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Operator
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Grupo Televisa First Quarter 2018 Conference Call. Before we begin, I would like to draw your attention to the press release, which explains the use of forward-looking statements and applies to everything we discussed in today's call and in the earnings release.
I will now turn the call over to Mr. Alfonso de Angoitia, Chief Executive Officer of Grupo Televisa. Please, go ahead, sir.
Alfonso De Angoitia Noriega - Co-CEO & Director
(foreign language) Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. As you know, Bernardo and I became co-CEOs of the company on January 1, I'm happy to host the call today to review our first quarter under this new capacity. With me are the heads of our 3 key business segments: Salvi Folch, CEO of Cable; Alex Penna, CEO of Sky; Isaac Lee, Chief Content Officer; and also Carlos Ferreiro; and Antonio Lara, Corporate Vice Presidents of Finance and Administration, respectively.
I will walk you through the highlights of our 2018 first quarter results and, following my opening remarks, our segment heads will join me in answering your questions. Starting with our financial results for the quarter, consolidated revenues reached MXN 22.8 [billion], representing a year-over-year growth of almost 4%. The peso appreciated year-over-year by 6% during the quarter. Excluding the appreciation of the peso, growth in consolidated revenue would have been 5%. While Sky revenues were marginally down in the first quarter, both of our Content and Cable segments posted solid revenue growth. And within Cable, our MSO business posted revenue growth of almost 10%. In terms of operating segment income, on a consolidated basis, we reached MXN 9.1 billion, equivalent to a year-over-year growth of 6.6%. All three core segments maintained the same healthy margins of the first quarter last year.
Let me address each of these businesses in detail. Starting with Cable. I'm happy to announce that our Board yesterday appointed Salvi Folch as permanent CEO of our Cable division. As many of you know, Salvi previously served as CFO of the company, and we are very fortunate that someone with Salvi's deep financial and operational experience will lead the Cable division going forward. We have already seen his valuable contributions in the most recent results of our Cable division.
During the quarter, this division posted a revenue growth of 7.1%. The MSO business, which accounts for 86% of the Cable division, posted a revenue growth of 9.6%. The MSO business maintained great momentum, adding more than 260,000 revenue generating income for RGUs during the quarter. On a sequential basis, this is equivalent to a growth of 9% in net additions. It is also the fastest pace of growth in total RGUs of the last nine quarters.
All three services grew at a healthy pace. Our organic growth in data services was the fastest on record, contributing in the two thirds of the net additions in RGUs. The acceleration and growth continues to be driven by the ongoing reduction in churn, and it now stands at its lowest level in more than 3 years. The quality of our network and the consistency in the speeds that we offer, which are some of the highest in the country, and the very attractive single, double and triple play services.
For example, the adoption rate of the 50-megs Service we began offering in May I'm sorry, in March, have been very promising. In addition, during the months of March, the pace of adoption of our triple-play service was quite as high as that of each of the previous 13 months. We will continue to evaluate launching new offers and leveraging the competitive advantage we have across our expensive telecom infrastructure.
As expected, the enterprise business, which accounts for approximately 14% of revenues in our Cable division, faced some near-term challenges. As a result, this operation was relaunched during the first quarter with a new management team in place. Their mandate is to turn this business around. In terms of operating segment income margins, we closed the quarter at 42.3%, slightly higher than the same quarter last year and in line with guidance. The margin of our MSO division was even stronger at 43.4%.
Overall, we remain very excited about our Cable division. In addition to our focus on improving operating metrics, we continue to place much emphasis on improving the efficiency of our capital expenditure.
Moving on, Sky posted a marginal drop in customers, and therefore, in revenue posting with approximately 7.9 million subscribers. The decline in revenues is explained by softness in our Dominican Republic and Central American operations. These markets only account for a very small portion of Sky's strong customer base but, nevertheless, we are taking action to reverse this trend. On the other hand, in our Mexico operation, which accounts for the vast majority of the business, Sky posted marginal growth, both in revenue and operating segment income. We are especially excited by Sky's plan to aggressively promote its exclusive transmission of 24 matches of the soccer World Cup during in the second and third quarters.
