While things in the television, video and film media markets have not been easy, Carlton Communications Plc has increased both interim profits and turnover, helped by sustained recovery at its video and sound products division, which includes Quantel – developer of the computer-based Paintbox television graphics generator. Pre-tax profits rose 16.3% to UKP55.1m, on turnover up 56.5% to UKP508.3m. The board are recommending a 10% increase in dividend to 7.4 pence. The London-based group said that, although the market for broadcasting and post-production equipment is still fragile, Quantel’s concurrent editor, Henry, sold well, while revenues from Paintbox were up 26% year-on-year. And Quantel will soon release a couple of new products onto the market, Clipbox and MicroHenry. Clipbox is an on-line digital disk-based presentation system, which takes images off a tape, puts them on a disk in an intelligent disk array, and then plays them. It should be available around June. MicroHenry is a simpler and cheaper off-line version of Henry, which should start shipping in the summer. June will also see the release of California-based ImMIX’s first and only product, VideoCube – ImMix was set up in 1991. VideoCube is an on-line non-linear digital video editing system, which has an Apple Computer Inc’s Macintosh user interface and a Macintosh kernal. It uses a Wavelet algorithm for video compression and provides compact disk quality audio and broadcast quality video. VideoCube costs $38,500, and will be offered only in the US. Mixing desk manufacturer Solid State Logic, which now generates approximately 50% of its sales from digital products as opposed to analogue, and digital video equipment builder, Abekas, also contributed to a 13.6% rise in divisional turnover to UKP70.1m; profits rose 50% to UKP12m. Trading at the film and television services division and the video and audio production and distribution arm was generally stable. But sales at broadcast television tripled as a result of the group winning the franchise from ITV. Despite the costs of launching Carlton Television, the company still has a strong balance sheet, with net cash of UKP50.3m.
