Seven West Media chairman Kerry Stokes has accused the government of inaction on regulating international streamers and social platforms, saying that they have been able to “eat [Seven’s] lunch”.
Traditional TV networks have been in decline, with falling viewership and tightened traditional ad-based revenues.
“Unlike them, we pay our taxes, we look after our people, and we follow strict broadcasting rules in this country,” he said at Seven’s AGM yesterday.
“Unfortunately the federal government has failed to grip a legislative environment that allows Australia unvetted and guaranteed access to free sports broadcast programming.”
During the AGM, Seven’s CEO Jeff Howard, said that first-half trading for the current financial year had been mixed.
“Based on performance to date and forward bookings, Seven’s revenue for the first half of FY25 is currently pacing down about 6.5 per cent,” Howard said.
He caveated that number and said that when adjusted for one-off events such as the Women’s World Cup, the company’s underlying revenue would only be one per cent below the same time last year.
“SWM remains on track to deliver full-year net cost reduction of $20m-$30m versus FY24,” he said. Seven shares fell 3 per cent to 16c on Thursday.
Per The Australian, K Capital’s David Kingston asked Stokes whether there was any hope that the company would show a capital gain.
“Seven West Media shareholders have been punished with large capital losses and also no dividends since 2017. The issue here for shareholders is, is there any hope?” he asked.
Kingston also asked if shareholders should “give up” on the company and questioned why Seven had bought a large stake in media group ARN.
Stokes replied: “Unfortunately, I actually agree with you … there’s nothing you’ve said that isn’t true. We live in an environment which has changed dramatically, and it has changed because of streamers like Amazon, Google and Facebook, who are eating our lunch.
“And we’ve got a government and policy settings which make it impossible to contain them. They take our product, redistribute it in various fashions, they clip it, they put it on YouTube, they do all sorts of things with it for which we get no reward.”
Stokes said social media platforms had allowed users to populate content belonging to the company without any “reservation”.
“(Somehow) It’s OK for these people to clip it up and put it on TikTok or any form of platform they wish to without any reservation or control,” he said.
“If you go to TikTok, you’ll see more excerpts from Home and Away than you will on Home and Away … but we get nothing for that and our government doesn’t seem to think it’s worthwhile doing anything about it.”
