Macquarie Media’s Full-Year Profit Jumps 24%

It’s soon to become part of the Nine family, and Macquarie Media has put its best foot forward with some decent results for the last financial year.

Macquarie Media posted an underlying net profit after tax of $21.5 million for the 12 months to 30 June 2018 – up an impressive 24 per cent on FY17. The company’s revenue was up four per cent to $136.3 million during the period.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation grew 10 per cent in FY18 to $32.4 million, while Macquarie Media’s operating costs rose 2.2 per cent to $103.9 million.

Macquarie Media chairman Russell Tate described the results as “solid”.

“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 per cent compared to overall metropolitan market growth of 3.8 per cent.

Tate noted that Macquarie has also increased its overall share of market revenue despite the significant impact on short-term revenue potential from switching its three 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 four per cent to our total revenues,” he said.

Tate added that he was excited about the prospect of Macquarie Media being in a position to work more closely with Nine if its proposed takeover of the radio network’s biggest shareholder, Fairfax Media, is completed.

“Such a combination would in my view present opportunities for Macquarie to both deliver and benefit from significant synergies,” he said.

Macquarie Media CEO Adam Lang said the company has never been in stronger shape

“We are dedicated to the customer service of our audience, clients and staff,” he said.

“As we approach our 100th year and position ourselves for the second century of operation, we aim to grow our news-talk and Macquarie Sports Radio networks to continue to give a positive return to shareholders.”

With these positive results, you can understand why Macquaire Media’s second-largest shareholder, John Singleton, isn’t keen on offloading his stake in the company just yet.

Advertise with us

Please login with linkedin to comment

financial results macquarie media