News

Seven West Media profits drop

Seven West Media – owner of the Seven Network, Pacific Magazines and The West Australian – has reported lower revenues and profits, and written down the value of its magazine business and joint venture Yahoo!7 in results announced to the ASX today.

The company reported EBITDA profts – earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation – of $480m, down 10 per cent from 535m in the previous financial year.

As a result of the writedowns, the comapny said that its had made a loss after tax of $69.8m.

The company wrote down the value of PacMags by $227m and Yahoo!7 by $61.5m.

While write downs in the value of PacMags comes as no surprise given the state of print advertising, the writedown of digital company Yahoo!7 is more unexpected, given that online is still growing. However, the company dropped out of the group buying market earlier this year, two years after spending $40m on Spreets.

TV remains the biggest part of Seven West media’s business, and the Seven Network helped deliver a profit of $290m, only 3.5 per cent down on a year before.

Advertising revenue in The West Australian was down by 16 per cent, while profits were down 25.5 per cent to $86.6m.

Ad revenue for PacMags was down by 20.7 per cent to $77.7m while circulation revenue was down 5.3 per cent to $168.3m. Profits were down by 26.6 per cent to $29.3m

The report also reveals the salaries paid to key executives.

Former boss Don Voelte received $2.5m.

Seven sales boss Kurt Burnette received $1.276m.

PacMags boss Nick Chan received $927,337.

Former Yahoo!7 boss Rohan Lund, who is now chief operating officer, received $1.12m.

Chris Wharton, boss of West Australian Newspapers, received $1.436m.

Tim Worner, boss of the Seven Network, received $4.173m.

seven pay

seven staff pay

The report also reveals that Chan is on a one year contract, while Worner and Burnette are both on three years

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