ABS-CBN Corp. expects its two Hollywood-style studios in Bulacan to open by the fourth quarter of this year, a top executive said.
“We are constructing two sound stages. [They should] be ready by the end of the year,” ABS-CBN chief financial officer Aldrin Cerrado said.
Cerrado said the company was investing P600 million to P700 million for the two soundstages including all the equipment and sound proofing.
A soundstage is a soundproof studio used by broadcasting firms for the production of movies and TV shows. “We’re looking at between 10 percent and 15 percent savings,” he said.
The company’s production cost reached about P10 billion last year.
ABS-CBN chief strategy officer Raymund Miranda said the sound stages would increase the network’s efficiency by 20 percent.
“We’re pretty excited about it because it really changes the game in terms of production, quality and production efficiency,” Miranda said.
ABS-CBN earlier said it was expecting advertising revenues to reach over P22 billon this year, boosted by higher television ratings.
“If you take out election-related and just focus on regular advertising, so we’re looking at possible 5 percent to 7 percent in terms of growth in advertising,” Cerrado said.
The company posted advertising revenues of P20.85 billion last year. Including the P2.8 billion revenues from election-related advertising, the company posted total advertising revenues of P23.65 billion.
ABS-CBN’s consolidated revenues reached P41.6 billion last year, up 9 percent from P38.3 billon in 2015.
The company set a profit guidance of about P3 billion this year, after posting a net income of P3.5 billon last year.