Driven in part by increased consumer adoption of its digital offerings, Score Media saw second quarter increases in revenue, EBITDA and net income.
The Toronto sports media company saw its quarterly revenues increase $1.1 million to $11.1 million, while EBITDA increased $0.1 million to $1.1 million. The company’s net income for the quarter was $200,000, compared with a $200,000 loss the year prior.
The second quarter has historically been the weakest for Score Media, reflecting what the company describes as “trends in sports media advertising.” The third quarter ending May 31 has traditionally been the strongest, since it coincides with both the NBA and NHL playoffs.
“We’re executing really well across all of our business lines,” Tom Hearne, chief financial officer for the sports media company, told Marketing. “We’ve continued to see very good strength in the TV business, and that’s complemented incredibly well by the rapid growth we’re seeing in our digital media business.”
Although specialty TV channel, The Score remains Score Media’s flagship property with an estimated 6.8 million subscribers – a figure that grows about 4% per year – Hearne said that the line between its traditional and digital media offering is becoming increasingly blurred.
Where digital media made little contribution to Score Media’s bottom line only two years ago, Hearne said that it now accounts for between 15% and 20% of the company’s revenues on a quarterly basis.
“We consider ourselves a digital media company now,” said Hearne. “TV is one aspect of how we present [our content], but it’s a screen just like any other. We’ve got the laptop screen, the smartphone screen; it’s just another opportunity for us to bring viewers information and entertainment and make money from it.
“We’re growing to be a full-fledged digital media company, and we’ve put a lot of emphasis and effort on how we can continue to grow our mobile and tablet applications as well as our web site.”
In January, Score Media made its popular ScoreMobile app available for the Windows Phone platform. Score Media boasts that the app is the leading sports app in both BlackBerry App World and Windows Marketplace and is also among the top 10 in both iTunes and the Android Market.
Elsewhere, TheScore.com garnered 1.4 million unique visitors in January, a 124% increase over the previous year, while the digital group displayed nearly 100 million pages of content, a 100% increase from the year prior.
