MANILA - ABS-CBN Corp, the country's leading media and entertainment company, said Monday its net income grew 39 percent to a record P3.5 billion in 2016 on higher revenues.

Advertising revenues, boosted by election spending, grew 11 percent on the first full year of CPIRP, the company's ratings-based pricing scheme. Consolidated revenues for the year reached P41.6 billion.

“We are very pleased to have exceeded our earnings guidance for 2016,” said ABS-CBN chief financial officer Aldrin Cerrado.

“Our continued strong leadership in national audience share was also a key contributor to our record performance because improved ratings now translate to increased revenues,” he added.

Cerrado said ABS-CBN also managed its costs and expenses last year "efficiently."

Kantar Media national TV ratings showed ABS-CBN had the 10 top programs last year, led by the Coco Martin series, “FPJ’s Ang Probinsyano.”

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The company also widened its audience with its ABS-CBN TVplus digital service selling 2.3 million units by the end of last year.

Total assets rose to P72.7 billion as of the end December 2016 compared to P69.9 billion in 2015. The company’s equity base increased to P31.7 billion as of the end of December 2016.

ABS-CBN Group CFO Ron Valdueza noted the strong performance of the company's subsidiaries.

"The healthy growth in our advertising revenues coupled with the accomplishments of our different business units enabled us to deliver record earnings performance for ABS-CBN," he said.

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Star Cinema had P2.9 billion in ticket sales, and "Super Parental Guardians," headlined by Vice Ganda, grossed P600 million, the most for any Filipino film.

SkyCable saw an 8-percent growth in revenues, driven by SkyDirect, its newly launched Direct-to-Home Pay TV offering. It had over 112,000 SkyDirect subscribers and more than 200,000 broadband subscribers, bringing Sky’s total subscriber base to over one million.

The Filipino Channel (TFC) is now being watched by over three million Filipinos abroad. ABS-CBN Global staged “ASAP New York” at the Barclay’s Center before a 9,000-strong audience.

Kidzania, the company’s educational theme park, had over 360,000 visitors for 2016, while its TV shopping channel O Shopping generated over P820 million in sales.

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