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2023-24: greater losses at RDS/RDS Info than at TVA Sports

Over the past few days, the CRTC has unveiled the results for each of Canada’s TV channels. This data is available to anyone wishing to consult it.

Richard Dufour consulted them, then published a very good text on the subject this morning in La Presse. You can read it by clicking HERE.

Basically, what the CRTC is telling us at the sports level is that RDS(RDS/RDS2/RDS INFO) lost $22 million in the last broadcast year accounted for (September 1, 2022 to August 31, 2023).

TVA Sports? “Only” $18 million!

That means our specialty channels have accumulated total losses of $40 million in 365 days. Ouch!

To think that a few years ago, RDS was the most profitable French-language TV channel in Quebec, and that in 2021, the channel would still be profitable…

“In 2016, RDS and RDS Info had between them generated profits totaling $22.5 million.” – Richard Dufour, La Presse

TVA Sports has never made an operating profit since its creation in 2012, and its total losses are now close to $250 million.

How can we explain these massive losses?

1. Still according to official CRTC figures, RDS lost 112,000 subscribers in its last full year (7%), while TVA Sports lost 115,000 (9%). Many people have switched off cable in recent years, which has obviously hurt the specialty channels.

Theresult: revenues fell by $146 million at RDS alone, and by $93.4 million at TVA Sports. The fewer customers you have, the less money you bring in (unless, of course, you drastically raise your prices, which didn’t happen.

This doesn’t even take into account RDS Info, where revenues dropped the most in percentage terms.

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2. Richard Dufour explains in his article that he spoke to Pierre Boulanger, a professor in the communications department at the University of Ottawa, and was told that the Habs were less popular than they were 20 years ago, which was hurting the revenues of each of the two channels in question. The Canadiens not making the playoffs – and the absence of MLB, NBA and Nordiques – hurts in the end.

Mr. Dufour is right to be concerned about the drop in subscriber numbers, but if TVA Sports’ revenues fell by 3%, despite a 9% loss of subscribers, that means the station did an excellent job with advertising. Digital signage, intermission ads, infographic rectangles in the bay window… all helped TVA Sports mitigate the magnitude of the revenue drop. A stroke of luck!

Still, there’s a limit to the concept of multiplying ads… a limit that was probably reached (and exceeded?) last season.

3. Both RDS and TVA Sports have made the decision to cut their respective expenses in recent months and years. Many employees unfortunately lost their jobs because the decision-makers couldn’t continue to see expenses rise when revenues weren’t keeping pace. Basic principle of economy, unfortunately…

In the medium/long term, these cuts will certainly be felt in the quality of the product delivered on air. When you go from four to two people to describe, analyze, animate and comment on a sports match, it ends up appearing on air.

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4. The system used to determine audiences is outdated. In the digital age, isn’t there a better way than a few hundred pagers to sample and estimate the behavior of over nine million Quebecers?

What’s more, a station goes to the advertising market with an estimate of the audience it believes it will be able to obtain for a given future sporting event. If it overestimates, it will have to compensate the client later; but if it underestimates the popularity of the event itself, it leaves cash on the table. It doesn’t look good!

5. Someone very high up at Québecor told me last month that if Bell(TV) paid a fair and equitable royalty to TVA Sports for each subscriber to the channel it owns, TVA Sports would almost be profitable.

1.2 million subscribers at an extra $1 a month means an extra $14.4 million at the end of the year. That’s not far off the $18 million in reported losses…

It’s going to get hot
At the end of his article, Richard Dufour talks about a war of attrition in which RDS could ultimately get the better of TVA Sports.

Yes, the RDS group channels have accumulated annual losses of $22 million, but since TSN has generated $88 million in net profits before taxes, this is less catastrophic than in the case of TVA Sports.

Sportsnet reported roughly the same profits, but TVA Sports is not owned by Rogers, unlike RDS and TSN (Bell).

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In short, Bell could be tempted to gamble big with the NHL’s next French-language national rights – which expire in just under two years’ time – and thus virtually eliminate TVA Sports from the Quebec media landscape. Once TVA Sports is gone, Bell could theoretically get its hands on all the sports TV advertising dollars in Quebec.

Reminder: last month, I predicted a return of French-language national rights on RDS (in a partnership with Rogers/Sportsnet and Amazon).

But every year that passes is a year in which the digital giants take up more and more space in the portrait of sports broadcasting. Both live and documentary…

How long will our French-language sports TV survive? 2 years? 10 years? 20 years? We’ll see.

Extension

– Reminder: the TVA Sports site no longer has editors. It now publishes columns written by Agence QMI staff.

– In recent months, I’ve heard whispers that RDS Info might change its mission or simply disappear. RDS and RDS 2 come with the same license, while RDS Info has a different license to broadcast sports news. Could we see the channel broadcasting more and more live events? Replay performances? Or simply disappear?

– It occurred to me over the weekend that last week’s news was much more about the end of a show like Hockey360 than about Marc Labrecque’s retirement. Producing only two shows(5 à 7 and Le Hockey des Canadiens with pre-game) will cost a lot less than producing three.

Marc Labrecque’s retirement is also part of the new trend to cut production costs…

– I can’t wait to see what happens with the broadcasting of Alouettes games (owned by Pierre-Karl Péladeau on Bell/RDS). Since the agreement is signed between the CFL and Bell(TSN/RDS), I’m pretty sure it’ll stay that way for several years to come.

And from what I’m told, PKP isn’t upset at all; he gets superb coverage on RDS and throughout the Quebec network.

Overtime

– Wasn’t it last year, the year of transition?

– This isn’t the first time Laurent Courtois has heard rumors of espionage in the soccer world.

– Tom Pearce and Dawid Bugaj: Laurent Courtois has changed his departure schedule.