Seven West Media sees 4.1% drop in revenues


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Rebecca Hawkes

| 22 February 2016




Australian multimedia business Seven West Media has reported revenue of A$895.7 million in its first half-yearly report of the current financial year, marking a 4.1% decline year-on-year.


The group, which includes a free-to-air (FTA) TV network, saw its profit after tax grew 2.1% to $140.3 million, excluding of significant items, listed as $5.1 million in one-off redundancy costs as part of an on-going restructure.

Seven continued to generate the largest market share and revenue in FTA TV, with 11 of Australia’s top 20 most popular programmes. However, a general decline in advertising has impacted upon the commercial broadcaster’s business.

TV advertising revenue decreased by 5.8% to $562.3 million, but income from fees, programme sales and other television-related items was up 25.1% to $100.6 million, earning $662.9 million. The company said 7Productions, 7Wonder and 7Beyond now produce 670 hours of programming per annum.

“We continue to invest in producing our own content locally and internationally ... This focus is paying off with our third-party production and programme sales doubling this half, off the back of commissions from Foxtel, The Travel Channel, various UK broadcasters and continued demand for our formats and finished programs overseas,” said Tim Worner, CEO, Seven West Media.

Plus7 video streams are up 34% to 30.1 million year-on-year, and subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) subscriber growth for the Seven West Media/Foxtel joint venture Presto is reportedly up 210% in the first half in 2016.

“Digital revenue across the group delivered strong growth driven by new initiatives including that launch of live streaming,” Worner added.

The company’s newspaper and magazine business “remained under pressure”, the company said.

“For many years we have been reliant on the advertising market for the majority of our revenue and this will continue to be the cornerstone in the medium term. However we also need to diversify our business model to tap into new revenue pools in e-commerce, transactions and subscriptions,” said Worner.