BCE Inc., the parent of Bell Media, late Thursday released its Q1 2024 earnings report. How did the Bell Media segment perform during the first three months of the year?
Ad revenue was up 1.6%, thanks largely to “strong growth in digital advertising and improved out-of-home and radio performance,” in addition to Super Bowl LVIII ads tied to the NFL championship game’s coverage in Canada on CTV. Yet, overall media operating revenue sharply declined.
Media operating revenue decreased 7.1% to $725 million CDN in Q1.
BCE says this is a result of lower year-over-year subscriber revenue — due mainly to “a favourable retroactive adjustment in Q1 2023 related to a contract with a Canadian TV distributor.” That was only partly offset by higher advertising revenue.
Meanwhile, BCE again pointed to “unfavourable economic conditions and delays in the delivery of newly scripted content due to the Hollywood writers’ strike in 2023″ as reasons why its broadcast and cable TV networks remain ad-revenue challenged.
Total digital revenues grew 33%. This, BCE Inc. says, is the result of “strong growth” in digital advertising fueled by Bell Media’s programmatic advertising marketplace, where growing customer usage of our expanded strategic audience management (SAM) TV sales tool drove “a significant increase” in advertising bookings in Q1.
New ad-supported subscription tiers on Crave, home to many HBO programs in Canada, and addressable TV solutions also boosted Bell Media.
Still, adjusted EBITDA was down 11.4% in Q1, to $117 million CDN, yielding a 0.8 percentage-point margin decline to 16.1%, as a result of lower year-over-year operating revenue.
Bell Media did not offer any further comments on its radio performance.
Shares of BCE were up by 1.7% to $45.92 CDN as of 2:45pm Eastern.
— With reporting from RBR+TVBR in Vaughn, Ontario
