Remarks of Carlo L. Katigbak, president and CEO, at the ABS-CBN Corporation Annual Stockholders’ Meeting on July 28, 2022
Held via https://conveneagm.com/ph/abscbn_asm2022
ABS-CBN Annual Shareholders’ Meeting
The President’s Report
28 July 2022
Dear shareholders of ABS-CBN, mga Kapamilya, good morning.
First of all, we recognize our responsibility to protect the investment you have made in our company. I realize that our stock price today means that many of you have lost money or have experienced drastic reductions in the value of your investment. Let me assure you that we are committed to achieving the full potential of ABS-CBN and substantially improving the price of your shares.
For now, we have taken several steps to improve your company’s performance. The commercial partnerships we have signed with companies like Zoe and TV5 have resulted in an improvement in our ratings. From a low of 1.1% after our shutdown, we now achieve 4.1% rating, with primetime growing from 2.1% to 9.6%. This gives us an audience share on primetime of 27% vs. our competition’s 58%.
In terms of revenues, your company delivered 17.8 billion in revenues for 2021. Last year we achieved advertising sales of 5.3 billion vs.7.1 billion in 2020. Please note, however, that we were still broadcasting on television and radio for the first four months of 2020. If we look instead at our second-half sales in 2020 vs. our second-half sales in 2021, we grew ad revenues by 65%.
We are very encouraged by the growth of our digital and international businesses. Digital revenues were at 2.3 billion in 2021, increasing by 48% from 2020. Our websites attracted 109 million unique users from all over the world – close to three time the number of users compared to the previous year.
International revenues now account for 19% of total revenues, and we continue to exert efforts to expand this revenue stream.
Our costs also continue to come down. From a high of 33.6 billion in 2020, our total expenses in 2021 came down to just 23.3 billion, a 31% reduction in spending.
We also continue to find ways to reduce debt. We started 2020 with 26 billion in interest-bearing loans and have reduced that to 21.5 billion in 2021. For this year, we are currently already at 18.4 billion and we hope to reduce debt further to 14 billion or less.
Consequently, our net losses have decreased from an extraordinary 13.5 billion in 2020 to 5.7 billion in 2021. We ended 2021 EBITDA positive versus the negative EBITDA of 6.2 billion in 2020. These improvements and the continuing upward trajectory in financial performance are indicators that a return to profitability is possible in the near term.
Despite our challenging financial situation, we have not forgotten our mission of serving the Filipino. The various programs of ABS-CBN Foundation continued to find ways to raise funds and provide assistance to our kababayan – from typhoon relief efforts, educational support, environmental impact projects and through Bantay Bata.
Our biggest priority today is ensuring that ABS-CBN continues to tell excellent stories. That’s why we focus on keeping our best talent across the organization—creative, performing, production, journalistic, and managerial. Let me take a moment to express our gratitude to all our Kapamilya that have committed their support to our company, despite the many sacrifices we have asked them to make. We are nothing without you.
We want to tell our stories to as many people as possible. To this end, we have started signing partnerships for our shows to air on A2Z, TV5, and GMA. We have also done deals to air our content globally through digital platforms like Netflix, Viu, and iWantfc.
We are determined to build a future for ABS that does not solely rely on broadcasting. Instead, we are doubling down on excellent storytelling that reaches a wider audience on any network or on any platform. More importantly, by continuing to improve our skills, we hope to be recognized as world-class storytellers, reaching and resonating with audiences worldwide. There is every reason to believe Filipino storytellers will shine on the world stage. We have the heart, the passion, and the competence to be global content creators.
To our dear shareholders, the fact that you are still with us today, more than two years after we lost our franchise, says a lot about your commitment to our future. Thank you for supporting us and believing in what we do. We commit to rewarding your faith in us, both financially and in the shared joy of achieving our dreams together.
Maraming salamat, Kapamilya.