Television Broadcasts (0511) expects its 2023 losses in terms of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization will be narrower than a year ago.
Shares of TVB once jumped over 7 percent before closing 3.4 percent higher at HK$3.01 yesterday.
The television broadcasting company expected its EBITDA to swing to profit for the six months ended December last year, compared to the EBITDA loss of HK$186 million in the first half of 2023.
Its channels accounted for 80 percent of the market share of Hong Kong's terrestrial free-to-air TV channels in the last quarter of 2023, with 17.2 TV rating points of Jade (Channel 81).
Its flagship Jade channel was greatly boosted by The Queen of News drama series, which had an average of 23.5 TV ratings points during the broadcast and became Hong Kong's most-watched drama series last year.
The company saw its average advertising price during the last quarter of 2023 for the Jade channel's prime time drop 5 percent compared to the previous quarter ended in September, but was still 18 percent higher year-on-year.
There was a 21 percent year-on-year growth in the number of its premium myTV Gold subscribers in the last quarter, with the average monthly active users of its streaming platform remaining at approximately 2 million.
The revenue from digital advertising from its streaming business rose 73 percent for the three months ended in December, compared to the previous quarter, marking 95 percent year-on-year growth.
The Hong Kong-based company collaborated with Alibaba's (9988) Taobao and ByteDance's Douyin to expand its mainland livestream e-commerce activities, with 87 million livestream audiences and 181 million social media followers as of last year.
The company's executive chairman, Thomas Hui To, once said this year would be a turnaround for TVB after its consecutive loss for five years.
TVB’s shares rose on the news. Sing Tao
