Specialty television producer Astral Media Inc. reported Thursday an 11% first-quarter profit increase to $53.3 million, up from $48.2 million a year earlier.
The Montreal-based company’s earnings amounted to 94 cents per share, compared to 86 cents per share in the year-ago period and meeting Bay Street expectations.
“Towards the end of Fiscal 2010, we saw encouraging signs of recovery in the Canadian advertising markets,” said president and CEO Ian Greenberg, in a statement.
“Clearly, that momentum carried through to our first quarter and allowed us to record another solid quarter of growth. All of our business units benefited from this momentum, with our television and out-of-home divisions leading the way.”
Analysts’ estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters had on average pegged Astral’s revenue at $270 million for the first quarter and earnings per share at 94 cents, with a low of 90 cents and a high of $1.01.
Actual revenues increased to $267.1 million from $250.7 million in the same period a year earlier as advertising and subscriber-related revenue rose 16% and 3% respectively.
Astral operates more than 100 of the country’s most popular pay and specialty television, radio, out-of-home advertising and digital media properties.
Subscribers for Astral’s pay TV services, such as The Movie Network and French-language Super Ecran, grew by 89,000 to almost 1.9 million in its latest quarter, a 5% increase year-over-year.
Astral also recently signed a deal to stream 83 of its radio stations to mobile devices across Canada under a three-year deal with UBC Media Group.
