LONDON (Alliance News) - One Media IP Group PLC Wednesday said that it expects 2014 to a progressive year for its business, as it posted higher revenues for 2013, while profits were hit by the costs of its listing on AIM.
The digital media content provider posted a pretax profit of GBP329,889 for the year to October 31 2013, down from GBP427,888 a year earlier, as it spent GBP196,599 on its AIM listing. The company, which was previously listed on the ICAP Securities & Derivatives Exchange, raised GBP750,000 when it floated on AIM in April last year.
Excluding the listing costs, pretax profit from continuing operations rose 22.4% to GBP523,648, as revenue rose to GBP2.6 million, from GBP2.1 million.
During the year the company secured a deal to buy ITV PLC's 'Men & Motors' channel, which One Media is now distributing online. Men & Motors was the last remaining channel from the joint venture between British Sky Broadcasting PLC and Granada Television, now part of ITV. It was closed to make way for ITV's ITV HD channel in 2010. One Media said it was in discussions with third parties for further usage of the Men & Motors Brand.
During the period it also acquired footage from 'Alien Autopsy, 'The Adventures of Skippy,' 'Skippy the Movie,' and licence distribution rights for 300 hours of animal video documentaries, 'Keep Fit,' videos and 'Underground Breakdance' videos. The company also secured exclusive rights to a catalogue of video programmes it was first licensed in September 2011.
One Media acquires and distributes classic and vintage content on digital platforms, and part of this process is restoring the quality of this content.
The company is based in Pinewood Studios, which is owned by Pinewood Shepperton PLC, and makes the most of its setting, using the facilities at the studio for its post production editing.
"If it hasn't been played for 20, 30 years and its on an old tape, the tape has to be treated with great care," Chief Executive Officer Michael Infante told Alliance News. The company restores both video and audio content.
"Some of that is carried out in house, but if its something that needs proper restoration we'll use Pinewood or other facilities," Infante said.
"We have products delivered on celluloid come in that have to be converted," Infante said, "but at Pinewood you just go to a different department, plug it in and away they go - it's the epicentre for conversion."
The company receives revenue from royalties, but also advertising funded revenues. In music, online streaming services are starting to take over from digital downloads, and most revenues derived from streaming services come from ad revenues, although Infante explained that it wasn't "an exact science."
"We're dealing with 600 digital stores, some of those stores like iTunes, its a set model. When it comes to stores like Spotify for audio, it breaks down into several different models of earning. First, subscription, plus those that get it for free then have an ad funded side to their model," Infante said. "An element of the money from the adverts gets aggregated over a period of months, and then are portioned amongst us rights holders on a pro rata basis, based on how much of our content was played by those users."
"It's not a fixed fee," Infante explained, "it's the same across most streaming models."
This can lead to some variability, Infante explained, "If you get a busy month, like the run up to Christmas, compared to a quieter month like January, the same amount could be streamed but you'll get less money because less money is going through their system."
For One Media IP, however, the trend towards streaming is welcome.
"We really embrace streaming," Infante said. "Consumers have changed in a very short period of time, six or seven years, but as far as we're concerned it makes no difference. We're already supplying some 40, 50, 60 streaming stores."
"Either way a sale is a sale," Infante said.
Shares In One Media IP Group were trading down 1.6% at 17.95 pence Wednesday.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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One Media (OMIP)