News

Macquarie Media sees profit surge on talk show revenue growth

Macquarie Media saw its profits surge on the back of a four percent increase in revenues over the last financial year, the company said in its annual report.

The network, which dominates Melbourne and Sydney’s AM markets with its 2GB and 3AW stations, reported EBITDA growth of 10% to $32.4m and net profit after tax of $21.5m, a 24% surge over last year.

Macquarie Media chair, Russel Tate: “”We have also seen in FY18 an exceptionally strong performance by our sales teams”

Chairman Russell Tate said in the announcement: ““This is a solid result and reflects ongoing performance improvements across most of our business units. Our news-talk stations have continued their ratings dominance in Sydney (2GB) and Melbourne (3AW), and we have seen strong and sustained audience growth from 6PR in Perth and a healthy audience increase in the last survey of the year from 4BC in Brisbane.

“We have also seen in FY18 an exceptionally strong performance by our sales teams who have achieved year on year revenue growth on our news-talk stations of 9.0% compared to overall metropolitan market growth of 3.8%.”

In April, the network rebranded Sydney’s 2UE, Melbourne’s 3EE and Brisbane’s 4BH as Macquarie sportst readio, a move which Tate said added to the company’s bottom line.

“We have also increased our overall share of market revenue despite the significant impact on short term revenue potential of the switching of our 3 east-coast “Talking Lifestyle” stations to the new “Macquarie Sports Radio” format.

“This new format will take time to build audience and revenues and we are hopeful that it will achieve break even revenue levels during FY19 which will add a further 4.0% to our total revenues.”

In the half year results earlier this year, the network wrote down the value of its broadcasting licences by $34m which saw the company record a 39% profit fall despite raising revenue in the first six months of the financial year.

ADVERTISEMENT

Get the latest media and marketing industry news (and views) direct to your inbox.

Sign up to the free Mumbrella newsletter now.

 

SUBSCRIBE

Sign up to our free daily update to get the latest in media and marketing.