oOh!media’s calendar year 2024 numbers have reported flat revenue growth over the year, though much of this can be attributed to a soft H1 performance, rather than underperforming across the year.
It reported revenues of $636 million for the 12 months ended in the December, just 0.3 per cent up on the $636.9 million in the 12 months prior. In CY23, oOh! reported seven per cent revenue growth.
However, its H2 2024 numbers were a marked improvement on its H1 numbers with the company predicting with 14 per cent revenue growth YTD in February 2025 and Q1 media revenue pacing up 14 per cent on the pcp. As a result, oOh!’s share price climbed nearly 10 per cent after the release of its CY24 results.
The broader outdoor market in CY24, meanwhile, was up 4.9 per cent, according to the most recent SMI data and eight per cent according to the Outdoor Media Association.
oOh! CEO Cathy O’Connor told B&T that much of the reason for oOh!’s performance over the calendar year was the exit of big contracts, including the Vicinity retail contract, worth around $30 million.
“When contracts move, share moves. But acknowleding there was a gap in organic share perofrmance against the market. That’s why we were very clear at the half-year to talk about energising our go-to-market and winning a lot of new assets,” she said.
“All the steps are in place for us to bring that share back to the business and that’s certainly starting to pay dividends. We saw big improvements in the second half, two per cent growth in Q3, five per cent growth in Q4 and then we’re pacing up 14 per cent in Q1. That is sales team performance, new assets and those are the things that shift share back to the business over time as contracts move around.”
“The Vicinity contract, the big impact was in 2024. We lost it in December for January, but we’ve won back more than double the value of Vicinity in new contracts,” said O’Connor, noting it had also added Sydney Metro, Woollahra Council, East Link, Melbourne Metro Tunnel and Manly and Waverley councils.
“There’s $68 million of wins against $33 million of losses. That happens over a period of time as assets are launched and built.”
At start of December, oOh! parted ways with its chief revenue officer, Paul Sigaloff. At the time O’Connor lauded him for leading oOh! to grow “programmatic revenue from a five per cent market share to 26 per cent” and its Premium Sydney network with assets such as Sydney Metro and Martin Place.
There have also been a number of redundancies at oOh! from across its business—though not exclusively the sales team.
“Any reductions in head count are around a simplification of process and a removal of layers in the business. Most businesses go through these assessments over time but we haven’t done anything to reduce the revenue generation capability of the business. If anything, we’ve probably had people tied up with inefficient processes and we’ve cleaned all that up and the headcount cuts relate to that,” said O’Connor.
A longstanding issue of oOh!’s has been the difficulty of media agencies to trade with it.
“I’m talking about how they engage with the market, how they present themselves to the market, how they trade with the market and work with the market. They needed to close that gap on some of their competitors, at least in Sydney, specifically with QMS and JCDecaux,” Chris Walton, Sydney MD of Nunn Media told B&T following oOh!’s Outfronts upfront event in Sydney last year.
According to O’Connor, there has been some movement on this front.
“By making it easier for our customers to work with us, providing them with access to the best assets and audiences, and partnering with retailers to explore new revenue adjacencies, we will continue to grow our market share in an improving OOH market. Winning three new customers for reo is a validation of our retail media offering and also our ambition to be the leading independent retail media business in Australia and New Zealand,” she said in prepared statements.
Broken down by sector, oOh!’s Road format declined one per cent in revenue following what the business said was a “strong comparative period”. oOh! added more than 50 new digital assets to its portfolio and strengthened its presence in Melbourne with the securing of rights to the landmark West Gate Freeway large format digital site, launching in July 2024. As part of this Victorian acquisition, a further eight new large-format suburban sites are now operational.
“In Road, we didn’t execute well in the first half but we really turned it around in the second half… But on balance, the national position for the year was flat but we are pacing strong double-digits in Q1 so we’ve turned that around,” said O’Connor.
“We were probably a little bit slow on some of our campaign responses, didn’t price accordingly based on market conditions but those things have certainly been addressed. We’re really out in front in Road now and growing share, which is great.”
In Retail, the drop was due to the exit of Vicinity. But O’Connor said that its efforts in digitising its remaining retail network was proving to be beneficial in the second half and into this year.
Its Street & Rail revenue grew three per cent for the calendar year following the Sydney Metro launch and an enhanced Sydney-Melbourne rail offering. In CY24, 224 new digital panels were commissioned, with the remaining 25 per cent of Sydney Metro and 50 per cent of Woollahra assets set for completion in CY25.
Retail was down 9 per cent, primarily impacted by the non-renewal of the Vicinity contract. Adjusting for this non-renewal, oOh! said its revenue increased by 10 per cent driven by the accelerated digitisation of the remaining portfolio and addition of 439 new digital screens across 113 centres. It added that it is adding more digital options to its Retail assets to offset the non-renewal, too.
Fly revenue rose 14 per cent, led by the Melbourne Airport rollout, including a new immersive digital screen in the arrivals hall.
City & Youth revenue increased 18 per cent, reflecting the partial return of CBD office audiences. The segment, which operates on a variable rent model, remains highly attractive, with 21 new office tower assets commissioned in CY24.
O’Connor said that these results were also attributable to improvements within oOh!’s CRM system and its ability to work with “enterprise products” that have longer lead times as well as hiring new staff.
“It’s principally more about executing better but also those societal factors of less time at home, working and the return of travel are playing into it as well.”