In addition, as we discussed last quarter, Sky had a soft launch in March of its voice and data services under the new brand Blue Telecomm. The company is launching a fixed plug-in, wireless broadband solution in partnership with AT&T. Data speeds offered in a range from 5 to 10 megs. This offer marks the beginning of what we believe is the next phase of growth and transformation of Sky, with a chance of becoming a relevant triple play provider even in the most remote areas of our country.
Operating segment income margins for Sky remained strong, reaching 44.6%, in line with the same quarter last year. As we noted last quarter, Sky's 2018 margins will be pressured by the costs associated with the World Cup and other sports rights. Nevertheless, we are pleased to say that during the first quarter, Sky was able to rationalize costs and expenses to mitigate most of that impact. In addition, Sky is a company that continues to generate a significant amount of free cash flow, and the outlook for this line item will continue improving.
Now, moving on to Content, advertising revenue rose by 3.5% during the quarter. The growth in revenue was mostly driven by an increase in demand as prices remained relatively flat on the basis of a cost-per-rating-point. This is noteworthy given that it was the first quarter under the new sales mechanism. The migration to pricing based on ratings has also contributed to a better inventory utilization and better allocation of sports across the different dayparts. The strength in our programming also contributed to the solid advertising numbers.
During the first quarter, for example, 9 of the top 10 rated programs were produced and transmitted by Televisa. At the end of the first quarter, our two main free-to-air of our networks were the most watched networks in Mexico during prime time. Our ratings keep increasing even after the remarkable growth that took place in 2017. Specifically, prime time ratings for our flagship network grew 4% compared with the fourth quarter of 2017. Revenue growth in Network Subscription and in Licensing and Syndication was also strong at 13.1% and 15.4%, respectively.
Much of the growth in Licensing and Syndication revenue resulted from an increase of almost 32% in Univision royalties, which reached $95.5 million during the quarter. This was the first quarter in which the new royalty rate came in north of 16% on Univision's audiovisual revenue.
At the beginning of the year, we were expecting an increase of $150 million in costs of the Content division. Let me share with you the measures we have taken to mitigate the impact from the increasing costs.
Number one, we have put in place an aggressive cost-reduction plan, which we anticipate will save approximately $50 million throughout the year. Under another measures, in the financing and administration departments, we have reduced headcount by 10% and we have frozen all new hiring and salary increases. Strict financial discipline in the entire organization is of the highest priority for us.
Number two, we are happy to announce that we have been very successful on monetizing the broadcast and digital rights of the soccer World Cup in Mexico and other markets. This is beyond the regular sale of advertising. We've exceeded our expectations here, and as a result, we expect to generate an additional $50 million in operating segment income.
Number three, the impact in operating segment, therefore of an increase in cost of the Content division will amount instead to around $50 million. This amount will be used to continue strengthen the quality of our company. Overall, the results show that we can make good progress in the first quarter during which operating segment income margins for our Content business reached 35.7%, which is in line with the same quarter last year.
In March, we appointed Patricio Wills, a media industry veteran, as President of Televisa Studios. Patricio brings more than 30 years of experience in the production of contemporary Spanish-language content. Among many other series, he produced La Reina del Sur and the show La Piloto, which we transmitted last year with great success. His experience and vision will help improve our content development and production processes.
In addition, we also appointed J C Rodríguez, a veteran in sports entertainment, as Vice President of Sports for Grupo Televisa in addition to his current role as President of Univision Deportes. This is another opportunity to strengthen the collaboration between the two companies. Finally, on the Content partnership side, in February, we reached an agreement with Amazon to start producing original content to be distributed on its platform. This is part of our strategy to produce and develop content for the global OTT players.
Concerning other matters, we have been active with our share buyback plan, and at our upcoming shareholders meeting we intend to propose canceling close to 44 million CPOs, equivalent to 1.5% of our outstanding shares, and to approximately $151 million. I'm also pleased to confirm that today we will propose to our shareholders meeting the payment of our regular dividend of MXN 0.35 of a peso per CPO, equivalent to approximately $55 million.
In closing, Bernardo and I believe that the results for the first quarter mark a very good start of the year. We are cautious, but remain optimistic about the turn-around of our advertising sales business. All our clients are now buying under the new sales methodology, and they continue to place a lot of value under reach that only our free-to-air networks can provide.
