HT&E, the owner of ARN, has ruled out further acquisitions following its purchase of Grant Broadcasters earlier this year.
In January, the company completed its acquisition of the regional radio operator. The move brings ARN’s stable of owned and represented brands to 135 stations across 71 markets.
HT&E and ARN CEO Ciaran Davis says that while there are strong businesses in the market, the network isn’t looking for further acquisitions.
“We're certainly not looking at the moment,” Davis tells AdNews.
“We have a big job to do to get this integration right and merge with our metro business.
“We have bought a really, really good business. Bringing the two together is a great opportunity, and that's what we're going to stay focused on for the next 12 months.”
The company in February announced results for 2021: a 15% lift in revenue to $225 million for the year to December; and profit up 135% to $14.8 million as the radio market recovered.
The company sees strong indicators that life is returning to some normality post COVID, positioning HT&E to drive shareholder returns in the current financial year and beyond.
While Grant Broadcasters’ agency sales division is being integrated with ARN’s national office, Davis says ARN won’t be making changes to the regional radios’ local content.
“The local market and local content is very important and strong in the business, and the opportunity is growing a national offering to our national advertisers into regional markets,” Davis says.
“The breakfast shows they have, the announcements they have during the day - we’re not going to change that at all. Obviously, there's some syndicated shows later on the day of the weekends where we put our own content in, but the adherence to that ethos of live and local is very important to us.
“That’s been hammered home, particularly over the last three weeks with the floods in Queensland and NSW.
Davis says the company has already seen strong interest from advertisers with ARN’s extended reach into regional Australia.
“We're very encouraged by the level of interest we have seen into March, April and into Q2,” he says.
“So very strong and that's really without hitting the ground too hard. In the next couple of weeks, we're going around all the markets to introduce ourselves to clients so it’s very positive, early signs.”
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