Openview, the free-to-air satellite television platform in the eMedia Holdings stable, has turned a profit for the first time on the back of a surge in advertising revenue.

The platform plans to launch new channels this financial year after ad revenue jumped from R269.9-million in the 2021 financial year to R468.1-million, an increase of 73.4%. This accounted for 21.9% of ad revenue for the group, whose other assets include e.tv and eNCA.

Openview is now profitable, with content costs in the 2022 financial year of R446.3-million.

“Set-top box activations for Openview are increasing on a monthly basis from an average of 35 000 per month to 40 000 per month. At the end of the period, a total of 2.77 million boxes were activated,” eMedia said.

Openview also plans to launch an upgraded version of set-top box soon that will offer “memory facilities” and the ability to connect to a Wi-Fi network. The latter will presumably be used to offer viewers access to eMedia’s streaming eVOD platform, which was launched last August.

“For the year ending 31 March 2022, eMedia experienced a resounding bounce-back in its financial performance after the impact of the pandemic on businesses and the economy generally,” the broadcasting group said.

Record

eMedia reported profit from continuing operations of R426.4-million, from R138.5-million a year ago. Revenue was a record R3.2-billion, with ad revenue jumping to R2.1-billion.

“The television advertising revenue ended 39% better than the prior year and approximately 15% better than the market,” eMedia said. The group’s primetime audience market share rose from 29.6% to 34.1%.