Sky's Mexico business remains strong, and is developing new avenues of growth. The sale of Telecom services to a customer base of close to 8 million households is a significant untapped opportunity. In addition, we will focus on reactivating the growth of Sky's operation outside Mexico.
In Cable, we have great momentum. We are operating in highly competitive markets, with multiple providers of all three services, but we believe we are very well equipped to continue posting solid results in the quarters to come.
Finally, during the second and third quarters, various line items of businesses will benefit from the soccer World Cup. We are expecting incremental investment in advertising as a result of this event. Also, as I shared with you just now, we will receive extraordinary income from the monetization of the broadcasting and digital rights in Mexico and other markets. And finally, Sky will be the only paid television platform transmitting all 64 matches of the World Cup, including 24 on an exclusive basis, which should contribute to strengthening our Mexico operation.
With that, I will thank you for your participating in our call, and we'll be glad to take your questions.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) And we have a question from the line of Rodrigo Villanueva from Merrill Lynch.
Rodrigo Villanueva - VP
Thank you. Good morning, Alfonso. My first question is related to the advertising business. In addition to advertising pricing mechanism, whether with stronger content ratings, appear to be working very well, boosting revenues by [2.5%], (corrected by company after the call) year-on-year, in the first quarter. Also, customer deposit kind of actions where at similar level to those between 2012 and 2015. I do think Televisa's advertising revenues were significantly stronger. So I was wondering if it is fair to assume that Advertising revenues in 2018 could grow potentially in the mid-to high single digits. That would be my first question.
Alfonso De Angoitia Noriega - Co-CEO & Director
Yes, Rodrigo. We would not like to provide any guidance at this moment. As we said, we remain cautious but we also are optimistic about the outlook for this business. Ratings are very strong, and the new pricing mechanism has been adopted, as I mentioned before, by all our clients. And that is allowing us for a better utilization of our inventory and is giving our clients the tools, I believe, to plan their companies more effectively. And as we mentioned, we're very enthusiastic about the transmission of the World Cup. And we're expected to contribute to revenue growth, particularly in the second and third quarters. So we are optimistic, but we remain cautious, as I mentioned before.
Rodrigo Villanueva - VP
Understood. And my second question is related to Cable. We saw a very strong RGU net additions, but I was wondering if there was any negative impact on net adds due to seasonality. With this, I mean, the Easter holidays would have been in the third quarter, do you think you could have achieved a stronger net addition?
Alfonso De Angoitia Noriega - Co-CEO & Director
Yes. I'll ask Salvi, our new permanent CEO of the Cable division, to answer the question.
Salvi Rafael Folch Viadero - Interim CEO of Cable Division & Director
Rodrigo. Well, I think that we had a great quarter. I think that it's relevant what you're mentioning that during the quarter, we had two holidays and it was also the Holy Week. But well, I mean, even with that, I think that we had a strong quarter. And Alfonso mentioned, it's the highest of the nine last quarters in terms of net additions. We are growing in the different services, we are now promoting -- starting on March, we launched the 50-megs offer that is working pretty well, it's getting traction. And also, we are pushing triple-play offers. So I think that, yes, if there had not been the holidays, we -- probably, we have had stronger ads, but we're very happy with what we had. And at the end of the day, once that you have the first and second quarters together, over seasonality goes away, but I think that it's a great start for the year.
Rodrigo Villanueva - VP
Understood. And one final question, if I may. Excluding the sale of the Televisa's 50% stake in C.J. Grant, other expenses were close to MXN 240 million compared to another MXN 600 million per quarter in 2017. Is it reasonable to assume that other expenses will remain at around MXN 240 million per quarter in the remainder of 2018.
Adolfo Lagos-Espinosa - Corporate VP of Telecom
Thank you, Rodrigo. I will ask Carlos to answer that question.
