ARN Media slumps further after watchdog moves to ban sex talk from The Kyle & Jackie O Show
ARN Media’s nightmare week on the ASX continued today with investors seemingly spooked by news of the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s plan to put an onerous new condition on Kiis FM’s Sydney licence.
ARN lost 5.1% after the ACMA filed a legal notice that The Kyle & Jackie O Show will be banned from talking about sex. Having a formal condition attached to a licence ultimately gives the regulator the power to suspend or revoke it, although it is a sanction that is believed to have never previously been used.
Sandilands today told his listeners that he was contemplating leaving radio.
News of the new licence condition came just a day after ARN Media warned that a worsening advertising market means that it now expects to report a fall in its 2025 profits of up to 27%.
ARN is down by 11.4% over the last five days, with its 46c share price only just above the all-time low of 44c it hit back in August.
The audio company now has a market capitalisation of just $144m.
Meanwhile, the market rewarded audio rival Southern Cross Austereo, which gained 2.4% today while its merger partner Seven West Media gained 3.7%. As had been widely anticipated, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said that it had no objections to the deal.
It was also a bad day on the index for Nine, which lost 3.5% today taking its market cap back well below $1.8bn.
And research house Pureprofile saw its share price slump by 5.8% today despite a new report from Evolution Capital suggesting that PPL shares should be worth 11c. They closed the day on 5c.
The Unmade Index significantly underperformed the wider ASX All Ordinaries which was down 0.5% today. The Unmade Index fell 1.85% to land on 448.3 points.
