Growth in roadside billboards, street furniture rail and airports has powered oOh!media to a strong first half of 2025.
Australia’s largest out of home company lifted revenue by 17 per cent to $336.2 million, earnings (EBITDA) were up by 27 per cent to $62.2 million and net profit after tax was up 46 per cent to $26.5 million.
The third quarter revenue is pacing up 5 per cent year-on-year, with August and September forecast to improve after a softer July month of bookings. On the back of the results announcement, oOh!media’s stock price fell by 9 per cent at the time this article was published.
This represents an impressive comeback after a 2024 financial year in which oOh! delivered flat growth, most notably during a sluggish first half in which revenue fell by 3 per cent.
oOh!media chief executive Cathy O’Connor said the turnaround this year is down to several factors, including a more buoyant outdoor media sector, as well as efforts to restructure its sales operation (a new product and partnerships team is now led by Mel Duffy). Thee business has also made it easier for customers to go to market.
“We’ve done a lot of work around our speed to market and giving our sales forces self service tools and things that they can get the best responses into the hands of customers. We’ve strengthened the leadership of the area, and that’s focused our strategy into the right customers, and we’ve had a lot of new talent join the business,” she told B&T.
“So a combination of all those things has just showed that we have grown our share broadly, and things like our office and fly environments have have been part of the focus, as has obviously the new assets that we bought into the business. Just getting those out there and creating the interest and the conversations to grow our share of the briefs that we’re getting.”
Breakdown by format
oOh!media’s increases in roadside billboards (up 19 per cent), street furniture and rail (up 19 per cent) and airports (up 43 per cent) caught the eye, with the only blip being flat growth in its retail business due to a softer advertising market in Australia. This was still better than the 10 per cent drop in retail in the comparable period of 2024.
Most of the growth oOh!media reported was organic, with only 20 per cent due to new contracts and assets. oOh!media’s network 35,000 assets that it claims reaches 98 per cent of metropolitan Australians each week.
These include growth in revenue from rail and street furniture assets across the Sydney Metro and Woollahra Council. On the flip side, oOh!media booked a $30 million impairment charge after losing the Auckland Transport contract.
Looking ahead, oOh!media stands to benefit from the lucrative Transurban motorway contracts in Melbourne and Brisbane, which the company won from JCDecaux earlier this year.
O’Connor said road and transport was “ahead of our expectations” and described the addition of Transurban’s motorway assets as “roadside gold”.
“We have another $90 million of new contracts, of which only 20 per cent of that is playing into the current result. So a lot of the upside in future years will be new assets for us, but equally, there’s still a lot of opportunity to keep optimising those established assets that we have. We certainly don’t run full inventories in all those environments, and there’s still lots of opportunity to bring new types of customers out of home,” she said.
oOh!media’s retail media arm, reo, will play a small nut strategic role of incremental growth. oOh!media expects it may contribute around 10 per cent of EBITDA within the next few years, and break even in 2026. At present, reo works with two retailers, Officeworks and Petbarn, and is in “active discussions” with a host of other mid-tier retailers.
Another innovation that should sharpen oOh!media’s offering is MOVE 2.0, which appears to delayed until 2026. O’Connor said that some of its larger format assets are ready to roll out the new measurement system, but more work needs to be done on data that is being shared across the board.
MOVE 2.0 provides additional data points by measuring regional audiences, new place based environments such as universities and offices, and offers seasonal audience data.
“Given that we have an exposure to all formats, we’re the largest in regional Australia and we have a good amount of place based stuff with offices and universities, we think we’re going to benefit proportionally very well,” O’Connor said.
O’Connor’s legacy
O’Connor may not be around to see how MOVE 2.0 benefits oOh!media; she is due to hand over the reins to former SBS boss James Taylor either later this year or early 2026.
Since joining oOh!media at the start of 2021, O’Connor has led the business through one of its most turbulent periods, joining in the second year of COVID. She will leave oOh!media and the outdoor sector in better shape than when she arrived.
“A big highlight is just this structural shift to out of home, which as the largest player in the industry we’ve been championing. From the day I walked in the door and during COVID, we ended up at 10 per cent of SMI bookings. Today, we’re now at 16.5 per cent and counting. I’m enormously proud of the role oOh!media has played as a big advocate for the channel.” she said.
“Then the business has really transformed. There’s a lot more discipline in the business, you can see that in our profit results today. We’ve won all these new assets and converted or renewed many of our large marquee contracts, and we’re moving into a period of stability.
“So I think for the incoming CEO, there’s plenty of things to contemplate for the future, but the grounding and the base is very, very solid.”
O’Connor’s impact has not only been on oOh!media and the outdoor industry, she is one of few senior women to run a listed media company in Australia, and offers words of advice to other aspiring female leaders in the media industry.
“I would say, step forward, back yourself and believe that you can do it. Increasingly, we’re about to go into an era where women will stand alongside men in corporate Australia,” she said. “I would like to think that in the media space, we can be the example of that. So role models matter, and I hope I’ve been able to contribute in that sense to the industry.”
