Things started going bad last October, but Nine’s CFO Matthew Stanton has told B&T his new employer is in a better position than most to weather the storm and continue to lead the market.
While the first quarter for financial 2024 looked “to be continuing the trend of double digit revenue decline”, the second quarter should see improving results, Stanton told B&T. However rather than a warming up of market conditions, the better results would be a consequence of the bad second quarter (October to December 2022) in financial 2023.
While the market may be ugly, Stanton said now was the ideal time to look to market share growth while balancing growth ambitions with cost discipline. Nine, after all, has a very healthy balance sheet compared with its main rivals as well as perhaps the most diverse portfolio stretching the total TV market, publishing (news media), radio and its 49 per cent share in Domain.
Stanton joined Nine in September of 2022 as chief strategy officer, but was promoted to chief financial and strategy officer only earlier this month. Like his boss Mike Sneesby, Stanton is one of a handful of Nine executives who work across entire media empire. He told B&T his “board’s expectation for him was to support the executives working in individual businesses”.
On a personal note, Stanton told B&T “he was enjoying the job more than he had expected to”. Pointing in particular to negotiating the $305 million Olympic deal and devising how it wouldn’t just be a boon for TV, but an opportunity to make money across the business.
He also said moving “back” into Nine was a very easy transition thanks to his six year stint at what was Australian Consolidated Press (ACP), which subsequently became Bauer and then ultimately Are Media. ACP was at one time the centre piece of Kerry Packer’s empire alongside Nine.
“There were lots of familiar faces here at Nine thanks to my ACP deal.”
