Paramount UK community Channel 5 noticed turnover and working revenue rise final 12 months however made an total lack of £159.5M ($200M) because of a one-off cost to a Paramount Global subsidiary.
In accordance with its full-year 2023 outcomes posted on Corporations Home, the loss was solely all the way down to an funding in Viacom Interactive Restricted, which totalled a whopping £273M. That subsidiary, which is “unrelated to Channel 5’s buying and selling enterprise,” made an excellent greater lack of greater than £300M over the identical interval. The outcomes cited “opposed international market situations.” A Channel 5 spokesman declined additional remark.
The Channel 5 outcomes famous that the loss got here “regardless of” the All Creatures Nice and Small community’s working revenue of £112.4M, which really elevated by 40% throughout what was a troublesome financial 12 months for the broader trade.
Turnover rose by 7.5% to simply shy of £400M. Notably, this income enhance was aided by an £80.9M one-off cost from Channel 5’s advert companion Sky, which was “because of a correction within the gross sales companions’ inside reporting” for the interval from 2017 to 2023. It was reported final month that Sky had been hit with a hefty invoice of a whole bunch of tens of millions of kilos to the likes of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery following the error.
Regardless of the large one-off cost to Viacom Interactive, Channel 5’s optimistic figures and a fifth consecutive 12 months of scores share progress had been put all the way down to “a mix of latest and returning acclaimed drama commissions, factual favourites and agenda-driving documentaries.” The outcomes pointed to the success of dramas together with All Creatures Nice and Small, which airs on PBS within the States, and factual reveals like Captain Tom: The place Did The Cash Go?. The report additionally flagged the community’s ongoing dedication to information, youngsters packages and commissioning manufacturing firms outdoors of London.
Beneath content material boss Ben Frow, Channel 5 has carried out properly over the previous few years.
Its future has been beneath dialogue amid the Paramount sale to David Ellison’s Skydance, which ought to full within the first half of subsequent 12 months. Trying to calm the chatter, C5 President and Paramount UK Regional Lead Sarah Rose recently told a TV conference: “Paramount is being offered to a different proprietor and subsequently Channel 5 is being offered with it, we’re a part of that ecosystem.”
“It has massively helped that we return income to them and they’re about to get some extra,” Rose advised final month’s VLV convention. “I’m not shedding sleep about being left by the wayside.”
