improvement in the advertising economy.”

Among the major changes to the company structure was a change to its executive team announced last week, which will see Colin Bohm depart on Oct. 31, with Troy Reeb assuming expanded responsibilities as EVP networks and content.

With files from Media in Canada