Nine flags tough ad market and Meta in staff pay proposal
In an email to staff, Nine management said the post-pandemic advertising bubble had "well and truly burst" and that the challenged revenue environment justified a lower pay increase than staff had expected.
Nine Entertainment has flagged a weak advertising market and Meta’s efforts to wriggle free of news deals as challenges facing the company’s publishing business, as management and staff ramp up talks over a new pay deal.
In an email to staff late Wednesday afternoon, Nine’s managing director of publishing, Tory Maguire, said the post-pandemic advertising bubble had “well and truly burst”. The pressure on revenue, she said, was expected to persist for a considerable time and justified a lower proposed pay increase than staff had hoped.
“As I made clear to the union and employee delegates, our Publishing business is in a challenging position as we head into FY25. The post-pandemic advertising bubble has well and truly burst with market projections suggesting it will be at this ebb for a considerable time,” Maguire said in the email, seen by Capital Brief.
“Whilst our subscriptions strategy remains strong, we must remember that advertising is still a critical part of our business — it makes up almost half of our annual revenue. This is in addition to Meta’s change in position to the deals it made with Australian publishers under the News Media Bargaining Code,” she wrote.
