Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) released released its H1 2025 financial year results yesterday and the top line figures were pretty strong—particularly in a radio market largely going backwards.
Its net revenue climbed 5.3 per cent of $209.7 million compared to the same period in the first half of the 2024 financial year. Its net profit after tax stood at $3.6 million, up from the $2.2 million loss it made in the first half of the last financial year. It’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) stood at just $0.1 million, however.
SCA’s CEO, John Kelly, told B&T following the results announcement that he was pleased with the results, though its share price, which he described as “still depressed” from COVID slipped 2.27 per cent.
“We’ve worked very hard across our three audio pillars, Metro, Regional and Digital to increase share no matter what the market conditions are. We’re probably flat in Regional but in Metro, we grew by 1.6 share points in the half, which is a remarkable achievement,” he said.
“We grew Metro 4 per cent in a flat market and in digital audio, we grew to 42 per cent of the market, up 28 per cent… Some of the market commentators are suggesting that you can’t grow digital audio at the same time as growing Metro radio as they cannibalise each other. Well, it’s not the case. We’ve been able to achieve both at the same time and it’s not a flash in the pan. We’ve told the market that we’re going to be up at least 6 per cent for the Q3 result, which I suspect, again, will be above market growth.”
SCA’s LiSTNR digital arm grew its revenue to $22.1 million and achieved EBITDA profitability—again $0.1 million—for the first time.
SCA ascribed its results to its “continuing dominance” of the 25-54 audiences in metro and regional radio markets.
Kelly said that there was a “growing acceptance” that digital audio was now part of the “buying suite” of all digital marketers, though it had “taken some time to get there”. But now, SCA was not targeting the Commercial Radio Australia digital buying pool, it was eyeing stealing share from Spotify and other large international digital audio players.
In the half, SCA finalised the sale of its 3-Agg TV Licences to Network Ten and the deal will complete on 1 March. That sale should gift SCA some $6.35 million, $3.75 million upfront and $2.6 million to be received through the provision of transitional service arrangements. SCA said it intends to apply up front cash consideration from the sale of its television assets towards reducing net debt.
The audio business also appointed Toby Potter as its new chief financial officer. He had been its acting CFO since December.
Kelly said that the business was as “optimistic as it has been for some time” about the overall economy and its potential for growth.
“It’s without doubt the most optimistic we’ve been about future economic conditions. That’s part in what I read day-to-day in the various business papers but in part on what we’re seeing in day-to-day bookings and the length of those bookings out until May and June in terms of where the money is falling. I’m no different I think to Cathy O’Connor [CEO of oOh!media], Jeff Howard [CEO of Seven West Media] and Matt Stanton [acting CEO of Nine]. We’re all saying things are looking better,” he said.
There was, perhaps, a small elephant in the room. Last week, it cut eight per cent of its workforce—equivalent to around 140 staff—from the marketing, an internal media unit, TripleM’s Night Shift and some regional breakfast shows.
“We need to be preforming at our optimal best in terms of the way we run our business. Even with all the changes and the removal of TV, we still have 1,200 people across 40-odd markets. And how we sustain those people is having the best possible business model going forwards. You know, the reality is, our share price is still depressed from where it has been in recent years. We need to focus on returning back to shareholders and therefore having a sustainable business model which we can again invest in moving forwards… We’ve guided that our costs have been pretty much flat since ’24 and will be so in ’26 on a non-revenue loaded basis. That’s the minimum of all media companies, we’re not alone, everyone is trying to be as optimal as they can in terms of their cost base,” he said.
“I do have empathy for the people that we had to unfortunately say goodbye to last week, but we’re also focusing on the people in the business.”
