Nine Entertainment has grown its revenues by 3 per cent to $2.7 billion with subscriptions to Stan and the Australian Financial Review standouts.
Nine’s Total TV revenue grew by 3 per cent to $1.16 billion, with broadcast TV flat and streaming revenue from 9Now up by 19 per cent to $225 million.
This signals an important milestone for Nine in which its streaming revenue gains more than offset the decline in broadcast.
Subscriptions revenues now account for a third of group revenue.
Just as pleasing for Nine’s top brass is that audiences across Total TV are up by 8 per cent, including 12 per cent growth in the key 25-54 demo.
When the impact of the Olympic Games was excluded, audiences grew by 2 per cent in total and 3 per cent for 25-54s.
This places Nine as the best performing FTA commercial broadcaster after Seven’s Total TV broadcast revenue fell by 8 per cent, albeit competing against Nine’s Olympic Games coverage.
“I am pleased with Nine’s performance in FY25, particularly in the second half, where we recorded growth in profit in both Streaming and Broadcast and Publishing – driven by strong audience performance and firm cost management,” Nine CEO Matt Stanton said.
“For the second year in a row, we recorded growth in total television audiences across the year, both including and excluding the Olympic weeks.
“Key properties like the Australian Open, the NRL Married at First Sight and our suite of news products have all reported growth in both streaming and becoming audiences. And importantly, this growth across the year extended to the younger demographics, with 10% growth in the average 16 to 39 audiences and almost 12 per cent in the 25 to 54s.”
Stan shines
Stan’s revenue growth of 10 per cent was driven by a strong subscriber performance across both entertainment and sport.
This was underpinned by coverage of the Olympic Games and Yellowstone’s final season, but other properties including Love Island, the Nicolas Cage Film, Surfer, Scrublands and Ten Pound Poms also provide audience spikes. As did Stan Sport’s coverage of the UEFA Champions League, Grand Slam Tennis, Super Rugby and International Rugby, culminating in the Lions Tour.
This helped to drive growth in the number of average paying subscribers, which is up to 2.5 million, and average paying sports subscribers.
The average revenue per user (ARPU), an industry metric used to calculate the value of each subscriber, grew by 6 per cent.
Stan’s EBITDA of $60m was up by 31 per cent and is a record result for Stan.
Publishing positivity
Nine Publishing revenue, which is 63 per cent digital, was down by $526 million, largely due to the withdrawal of Meta news content deal revenues and a softer advertising market. Digital subscription growth and cost cutting offset much of revenue decline, leaving publishing EBITDA flat year on year.
Nine’s Metro business recorded growth in digital subscription revenue of around 15 per cent, which excludes the impact of licensing revenues from Google (in FY24 and FY25) and Meta (FY24).
Increases in subscriber volumes and price at The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review, more than offset the decline in print masthead sales.
Total subscribers grew to more than 510,000 ( up 5%), while registered users increased to more than 1.9m.
Subscription ARPU increased by around 6 per cent across digital and bundle packages.
Domain reported an EBITDA of $146.0m ( up 7 per cent) on revenue of $413m (up 6 per cent).
Nine’s sale of its 60 per cent stake in Domain to CoStar, which is due to conclude today (27 August), will deliver Nine a $1.4 billion cash windfall.
Nine said that it continues to regard marketplaces as a key area of opportunity, through both its direct ownership of Drive, as well as partnership opportunities with other marketplace businesses, including Domain.
