The Hallmark Channel helped lead Crown Media to a stronger fourth quarter as advertising revenues grew by a double-digit percentage over the period.
Revenue for the Hallmark Channel grew by 28 percent, reaching $52 million - while subscribers fees have been growing slower, but still growing by 16 percent to $6.2 million. Fees are one of the areas where the channel has been trying to grow stronger in.
The channel is skewed heavily toward advertising revenue, while the majority of cable networks bring in about 50 percent each on fees and ad revenue.
The company has also added 5 million new subscriber homes for the channel as they made deals with Echostar (DISH) and Mediacom recently, which brings Hallmark's total to 80 million subscribers.
While the company still suffered losses for the quarter, they were able to decrease them by $30 million. For the last quarter of 2005 they lost 59.7 million while the last quarter of 2006 it dropped to $29.9 million. Net revenue for the quarter lost 3 percent as Crown took in $58.4 million in comparison to $60.5 million in 2005.
Net revenue for the whole year was up by 2 percent, reaching $201.2 million. Ad revenue for the year reached $174.2 million which was a 19 percent increase.
Henry Schleiff, president/CEO of Crown Media said that the first-quarter of 2007 has brought even better advertising numbers, with CPMs up 48 percent over upfront deals, in contrast to 36 percent last year.
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