UPDATE 2-Rogers Communications profit slips on wireless costs, TV

(Adds details from conference call)
TORONTO, April 18 (Reuters) - Rogers Communications Inc
RCIb.TO spent heavily to get smartphones to its wireless
customers and could not add enough Internet business to offset
shrinkage of its television and landline phone business,
contributing to a slip in earnings reported on Monday.
Canada's biggest wireless provider by subscribers, and a
major cable and media company, Rogers posted a 2.75 percent drop
in first-quarter profit, also hurt by restructuring costs and a
wider loss in its media unit, but said it remains
well-positioned to achieve its 2016 financial targets.
Executives for the Toronto-based company told analysts on a
conference call that Rogers was willing to spend more to attract
the high-value wireless customers it covets and had matched
promotional pricing offered by both wireless and television
rivals.
"There is an appetite to go after higher-value customers and
pay the appropriate acquisition costs," said Guy Laurence, the
company's chief executive.
In the quarter Rogers added 14,000 postpaid wireless
subscribers, who typically use more expensive devices and pay
more for service than prepay customers, while its wireless
equipment costs rose 17 percent.
The company also signed up 16,000 landline Internet
accounts, but lost 26,000 television subscribers and 10,000
landline phone accounts.
The company said it had net income of C$248 million, or 48
Canadian cents a share, in the three months to March 31, down
from C$255 million, or 50 Canadian cents a share, a year
earlier.
On an adjusted basis, it earned 51 Canadian cents a share,
down from 53 Canadian cents a year ago. Revenue rose 2.2 percent
to C$3.245 billion.
Analysts had on average expected Rogers to earn 53 Canadian
cents a share on revenue of C$3.243 billion, according to
Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Wireless revenue rose 5 percent but adjusted profit in the
unit was stable as the company paid more to subsidize the
increased volumes of smartphones, the company said.
Laurence said that advertising in conventional television
and publishing weighed on its media division while advertising
around sports programming had merely shifted to coverage of the
Blue Jays baseball team from NHL hockey, after no Canadian team
made the playoffs.
Rogers paid heavily to secure long-term NHL rights in 2013.
The company is dealing with heightened competition in
wireless, while pitching for its Internet services as the anchor
product for households shifting away from landline telephones
and cable television subscriptions.