RE: 2001 to 2010Chuck,
I have been looking at the chart at the bottom of this post. I'm not questioning your numbers and the ones I'm looking at only go back to 2004. I'm not sure how you get the 29% TV ad growth last year. If you could post a link to your source, I'd appreciate it. I am not trying to attack your arguments but I am curious.
I also want to clarify that I don't feel TV ads are going to die off. I'm just saying that I think TV advertisers are probably going to need to get more creative in the next few years because Internet ad growth is going to put some pressure on their current business model. TV ad spend certainly has shown some growth in recent years but Internet ad growth is much faster as far as I can tell. I am referring to the two left-most bars in the chart below. Newspapers, as you say, have taken the biggest hit. However, if Internet keeps growing as projected, I think, at minimum it:
1. Gains a larger proportion of overall ad spend
2. Puts some revenue pressure on the big networks IF they don't respond with strong internet and mobile strategies
The 6th bar on the IABC chart is one that pertains to YLO. I believe it represents all yellow page ad spend and thus would have included CanPages and Superpages.
From annual reports filed on SEDAR (with the 2006 report showing numbers back to 2002) , YLO revenues going back to 2002 are:
Year, Revenue
2002 $638 M
2003 $612 M
2004 $637 M
2005 $922 M
2006 $1,385 M
2007 $1,624 M
2008 $1,697 M
2009 $1,640 M
2010 $1,680 M
I tried to reconcile this with the chart from IABC. I believe that the YLO revenues are quite a lot ower than chart below up until 2006 because superpages was owned by telus up to that point. I am assuming that from 2007 onwards, the YLO revenues are higher than the Yellow pages ad spend because of things like trader and other vertical markets.
What I do find interesting though is the actual growth of Yellow Pages ad spend as shown both by YLO income statements and the IABC chart below. If you have stats that contradict this revenue growth, please point me to them.
I am almost flabbergasted looking at the yellow pages ad spend and YLO revenues -- and then looking at the margins and debt levels. There is quite a cash cow underlying all the debt, structural problems and inefficiencies. Is Tellier the man to restructure, reorganize and clean house? It's hard to say. I am definitely leaning towards the camp that says Tellier needs to go. However, it will be interesting to see how he performs without lots of access to play money from the banks.