Carlos Ferreiro Rivas - VP of Finance
Rodrigo, we're very focused on reducing this line item. Other expenses lines have been lowered in the last couple of years, particularly in 2016, but started coming down last year. As you may recall, in 2015, we cut our labor force by close to 2,000 employees, including many senior executives in our Content division. This resulted in severance expense of close to MXN 900 million for that year. Severance expense was already lower in 2017, and we expect them to continue declining in this year. In addition, back in 2017, we recorded a noncash expense that resulted from the disposition of all the infrastructure in our Cable division, as we continue to upgrade those networks. That number came down in 2017, and we would expect it to be down by the end in 2018. Important to remind you that these lines usually have several noncash items. Nevertheless, this is hard -- this line is hard to predict. As I mentioned at the beginning, we're very focused on reducing it to the extent possible.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of David Joyce from Evercore.
David Carl Joyce - MD & Senior Fundamental Research Analyst
Could you please discuss how your content strategy evolved with the management team in place with a view to both the Mexican and U.S. markets? And in that light, could you please comment on a recent novella on Telemundo, Luis Miguel, which premiered very well? Thank you.
Adolfo Lagos-Espinosa - Corporate VP of Telecom
David, I'll ask Isaac to answer the question.
Isaac Lee - Chief Content Officer
David, regarding Luis Miguel, it's a good product. It launched in Univision (sic) in Telemundo, competing with Univision the past some days. However, we were at Univision 56% year-over-year with the same quarter in 2017, and Telemundo decreased in the time period in 17%. So the audience behaved in the way that we expected where realities such as Pequeños Gigantes wich is produced in combination of Televisa and Univision and broadcasted in both countries at the same time, it's producing really, really good results. So we are very happy with that. That's why we are working on two more joint reality productions for this year.
And for the first time, we are going to be taking a reality that performs very well in the U.S. as Univision to the Mexican market, and the other one will be adapting a new format that will be also run simultaneous in both countries. One of the biggest advantages of having someone like Patricio Wills here is that he is not new to the market, to the genre or to Televisa. Patricio was leading W Studios, which we were in partnership with and produced some of the most successful hits. We placed the first Narcos-themed series in our prime time last year, which did incredibly well.
For La Piloto. We are now ready to launch the second part of these franchises we created together. And Patricio knows more than anyone about these edgy crime series that are performing so well at 10 p.m. at Univision. He was the producer of La Reina del Sur, which, as you know, started this genre and became the leader. And so, there is no disruption. There is a great joint team effort to work together.
Adolfo Lagos-Espinosa - Corporate VP of Telecom
And David, I would add that Univision will continue to make changes to its programming and exploring ways to benefit the most from the closer relationship and collaboration with Televisa. This is also a priority for us. One of the most important changes, as I mentioned before, is the integration of both companies' sports division under a single leadership team. This will be important.
But I would also like to highlight that some -- and I'll give you some information, Univision has been posting a very solid audience numbers this year. Year-to-date, during weak days, Univision has been the number one Spanish-language network across all dayparts. Also, since last November and for 22 consecutive weeks, Univision has been the number one Spanish-language network on prime time. I would also say that during the first quarter of the year, we paid viewership of both Univision, and Unimas networks is up by approximately 8% when compared to last quarter, while Telemundo is down 14%.
And finally, and I mean that's to the most recent information, during the month of March, Univision's to -- free-to-air network captured 65% of the audience with Telemundo being a distant second with close to 35%. Now, 2018 will be a challenging year for Univision since Televisa and Telemundo will hold the rights to the soccer World Cup and has several franchises and good products. However, I mean, we are working hand-in-hand with Univision, and we believe that it will continue to be a successful year for that company.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Richard Dineen from UBS.
Richard Martin Dineen - Executive Director and Equity Research Analyst
Couple of questions, if I may. Could you explain a strategy with Blim? Particularly, how it relates to this field to produce content for Amazon Prime? How do you optimize the monetization of this kind of streaming media content. You can run it on your own platform, you could sell it to others. How do you manage that? What's the kind of equation about how you decide what way to put that? Any comments on that would be super helpful. And then, secondly, just, if I may, on Sky. First quarters sometimes can be a little bit seasonally weak, I guess, post-Christmas. Just wondering if you're feeling that there may be some saturation issues in the market there. And secondly, when we could expect athletes and subscribers from the World Cup in the second and third quarter, even if it's just temporary? Any color on those two questions will be helpful.
