ARN radio revenue dives after weak KIIS performance
ARN’s radio revenue has fallen during the first half of 2025, with low advertising demand for its KIIS stations pinpointed as the primary reason for a metro market plummet.
For the first half of calendar-year 2025, ARN’s metro radio revenue fell by close to $10 million year-on-year, from $85.24m to $75.26m, representing a 12% drop.
Regional radio revenue dropped $2.9 million, from $56.6m to $53.7m – a modest 5%.
Digital revenues saw a $2.4 million increase, from $11m to $13.4m, a 21% increase that couldn’t offset the sluggish radio results.
Overall, ARN’s radio revenue dropped by 9% year-on-year. The division turned a $3.8 million profit before tax for the half, compared with $11.4 million for the first half of 2024.
At ARN’s earning call on Wednesday morning, Ciaran Davis noted the “2024 audience challenges” that carried into the first half of this year.
Ciaran Davis
“GOLD is overperforming, however KIIS is underperforming,” he said bluntly. KIIS is “actively working on shifting its operating model … refreshing our content for commercial results”.
ARN and KIIS are currently bearing the load of the $200 million, 10-year contract with Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O Henderson. The second-half of 2025 will see a content reset across the entire station, Davis promised.
Whether this will involve toning down what former chief content officer Duncan Campbell has referred to numerous times as the “graphic sexual content” of the show remains to be seen. Late last year, Campbell told Mumbrella Sandilands had agreed to tone down the content in 2025 in a bid to increase his show’s standing in the competitive Melbourne breakfast radio market — where they are ranked eighth in terms of listenership.
However throughout 2025, Sandilands has constantly rallied against censorship, last month declaring on air “ACMA can shove it in their arses, and so can the management of the radio station.” The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) chair Nerida O’Loughlin has previously confirmed the show received 59 complaints between July and November, 2024.
In late June, Sandilands participated in IMAA’s Sound Byte event at ARN’s North Sydney headquarters, where he implored “agency people” to ignore the noise and just go where the audiences are.
“Your job is to make sure your client achieves the great success with their campaigns, regardless of where they’re advertising … come to where the people are. We’ve got the listeners. They’re the people that are buying, you know, fridges, freezers, cars, holidays. That’s who listens to us.”
Should investors read into the fact Kyle and Jackie O’s photo was the smallest on the presentation title page shown during ARN’s results call?
ARN Media’s total revenue from continued operations fell by 7%, from $152.8 million to $142.3 million, which Davis credits to the “softer ad market”, while also noting an advertising spike in April due to the federal election. Continued operations exclude Cody, ARN’s Hong Kong-based out-of-home business, which it is actively looking to offload, and creative agency Emotive, which it sold its majority stake in last month.
The company reported a bare profit of $800k, down from $7.8m last year (NPAT, profits after tax).
Underlying EBITDA, which CFO Alexis Poole said the company considers the primarily measure of its performance, sat at $24.9 million for the half, down from $28.8 million – a 14% year-on-year drop.
In good news, ARN has cut its debt from $88.4 million to $77.5 million — a 17.2% cut — while the company has “actioned” $35m of the $40 million cost-out program it initiated at the start of 2025, with the majority of these savings to be seen by the end of 2026.
To this end, 240 jobs will have been cut by the end of the year, with 97% of these to be made by the end of this week.
Underlying costs decreased by 5%, to $120.8 million, while the company is focused on “simplifying its operating model, divesting non-core assets, resetting teams, acquiring top-tier talent, strengthening its brands, and advancing its data and digital capabilities.”
The second half of 2025 will see a revenue percentage drop in the “low-to-mid single digits”.
Davis stressed to shareholders that 2025 should be considered “a year of reset”.
“The clear message to take away is we are making clear progress”, Davis said. “Strong and deliberate progress”.
Whether or not the shareholders bought the reset message is unclear: there were no questions asked during the Q+A portion of the investor call.
Davis ended the call by pointing to the company’s 2026 upfront in October.
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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