Seven West Media reported a 6% drop to $727 million in revenue for the half year to December.
A “soft” advertising market resulted in total television revenue also down 6% or $16 million.
The media group has been tightly managing costs, which were down 2% to $635 million.
CEO Jeff Howard said Seven is, based on bookings to date, seeing an improving advertising market with the March quarter tracking low single digits above last year.
“With our cost guidance reaffirmed, we therefore expect to see earnings in the current half to modestly exceed those in the same period last year,” he said.
He said Seven West Media’s December half results reflect the ongoing soft total TV advertising market and the impact of major one-off sporting events.
“Mitigating the full impact of these revenue headwinds was an increase in our total TV revenue share to 41.5% (up 0.5 points) and the benefits of our year-on-year operating cost savings initiatives,” said Howard.
“Seven’s total TV audiences are up 1.5% year on year, excluding these one-off sporting Events.
“Our content strategy successfully mitigated the Olympic Games impact in the first quarter and the launch of 7plus Sport commencing with the AFL Grand Final drove a step change in audiences as the first half progressed.
“Total TV remains strong and more relevant than ever with 43% audience growth on 7plus more than offsetting the modest decline in linear audiences of 1.8%.”
Howard said Seven is making solid progress under a new operating structure to reshape the company into a better, more agile and returns focused business that can adapt to the challenges and opportunities in the changing media landscape.
“Our clear objective is to stabilise and grow earnings and cash flow irrespective of advertising market conditions,” he said.
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