SCA sees fall in profits and revenues
Southern Cross Austereo has revealed a drop in profits and revenues in the last financial year.
Although on air scandals did have an impact on the company’s metro radio share, the biggest hit came from the poor performance of its regional TV operation.
Revenue for the company was down by 6.5 per cent to $642m and EBITDA profits were down by 6.6 per cent to $210.9m.
However, the company’s regional TV business was down 12.9 per cent to $214.4m. The Southern Cross network has affiliate agreements with Seven and Ten. The fall came mainly as a result of declining ratings for Ten. SCA has a market capitalisation of just over $1bn.
SCA CEO Rhys Holleran said: “TV declines of 12.9 per cent contributed significantly to the falls while radio continues to show its resilience as does local advertising.”
SCA’s main radio networks are Triple M and the Today Network.
A chart in today’s investor presentation makes clear the impact of on air scandals including Kyle Sandilands’ attack on a News Limited journalist and the Royal prank call which led to a British nurse’s suicide. In both cases, the Today Network’s share of advertising revenue dipped significantly.
SCA and the Australian Communication and Media Authority are due back in court next month to argue whether the media watchdog is entitled to rule against Today Network’s Sydney radio station 2Day FM over the phone prank incident. If SCA loses, the ACMA could order the station’s licence to be suspended or revoked.
Mr Holleran said on the matter: “We are very confident in our position, and we are very happy with it, we have nothing else to say on it.”
Despite the negative numbers, SCA shares were up about 5 per cent on the ASX in early trading.
And if you look at the detailed annual report it paints a pretty poor picture for their metro radio business – revenue down 11m, Ebitda down, audience share down across key demos with increased marketing spend. Not a great report card for them
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Pretty sluggish all round but regional TV has fallen off a cliff last 2 years. F11 close to $270m in regional TV, F13 $214m in regional TV.
NPAT stable YOY but this stability is due to 11m profit on an asset sale.
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How can the management at SCA continue to bury their heads in the sand over their responsibility to manage their ‘announcer incidents’ and deliver well below par annual results. They are incompetent and should be held accountable for these poor business results. The radio business is in pretty poor shape
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Its one thing to critisize the results by themselves but how do the results stack up against competitors. I think you will find the results are much more positive
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@mumbs I think you’ll find your very wrong. ARN and DMG are both growing nicely from what I hear
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