Profile - Television

Astral Media is the country’s largest broadcaster of English- and French-language pay and specialty television and operates, on its own or with partners, 20 television services, including some of Canada’s most-watched pay and specialty services.

2008 Top-line financials - Television

Powered by an outstanding commitment to stellar programming, our Television division enjoyed another strong year of growth in Fiscal 2008. Overall, revenue for the division rose to $497.0 million, a 5% increase over the previous year.
This growth was fuelled by an overall increase in subscriber revenue year-over-year of 3%, with revenues increasing to $382.7 million from $372.2 million a year ago.
Advertising revenues for the Television division increased by 12% overall or $108.2 million from $96.5 million last year.

Television revenues – 5 year overview
Pay–television subscriber growth – 5 year overview
French-language specialty-television market share (2003-2008)

2008 at a glance

Channel Movement

HBO Canada was launched subsequent to year-end, offering viewers signature series from HBO as well as more than 200 hours of new and never before seen HBO content on a multiplex channel offered in Eastern Canada by The Movie Network. A one-stop shop, HBO Canada offers programming from one of the best-known entertainment brands in the world on a dedicated channel that is also available in HD.
TELETOON Retro was launched in English in October 2007 and in French in September 2008. The largest digital launch in Canadian history, TELETOON Retro (English and French) is now available in more than 6 million homes in Canada.
The sale of Canal Indigo S.E.N.C. to Groupe TVA, which was announced in January 2008, was approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in July 2008.
The Playhouse Disney multiplex channel was launched in November 2007. In August 2008, Playhouse Disney was available in more than 1 million Canadian homes.

Audiences are tuning in!

English-language Pay and Specialty Television

The Movie Network holds the #2 position among its key demographic of adults 25 to 54 in Eastern Canada.
Family’s kid market share has grown by 29% compared to last year. Family is the top Canadian service among pay and specialty channels in the anglophone market and is also the #1 television service with kids and teens.
Playhouse Disney's share of its 2 to 7 year old target audience has increased by an average of 15% each month since its launch in November 2007.
Despite the highly competitive Canadian modern classic movie market, Mpix has maintained its market share.
TELETOON has grown its number of subscribers to close to 7.5 million, an increase of 4.4% over last year.
Now available in over 6 million homes in Canada, TELETOON Retro is the #2 digital specialty channel overall, #1 with kids 2 to 11 and teens 12 to 17.

French-language Pay and Specialty Television

Super Écran holds the #2 position this year among all French pay and specialty services, 2+.
Cinépop holds on to its #1 position among French-language digital channels in the 2+, Québec franco demographic, with a market share growth of 0.1 points or 25% in Fiscal 2008.
It’s been another good year for Les Chaînes Télé Astral. Audience share for adults aged 25 to 54 grew to 17.1%, a 6% increase. This was double the growth recorded by all Québec specialty channels for the same period.
Pierre Roy, President of Les Chaînes Télé Astral and President of MusiquePlus Inc., received the 2008 Grand Prize from the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. This award acknowledges his significant contribution to the Québec television landscape over the past 30 years. He was presented with the award on September 14 at the Gémeaux awards gala.
Second-ranked in terms of reach among French-language specialty channels, Canal D draws more than 3.5 million viewers in the 2+ demographic group each week.
Ztélé broke last year’s performance record and, in Fiscal 2008, had a market share of 2.4% among adults aged 18 to 49.
Séries+ maintained a market share of 4% among women aged 25 to 54 and continues to dominate the specialty sector with respect to length of viewing time.
Canal Vie’s market share rose to 4.1% among women aged 25 to 54, a jump of 14% over the previous year. This year canalvie.com underwent a facelift, offering loyal audiences more interactivity and information than ever before.
Historia achieved record growth this year with a market share of 1.8% among adults aged 25 to 54, up 29% over last year.
MusiquePlus maintains the highest proportion of viewers aged 18 to 34 (52%) in relation to all Québec French-language channels. Following the launch of its new visual identity in September 2008, Fiscal 2009 will be focused on rolling out its new programming and revamping its website with much more music videos and exclusive content.
VRAK.TV is still ranked first among specialty channels in its primary target, the 9 to 14 age group, first in the 12 to 17 age group and second in the overall Québec French market in these same age groups.
MusiMax continued to grow its market share by 11% for adults aged 18 to 49 compared to the same period last year. The growth was even stronger for its female audience, which increased by 25%.
TÉLÉTOON affirms its privileged position among young adults aged 18 to 34 and is ranked second among specialty channels, with a market share of 3.7%

Interactivity @ Television

Astral Media’s television websites serve over one million streams per month.
MusiquePlus signed an agreement with Universal Music Canada in May 2008 to include videoclips on their website. This agreement also covers other Astral Media websites, including MusiMax, VRAK.TV, Énergie and RockDétente.
VRAK.TV invited its viewers to vote online for their favorite stars in 15 different categories. Winners were crowned at the KARV, l’anti.gala 2008 event, in front of an audience of 2000 kids.
Historia gave younger audiences a chance to discover the cult series Kaamelott using the internet via the historiatv.com site and on Facebook.
Traffic on the family.ca website reached a record high topping its competitors in number of unique visitors. Features on Family.ca include streaming of full length Disney movies as well as user-generated content, program-specific micro-sites and games.
A new comedy series, Colocs.tv, was launched on MusiquePlus in May 2008, with Alexandre Barrette and Billy Tellier. The colocs.tv website offers extensive content: video capsules, v-logs, bloopers, excerpts from behind the scenes, and even a game.
The award-winning website teletoon.com generates over 1.5 million visits and over 2.5 million game plays per month. With sticky content drawing kids to play games, enter contests, watch video clips and find out about their favorite cartoons, the site boasts an average time spent per visit of nearly 15 minutes.

Astral Media Television Sales

Astral Media TVPlus advertising revenues increased 15.3%, over those of the previous fiscal year.
For the advertisers’ primary target – adults aged 25 to 54 – the nine channels represented by Astral Media TVPlus combined, gained 2.5%, for a market share of 25.1%. In addition, Astral Media TVPlus outstrips its competitors for younger targets, aged 12 to 17, with a market share of 39.4%, and 26.8% for the 18 to 34 demographic.
A highlight of 2008 was the opening of the Astral Media TVPlus Toronto office, located in the same building as Astral Media Mix, Astral Media Radio and Astral Media Outdoor. In March 2008, the Toronto division also added representation of TELETOON to its roster.
At the beginning of the year, Astral Media TVPlus launched a new sales division called Astral iMedia – Internet Sales.

Outlook for 2009

Expand distribution for our newer channels: Playhouse Disney, TELETOON Retro and Cinépop in the English and French markets.
Market our new multiplex pay service, HBO Canada, in Eastern Canada.
Continue to develop and leverage our HD channels and to grow our subscription video on-demand pay-TV services; this will include HBO Canada HD and the availability of HBO Canada programming on-demand.
Accelerate the integration of the Internet and new broadcast platforms across our traditional television properties in order to meet the needs of viewers, who want access to content of their choice, when they want it and on the medium they want it in.