During the virtual annual stockholders’ meeting, ABS-CBN President and CEO Carlo Katigbak confirmed the company would continue to look for partners on free TV, pay TV, and online streaming to create and distribute the best content. “We hope to increase our viewership to a far larger base than what we had before," he said.
Katigbak added that ABS-CBN would focus on what it does best, which is to tell stories that inspire, inform and ignite change. “Broadcasting never defined ABS-CBN. What we did best was to tell stories. The heart and soul of ABS-CBN is in storytelling," he added.
Katigbak mentioned the success of shows and films from the last year, including the hugely popular "Ang Probinsyano," which recorded a 38% audience share, "Partners in Crime," which hit P177 million in box office receipts, and "An Inconvenient Love" which ranked number 9 on Netflix globally for non-English movies. He, however, admitted that there were still challenges. He said, “It is still an uphill climb to profitability, but the light at the end of the tunnel has become sharper and brighter.”
ABS-CBN has shed unneeded assets to raise cash and improve production quality and quantity, Katigbak said. ABS-CBN generated P3 billion from the sale of various properties which helped offset financing costs and decrease the company’s net loss to P2.63 billion in 2022 from P5.67 billion in 2021. Meanwhile, revenues grew to P19.2 billion in 2022 from P17.8 billion the previous year.
ABS-CBN had to drastically cut costs and sell assets following the non-renewal of its franchise by Congress in 2020. The non-renewal led to the retrenchment of employees and the closure of several business units.
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