Alfonso De Angoitia Noriega - Co-CEO & Director
Richard, Isaac will touch on your first question, and then Alex will answer the second.
Isaac Lee - Chief Content Officer
Richard, we like to be the partner of choice for a company as important as Amazon, coming into our territory and choosing us to produce three series with a possibility of extending it through an additional two more. First, we focus on why it's important for our fleet to air television, focusing on prime time and also what are the skill sets that we need to learn in the process of the producing these series, which, as you know, are different from what we were used to produce here at Televisa.
However, with audience fragmentation and windowing, there's always an opportunity to choose what goes where, and we are -- we have been testing it using a lot of data at Blim to understand what the audience wants. What they go to find there? And also, how to interact between the 14 series Cable networks that we have and believe as a platform. Well, we will be exploring more partnerships like this one. And we will always take into consideration that Televisa needs to have a direct-to-consumer platform, and we will be searching for what are the right products to leave there.
Adolfo Lagos-Espinosa - Corporate VP of Telecom
As to what Isaac has mentioned, of course, we are aware of the fact that audience fragmentation will eventually result in fewer people watching television in the traditional sense or watching content through broadcasting. However, this has not happened in Mexico on a large scale yet. As a matter of fact, the number of people watching free-to-air networks in Mexico increased by 8.5% in 2017 when compared to 2016. Alex?
Alexandre Moreira Penna da Silva - Chairman of the Board of Managers for Corporación Novavision and CEO of Corporación Novavision
Thanks, Alfonso. Richard, no, I don't think there's already saturation separation in the pay TV market in Mexico. However, as a matter of fact, penetration is about 65%, and we still believe that there is potential to get through -- up to 75%. What happened in the first quarter, it sounds that the reduction of subscribers of Sky in Mexico have to do with the impact of a new payment option that was launched at the end of last May as we made it possible for our prepaid customers to recharge every 15 days in addition to the option we always have of 30-day recharges. This allowed us to retain many customers that we would have lost otherwise. For some of them, however, this option only allowed them to remain as customers through the first quarter of this year. Though, Sky was not getting any recharges from them. In other words, the disconnections this quarter are very specific to the launch of the new payment alternative.
With regards to our feel for the second and third quarter of this year as a result of Sky being the only pay-per-view platform transmitting the 64 World Cup matches. Yes, we are very optimistic about that generating an increased number of subscribers in the second quarter, and also having a positive impact on the number of recharges of our prepaid customers in the pay TV product.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of Fred Mendes from Bradesco.
Frederico Mendes - Research Analyst
I wanted to just get back a little bit. I have two questions as well on the Advertising front. You did mention that during the next two quarters, you're going to have most likely a positive impact from the World Cup. But when I look at the base of comparison and I look at 4Q, that's probably one way you really have an opportunity to show higher growth too. So, let me once again consider all these factors. Looking forward, it seems that 3.5 may just be the beginning. So, just want to understand if my reading is to correct here? so that will be my first question.
My number second question, just trying to understand what is the impact of the political campaign, the revenues from advertising. I assume that the political parties cannot pay for the extra advertising around the election. So just trying to quantify that with the rates.
Alfonso De Angoitia Noriega - Co-CEO & Director
Fred, yes, through the World Cup and its impact, as we mentioned, we're cautiously optimistic about this year. As I mentioned, we had a very good first quarter. All the Advertising clients are now buying advertising through the new methodology. So basically, it's based on the rating points that we deliver to them. And the great thing is that ratings have been amazingly good all of last year, but specifically, even this quarter where we saw growth in respect to last year. So we believe that it will be a good year with, as I mentioned before and I say again, we are cautiously optimistic still.
As to the advertising from the government and political parties, as you know, since 2006, nobody can buy political advertising on broadcasted television as a result of a constitutional amendment. So we give minutes to political parties and to the Federal electoral institutes for free, basically.
It is a substantial number of minutes that go to those entities. So there -- and it will impact governmental advertising in the sense that, as a result of that reform and of the laws that rule electoral processes in Mexico, Federal -- the Federal Government and governmental entities cannot advertise in the period that is near and close to the election. It means that government entities cannot advertise 60 (sic) [90] (corrected by company after the call) days prior to the election. So there's always a shift between the quarters when this happens. And then, you will be seeing more than government advertising in the other quarters of the year.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of Andre Baggio with JPMorgan.
