A tale of two TV companies: Nine bullish on AI and regulation, Seven shares sink
Australia's two biggest TV companies both admitted conditions in the ad market are challenging and both laid out plans to deal with it. But the market wasn't convinced.
Australia's two biggest commercial television companies, Nine Entertainment and Seven West Media, held their annual shareholder meetings in Sydney today. Both admitted that current conditions in the advertising market are challenging, and both had stories for how they plan to deal with it. But the market only found one of them convincing.
There were almost more executives than shareholders present at Nine Entertainment's annual shareholder meeting in North Sydney on Thursday, at which the company confirmed revenue for its core free-to-air TV business was down 12% in the September quarter. Balanced against this, the company said its publishing business saw a 12% increase in digital revenue growth while it expects streaming service Stan to grow revenue and EBITDA this year.
Chief executive Mike Sneesby pledged to keep a lid on spending, and even said costs in the TV business would decline this year, excluding recent investments in NRL and cricket. “There’s a lot of efficiencies across the business that don’t require us to be, let’s say, chopping out or compromising things that we are doing,” he said.
On a call with reporters following the meeting, Sneesby confirmed the company has entered into live talks with AI firms for the use of its content to train their models.
