Corus CEO Doug Murphy struck a resolute tone in the company’s year-end and Q4 report, released today, acknowledging the company’s challenges and charting its course forward. 

In the report’s opening statement, Murphy pointed to “ongoing weakness” in the TV ad market and the impacts of the U.S. writers and actors strikes as negative effects on the company’s quarterly and year-end performance. Corus reported consolidated revenue flat for Q4 and down for the year by 5% and consolidated segment profits down 18% for the quarter and 25% for the year.

Citing debt that had reached “unacceptable” levels, Corus asked the CRTC last week for relief in its regulatory obligations, returning aspects of its Cancon investment to 2017 levels. Moving forward, he said, debt, cost reductions and changes to the company’s operating model will be priorities. 

“We are focused on what we can control as we navigate through these challenges,” Murphy said in the report. “We will prudently redirect capital from dividends to debt repayment. Our intense pursuit of efficiencies and improved productivity is resulting in significant expense reductions as we streamline our operating model and evolve our business into a multi-platform aggregator of premium video with leading cross-platform monetization capabilities. Corus will benefit from a more normalized content supply in the quarters ahead with an improved cost structure as we await a concurrent improvement in the advertising economy.”

The end of the U.S. writers strike and anticipated resolution of the actors strike are likely to help the company’s ad situation as new content starts to come back on air, he noted. But until then, Corus expects TV ad revenue in Q1 of 2024 to be down 15-20% year-over-year. 

Corus ended its flagship entertainment news program, Entertainment Tonight, this fall, citing its cost of production and soft advertising support as reasons for the cancellation.

Newly announced investments signal a shift to longer-tail content for HGTV, W Net and STACK. It announced in August a new four-movie deal with Nikki Ray Media Agency for The Love Club Moms franchise, which it will also distribute. It also announced further investment in the golden egg that is the Property Brothers, greenlighting Don’t Hate Your House with the Property Brothers and Backed By The Bros to air on HGTV Canada, plus more Celebrity IOU. 

The report noted while it expects the economy and content pipeline to improve things, “visibility remains limited at this time.”