Fireworks shoots hole in rosy CanWest Prod’n co. posts $22.6 mil operating loss
Full article at Variety.com (subscription required)
Despite a brighter year-end picture at CanWest Global Communications, including a tripled bottom line over 2002, the Fireworks all but fizzled out at the Canuck media company.
“Our 2003 results are excellent, with the exception of Fireworks,” CanWest prexy and CEO Leonard Asper said Tuesday.
Production company Fireworks posted an operating loss of C$30 million ($22.6 million) in the fourth quarter, numbers that one analyst termed “quite staggering.”
In the previous quarter, CanWest took a $15.8 million charge, much of it for losses and restructuring costs at Fireworks. Five people were pinkslipped at Fireworks’ L.A. office in the spring, founder Jay Firestone ankled in May, and CanWest exited features to narrow Fireworks’ focus to the North American TV market.
“We have dismantled the old Fireworks,” chief operating officer Rick Camilleri said. “It’s essentially a service producer for Global now,” and will be focusing on higher margin programming.
The picture is rosier for the rest of the Winnipeg-based company. Improved performance at its broadcasting and publishing divisions helped triple CanWest’s bottom line during 2003. Net earnings for the year ended Aug. 31 were $34.6 million, up from $9.8 million a year ago thanks to healthy broadcasting and publishing operations in Canada and overseas, “with substantial gains at Australia’s Network Ten and television and radio operations in New Zealand.”
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During the year, CanWest sold the rest of its small-market newspapers and its investment in SBS broadcasting, using the proceeds to cut corporate debt.
Before the end of the quarter, CanWest’s second TV network in New Zealand, TV4, was relaunched as low-cost music channel C4 targeting the 15-29 demographic to reverse losses incurred in recent years.
CanWest founder Izzy Asper died unexpectedly in October, and Frank McKenna has been appointed interim chair of the board.
