Broadcast revenue rises as TV subs drop: CRTC

The latest numbers from the CRTC show Canadians are watching more television on more devices, though fewer people are subscribing to TV services and young adults are tuning out. The broadcasting portion of the CRTC's annual Communications Monitoring Report was released Thursday. The report showed that revenues for the overall broadcasting industry in 2013 rose by 1.3 per cent to $17.1 billion. However, the proportion of Canadian households with a television subscription of any kind fell to 84.9 per cent from 85.6 per cent a year earlier. "We've been seeing this for years; the growth isn't in subscribers but in what they charge," said Kelly Lynne Ashton, an independent television consultant. "There is a slight drop in subscribers, but they're charging the remaining subscribers more. Given the trend, it's unlikely that subscribers are increasing their packages. It probably is just rising prices and fees." Rogers Communications Inc., BCE Inc., Shaw Communications Inc., Quebecor Inc. and Cogeco Cable Inc. account for more than 85 per cent of the broadcasting revenue, the CRTC said. Ashton said the move away from traditional television subscriptions isn't just a function of the increasing popularity of over-the-top (OTT) services; higher prices are also pushing consumers to cut the cord. The CRTC release showed a drop in traditional-TV viewing across every age group, to 29.3 average weekly hours in 2013 from 29.5 hours in 2012. Internet viewing by the general public rose to 1.9 hours a week last year from 1.3 hours the previous year, the CRTC said. "There have been a number of studies now that show TV viewing is stable, but viewing on other platforms is actually increasing," Ashton said. "People are spending more time watching audio-visual content than they have in the past. They're not reading books as much, they're not reading newspapers as much magazines. Other things are dropping while what's happening with television content is just that the platforms are changing but we’re watching more." The biggest drop in traditional TV viewing was among Canadians aged 18 to 34, whose weekly TV use fell from 22.8 hours to 21.9 hours a week from 2012 to 2013 for the third straight year of decline, the CRTC's report said. Netflix Inc. was used by 29 per cent of English-speaking Canadians last year, up from 21 per cent in 2012, the commission said. Ashton pointed to the recent launch of the Shomi streaming service from Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc. as evidence that TV providers are working to “aggregate that younger audience onto their platforms.” The CRTC is currently reviewing the entire television industry as part of its Let’s Talk TV process, for which a hearing is scheduled to begin Sept. 8. The question now, she said, is how regulation is going to adapt to the new realities of the Canadian TV market. “We’ll have that conversation over the next two weeks,” she said. Radio, too, saw a fall in traditional usage, going from 19.6 hours a week on average in 2012 to 19.3 hours a week in 2013. One-fifth of Canadians reported streaming an FM or FM radio station online, and 18 per cent of Canadians said they used a personalized online streaming service. Two other reports released Thursday illuminated how Canadians watch TV. Media Technology Monitor (MTM), a project of CBC/Radio-Canada, released a report showing Canadians are increasingly online while watching TV, with texting, instant messaging and email being the most popular activities. It found that 67 per cent of Canadian anglophones surveyed in the spring reported this kind of multitasking, which was up from 25 per cent in a survey conducted nine years earlier. A separate MTM report, also released Thursday, found that eight per cent of Canadians reported chatting on Facebook about a TV program while they watch it, while four per cent said they've done this on Twitter. These "engaged social TV viewers" reported watching an average of 19.7 hours of TV content a week, compared to 15.3 hours for everyone else. Most of the difference was attributed to watching more TV online. The engaged viewers reported watching 14 hours of content on a regular set, about the same as non-social TV viewers who reported 13.8 hours. The first report was based on a survey of 2,002 anglophones this past spring and had a margin of error 0.8 percentage points, 19 times our of 20. The second was based on interviews with 12,032 Canadian across the country in the spring and last fall and is accurate within 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, MTM said. — With reporting by Peter Henderson at phenderson@thewirereport.ca and reporting and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca

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Broadcast revenue rises as TV subs drop: CRTC

Broadcast | September 4, 2014

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