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CanWest MediaWorks Income Fund Reports Solid Q2 Revenue Growth.

Article Excerpt
TORONTO, April 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CanWest MediaWorks Income Fund (the "Fund") today announced financial results for CanWest MediaWorks Limited Partnership (the "Partnership") for the second quarter and six months ended February 28, 2006.

Revenue for the second quarter was $279 million, an $11.8 million or 4% increase over the same period last year. The revenue increase was attributable to gains in ROP advertising at the metropolitan daily newspapers, the impact of new products, Dose and Metro, and the continued expansion of online advertising. ROP advertising was particularly strong in the national category, which offset some weakness in classifieds. On a combined print and online basis, classifieds showed a slight increase in the quarter. Retail revenue showed modest growth in the quarter. Interactive revenue increased $1.4 million or 22% compared to prior year with strong gains in FPInfomart and general advertising on canada.com. Inserts continued to demonstrate good growth with year-over-year gains in the quarter of 4%. Circulation revenue increased slightly with price increases more than offsetting a slight decline in number of copies sold.

EBITDA(1) for the second quarter was $52.3 million compared to $58.2 million for the same period last year. The EBITDA decline was impacted by severance costs in the quarter related to the implementation of cost containment initiatives and start-up losses associated with Dose and Metro. Severance costs in the quarter totaled $5.8 million compared to $0.5 million in the same period last year. Adjusting for severance costs and Dose and Metro start-up losses, EBITDA for the second quarter was $61.4 million representing an increase of 1% compared to $60.8 million for the same period last year after comparable adjustments including the add-back of the Ravelston Management contract.

Distributable cash for the quarter was $39.0 million or $0.18 per unit. Cash distributions for the quarter totaled $0.25 per unit. As we have noted previously, due to the seasonal nature of newspaper advertising revenue, we expect distributions declared to exceed distributable cash in the second and fourth quarters...