New Seven West Media boss Tim Worner says the television and publishing group is working to overcome weak advertising markets after posting a $70 million full year loss.
The company fell into the red in 2012/13 due to writedowns on the value of its magazine business, plus redundancy and restructure costs, that totalled about $300 million.
The value of Pacific Magazines was reduced by $221 million, and Seven West’s investment in the Yahoo!7 digital businesses was also cut by $60 million.
Redundancy and restructure costs totalled $27 million, as part of the first phase of a cost cutting program.
The company has cut staff at the West Australian newspaper, but has offered no detail on cuts in other businesses.
The cost cutting program delivered $71 million in benefits in the year, and further benefits are expected to be realised in 2013/14, Seven West Media said.
When one-off items are excluded, Seven West Media’s underlying profit was $225 million, down one per cent from the previous year.
That was slightly better than the company had for forecast, and its shares were up 12 cents, or 5.2 per cent, at $2.44 at 1433 AEST.
Mr Worner, the former head of Seven Network who was promoted to chief executive at the start of July, said the business had performed well given lower advertising revenues and the technological changes facing the media industry.
“Our television business continues to lead in both audience share and advertising revenue,” he said.
“Our publishing businesses are out-performing their peers in what is a challenging market.”
“The company’s objective over the coming twelve months is to further strengthen our financial performance in a challenging advertising market.”
Pre-tax earnings from television dropped by 3.5 per cent in the 2012/13 financial year to $290 million, despite the company lifting its market share of advertising revenue above 40 per cent.
Newspaper earnings were down more than 25 per cent to $87 million, while earnings from magazines were down almost 27 per cent at $29 million.
Mr Worner said the company would focus on ways to grow its business and maintain market share in TV, newspapers and magazines.