Andre Baggio - Senior Analyst, Latin America Telecom, Media and Technology
First question I have is regarding the CapEx. I saw that there was already a meaningful reduction in CapEx of Cable, maybe Salvi can address that. Is that the first time that we could see much lower investments, like then you have a good additions and the lower CapEx also. Is this the standard where we could see more CapEx in the future?
Alfonso De Angoitia Noriega - Co-CEO & Director
Andre, Carlos will answer your question.
Carlos Ferreiro Rivas - VP of Finance
Andre, thank you for the question. For the time being, we are maintaining our guidance for CapEx for 2018, which is around $900 million, a similar amount to last year. Having said that, all areas in the company are focused on finding way to further capital investments in the most effective manner. Particularly, in our Cable division, the reduction in CapEx during the quarter continued to be driven by the fact that most of our network has already been revealed and the magnitude of the investments for that reference is less everyday. On the other hand, CapEx associated to growth in customers have been strong, and we'd expect it to remain strong going forward. This would be a good sign that the Cable division is continuing to work well.
Andre Baggio - Senior Analyst, Latin America Telecom, Media and Technology
Perfect. And then, second question for me, if I my. Can you give a little bit more color on the CapEx margin through those rate improvements in Mexico? And if that has been helping Televisa to have a less unsold inventory so, mainly monetize better the available slots?
Alfonso De Angoitia Noriega - Co-CEO & Director
Yes. Isaac will touch on the ratings improvement and what -- basically, what we are doing with Content, and then I'll take your second question.
Isaac Lee - Chief Content Officer
Yes, we are very happy with the results of ratings. I think that in challenging times where Azteca is investing and they are putting some new realities on their second network of channels. So new network are coming into Mexico like Imagen with a strong penetration of Cable and growth of OTT, we grew 4% year-over-year in our prime time, which is a very successful story.
And in managing the portfolio, we have seen great results. The fact that today, the number one and the number two networks in Mexico in primetime are from Televisa. Channel 5 is also delivering excellent results. And not only that, it's time that we're working together where the Univision team has also seen that we are producing content of works in both countries and ratings here, as Alfonso mentioned, have been outstanding, voting Univision as the number one leader in ratings for the past 22 weeks.
Alexandre Moreira Penna da Silva - Chairman of the Board of Managers for Corporación Novavision and CEO of Corporación Novavision
Yes. And as to your second question to the new pricing and the new sales methodology, we are being more efficient in terms of utilization of our inventory. The new methodology provides that basically our Advertising customers cannot arbitrage us as they could in the past. In exchange for that, we're guaranteeing ready points. And what I can say, for example, as a result of that in the first quarter, utilization of prime time inventory has grown 10 points.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of Gregorio Tomassi from Itaú.
Gregorio Tomassi - Research Analyst
I have a couple of questions. The first one, you can give us an update on the pay TV dominance investigation and the pay TV dominance declaration whether or not it's we open and what are the chances of it actually resulting in any impact? And the second one is about government spending on advertising as a result of 2018 elections. If you can detail to us or give us some more color and how relevant and to what extent it can be redirected on to gains in the results of 2018.
Alfonso De Angoitia Noriega - Co-CEO & Director
Gregorio, as to your second question, Carlos, what is the percentage of governmental spending?
Carlos Ferreiro Rivas - VP of Finance
Yes, governmental spending on a consolidated basis is less than 2% and around 8% on the advertising business. We think it's cyclical. There have been some -- there was an increased spending from the government in the first quarter. We would expect that once the election gets closer. We are forbidden to sell Advertising to political party 60 (sic) [90] (corrected by company after the call) days prior to the election. What we would expect that after the election, government spending will get back to normal.
Alfonso De Angoitia Noriega - Co-CEO & Director
Yes, that includes, I mean -- 60 (sic) [90] (corrected by company after the call) days prior to the election, we can up sell advertising to any governmental entity.
