ARN has released its results for the first half of its 2025 financial year and, while it is seeing bright spots in the realm of digital audio, its overall business has slipped somewhat.
The top lines were thus: ARN’s total revenue has dropped 7 per cent year-on-year to $142.3 million. Its net profit after tax was just $6 million, down a staggering 56 per cent year-on-year.
ARN CEO Ciaran Davis said during an analyst call that it was operating in a tighter ad market and that the Federal Election earlier this year had an impact on revenue in the first half.
ARN’s chief financial officer Alexis Poole explained that the “clearly reflect the transformational benefits” of its “strategic initiatives” with improvements in gross margin, disciplined cost-out programs and tight control over working capital and capital expenditure.
Those strategic initiatives include the divestment of its Hong Kong out of home business, Cody. Davis said the process of its sale is underway and he hoped to have an update for the market soon.
Poole added that it ARN’s restructuring plan to remove 240 roles from the business was well underway with two-thirds of the roles gone by June and 97 per cent gone by the end of the month.
“The reset is delivering a leaner, stronger, more focused business, capable of accelerating growth and realising the opportunity presented through the growth of digital audiences,” added Davis.
He did concede, however, that ARN had delivered “softer” top-line results than “we would like” but it had delivered the foundations to build in the second half of the year and into 2026.
So what are those foundations? Well, it isn’t KIIS in it current state, which it conceded was “underperforming” despite Kyle & Jackie O being the most-listened to breakfast show in the country.
“Our Gold network is outperforming the market. However, the KIIS network has underperformed but we are actively addressing the evolving nature of advertiser demand for KIIS, refreshing our content and commercial approach,” said Davis.
ARN’s regional radio assets are outperforming its metro assets, too. Since H1 in FY23, metro’s share of ARN’s revenue has dropped from 58 per cent to 53 per cent, while regional has remained consistent at 38 per cent. Digital, meanwhile, has grown from 5 to 9 per cent. In terms of raw revenue, metro was down 12 per cent in the half year-on-year and regional was down 5 per cent.
Digital revenue, meanwhile, was up 21 per cent year-on-year and and 51 per cent from two years ago.
Despite saying radio was ARN’s “foundation” Davis and Poole seemed to be of the opinion that the business had reached something of an inflection point in its switch to digital.
At present, 42 per cent of ARN’s audience is on digital platforms. However, only 10 per cent of its revenue is in digital. Rather than a mis-matched appropriation of advertising dollars, Davis and Poole believed this offers ARN a significant opportunity for growth.
To this end, Davis said it would be announcing a “significant iHeart product update in October” as well as the roll-out of new data and adtech capabilities and the launch of new commercial and digital products.
