Nine's ratings revival and prudent cost control has inspired a remarkable turnaround in performance with the network ending the financial year with increases in profit and earnings.
The improved margin was delivered in a soft TV ad market with group revenues down 3.5% to $1.24 billion. This included a 4.4% drop in TV revenue to $1.08 billion and a 3.2% increase in digital revenue to $154.7 million.
Disciplined spending, including a 2% cost reduction in TV operations, as well as improvements to audience and revenue share in the second half of FY17 helped Nine grow its net profit by 2.7% to $123.6 million.
The group’s EBITDA increased by 2% to $205.6 million, helped by $33 million saving in the removal of licence fees.
Nine booked an annual loss of $203.4 million largely due to a $260 million writedown of the value of its metro FTA business and an $85 million charge to exit a content deal with Warner Bros.
Excluding the Olympic weeks, Nine has claimed a commercial network audience share of 37.1% for 25-54s across the full day and says it has the largest full day share across key advertising demos in FY17.
The network’s metro share for the fiscal year was 35.7% but there was a noticeable improvement from 35% in the first half to 36.4% in the second.
"Our sales strategy is going to plan. We have momentum and are now delivering revenue and share growth," Nine chief sales officer Michael Stephenson said.
"In the June quarter, we grew by 2.4 points and delivered a 38.4% share, our strongest result for the year. We have now overtaken our immediate compeititors and in the months of May, June and July we have regained a position as the number one network in both advertising revenue and share."
Nine is confident the improvement will continue buoyed by the unprecedented ratings hit Australian Ninja Warrior and another strong performance by The Block. It has forecast its FY18 metro share to hit 37.5%.
Nine’s September quarter is on track for a 15% improvement in revenue this year with longer lead times on bookings a sign the market is improving.
Other highlights include growth in Nine’s AVOD to more than 4 million registered users generating revenue of $78 million. SVOD Stan, which Nine part owns with Fairfax Media, has passed 800,000 active subscriptions.
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