Despite the massive blow to radio over the course of the pandemic, the Murdoch-owned Nova Entertainment network has reported a 28 per cent lift in their profits.
Lachlan Murdoch (pictured) acquired Nova in 2009, becoming its chairman, a position he continues to hold.
As originally reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, Nova saw its profits rise by 28 per cent despite a significanr revenue decrease in 2020.
Nova Entertainment received $10.6 million from the government’s JobKeeper program last year. According to Nova, those payments went to staff and most stations stopped receiving the payments in September, while Melbourne stations stopped receiving them in December due to the lockdown.
While radio has seen impressive rebounds this year, it was one of the industries severely affected by the pandemic last year.
Back in April of 2020, radio advertising fell by 12.4 per cent across Australia’s commercial metropolitan stations.
According to the SMH, Nova saw their net profits lift to $16.88 million last year, even though their revenue decreased from $210 million in 2019 to $161.4 million in 2020.
A spokesperson for the network told the publication that, “early last year when we could see the full impact of COVID we expected the drop off in revenue to continue for the next 12 to 18 months. As a result, like most companies, we reviewed costs across every aspect of our business and based on our drop in revenue, we applied and became eligible for JobKeeper in April 2020.”
