Senior executives at Nine Entertainment had their bonuses cut as the media group reported weak annual results in a challenging advertising market.
Nine Entertainment posted a 31% fall to $134.9 million in net profit after tax for the year to June. Revenue was down 3% to $2.6 billion.
Total TV revenue fell 10% to $1.13 billion over the full year, impacted by a "weak" advertising market which continues into the current September quarter.
The company is slashing costs, with $100 million the target by the end of this financial year, and shedding staff to meet the market downturn.
CEO Mike Sneesby and his executive team lost some of their short term bonuses because the company didn’t hit its earnings target.
Sneesby was awarded only 22.5% of his short term incentive.
His total remuneration, calculated on an actual basis rather than statutory basis, came in at $2,125,136 for the year to June, more than $570,000 less than the previous year.
Chief sales officer Michael Stephenson was paid $1,248,243, down from $1,820,118.
Both got a pay rise starting last financial year. Sneesby’s base pay went up 7.1% to $1,500,000 and Stephenson’s 4% to $990,000 effective from July 2023.
Journalists at Nine, who went on strike during the start of the Olympics, won inflation based pay rises over three years (4%, 3.75%, 3.75%).
The strikes came after the media company cut 90 jobs from the mastheads and union members passed a vote of no confidence in CEO Mike Sneesby.
The company has also launched an external investigation following allegations of a toxic culture in the newsroom.
Nine also has a new chair, Catherine West, following the resignation of Peter Costello, who was involved in an altercation with a journalist from The Australian who was questioning him about the company’s workplace safety issues.
Nine’s short term incentive (STI) plan is calculated 50% on the achievement of a group EBITDA target and the rest on individual measures.
In a “challenging” operating environment, the 2024 financial year reported EBITDA result of $517 million was below the target of $553 million.
“Therefore no bonus was paid … for this portion of the STI,” the company said.
Individual targets for the bonus included goals focusing on key initiatives including continuing the growth in the digital businesses, cost base management, build on revenue, audience and market share, securing key commercial deals, commercial maximisation of the Olympics broadcast, and building on the leadership and culture initiatives.
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