Gregorio Tomassi - Research Analyst
Yes, but my question was towards after election results and after-election results. And I didn't hear well what the percentage was for government spending on a consolidated basis, meaning what's the consolidate basis and that's on consolidate on actual advertising on that from Televisa's consolidated revenues?
Carlos Ferreiro Rivas - VP of Finance
The 2% that I mentioned is on a consolidated revenue, and yes, we would expect that after the election, it will get back to normal.
Alexandre Moreira Penna da Silva - Chairman of the Board of Managers for Corporación Novavision and CEO of Corporación Novavision
And Gregorio, to your first question, that has to do with dominance on paid television. As we have mentioned in the previous quarter, on February 7 of this year, the Supreme Court overruled the resolution that was taken by IFETEL, which they determined that Televisa have substantial power in the paid television market. And then what happened is that on March 20, as a result of that resolution, by the Supreme Court, the IFT revised its previous resolution concluding that it does not have the elements to determine such substantial power in the market. And therefore, this news has any proceeding, previously started by IFETEL to impose asymmetric measures on Televisa was rescinded.
As a result of all that, specialized District Court has determined that IFETEL's resolution complies with the Supreme Court guidelines. So that closed that process in essence, and we have now been determined not to be dominant on the paid television market.
Operator
And your last question comes from the line of Soomit Datta from New Street Research.
Soomit Kumar Datta - Founding Partner & Analyst of Latin America
I have a couple of questions, please. First, can we go back to discuss last quarter's results strategically for the group. I think you have, I think, a strategic review we're seeing 2 or 3 asset disposals. I was interested in a little bit updated thinking on Content and distribution ownership and perhaps if you had any thoughts on the Comcast move Sky which seems sort of directly linked to that discussion would be interested in some updated thinking there, please. And then I got another question, but maybe if we go with that first.
Alfonso De Angoitia Noriega - Co-CEO & Director
Soomit, as we have mentioned in the past, we have continued exploring the possibility of spinning off certain assets, specifically the Cable segment. We are exploring this possibility. We are -- our thought it's around whether it's better to keep Televisa as a whole. I mean, as it is today, or whether spinning off certain assets makes sense. There are many schools of thought here. So it's not an easy thing to determine and not an easy thing to execute. However, we continue exploring the possibilities.
What I can say is that we believe that the assets that Televisa has are very valuable. And there, we have to determine whether the market is getting most assets the right valuation, for example, of Cable, and therefore, determine whether it's better for our shareholders to have separate assets or to keep everything under the same umbrella. We have seen what is happening on a worldwide scenario, and we have seen that there's many signs of the 20th century fox assets. On the other hand, Comcast is trying to buy Sky in the United Kingdom, et cetera. So different players are consolidating and other players are selling assets, so we're considering all that. We're also considering our local issues in Mexico, and therefore, I mean, once we conclude all this analysis, and as to whether specifically it's better to keep content and distribution under the same umbrella or whether it's worthy to spin it off, to spin some assets off, we'll be able to go to our board and then to our shareholders with specific proposals.
Soomit Kumar Datta - Founding Partner & Analyst of Latin America
Okay. Is there a time frame to any of that process?
Alfonso De Angoitia Noriega - Co-CEO & Director
Well, I think, yes, we'll like to wrap up this year.
Soomit Kumar Datta - Founding Partner & Analyst of Latin America
Okay. And then just a second question, if I may. Just on the World Cup, and I just sort of pull all the kind of guidance and commentary together. So if we look at, first of all, the Content business or maybe also Sky, will the World Cup be an EBITDA positive effect?
Alfonso De Angoitia Noriega - Co-CEO & Director
Yes, it will be.
Soomit Kumar Datta - Founding Partner & Analyst of Latin America
And that's been since 2018?
Alfonso De Angoitia Noriega - Co-CEO & Director
In 2018, yes.
Operator
At this time, I will turn the call over to the panelist for the closing remark.
Alfonso De Angoitia Noriega - Co-CEO & Director
Well, thank you very much for participating in the call. We're very excited about what we are doing here and the changes that we're implementing. We will continue to do this, and also, we will continue to have a strict discipline in cost and expenses. So it's -- it will been an exciting year for Televisa. Thank you for participating.
Operator
And this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.