Communications Fiji Ltd, the region’s largest commercial broadcast organisation and parent company of Legend FM, FM96, Viti FM, Navtarang, Radio Sargam and fijivillage, has announced a Group profit of $98,954 for the first six months of the year to June 30th 2021.
Group Chairman William Parkinson says CFL is seeing improvement in performance and forward advertising bookings look positive but it is difficult to predict the full impact of this evolving pandemic.
The CFL board has also noted recent Parliamentary statements by the Minister of Communications with regards to changes to the FM transmission.
Parkinson says CFL Management is currently seeking more information on these proposed moves and at present is unable to forecast what impact this might have.
However he says it has been an extraordinarily tough first six months for the CFL Group.
Parkinson says in particular, Fiji has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic to which we tragically lost a long-time member of the team, Maree Stewart.
He says the teams in Fiji and Papua New Guinea have responded positively to these challenging times showing extraordinary resilience and creativity.
Parkinson says to remain “in the black” is an amazing achievement and lessons learnt through this period will continue to deliver returns in the future.
He says the CFL group retains a solid balance sheet recording net assets of $14.641 million with good cash reserves and minimal debt.
Parkinson says the board considered paying out an interim dividend for the first six months but has decided to defer this to its November board meeting.
The CFL Chairman says we live in very uncertain times so it was thought that we should be cautious.
CFL’s Papua New Guinean subsidiary PNG FM continues to perform strongly and forecasts for the second half of the year indicate an improvement on 2020.
Parkinson also says the exciting news from PNG is the finalisation of the purchase of the site for CFL’s future studio complex and home, PNG FM Haus. Work has started on design of the building and it is hoped that construction will commence in the first quarter of 2022.
The Chairman says if all goes to plan shareholders can expect a similar end of year CFL Group profit performance to last year which was $824,394.
Story by: Vijay Narayan/fijivillage.com
