Macquarie Radio Network Ltd

MACQUARIE RADIO NETWORK LTD Sydney, August 22, 2008; Macquarie Radio Network (MRN) today released its results for the year ended 30 June 2008. K e y Financial Results for FY08 • MRN revenue increased 3.87% to $44.848m • Radio and Other Revenue increased 1.71%. New Media Revenue increased 121.32%. • Expenditure increased by 8.4% to $38.426m, with Radio expenses up 2.5% and new media expenses increasing by 127% as four websites were rolled out across the year. • FY08 EBITDA down 9% to $8.2m and NPAT down 17.9% to $4.415m • MRN to pay a final dividend of 1.5c – a total of 3c for FY08 (an interim unfranked dividend of 1.5c was paid to shareholders in May 2008). This final dividend will be partially franked to the extent of 25% and payable on 8 October 2008. Key Performance Results to June 30 2008 (Nielsen Survey 5, 2007 – Survey 4, 2008) • 2GB continued it’s dominance of Sydney radio, winning every survey across the year. 2GB has been Sydney’s No 1 radio station across both AM and FM for 33 consecutive ratings surveys. • Alan Jones has maintained his leadership in the Breakfast time-slot, with an average audience share of 15.7%. • Ray Hadley dominates the Morning timeslot averaging a 14.4% share of the Sydney radio audience. During the rugby league season, the Continuous Call Team also brings a younger demographic to the station. 2GB was the No. 1 station for people 25- 54 in Survey 4, 2008. • 2CH has markedly increased its audience in FY08, with a 7.3% share in survey 4, 2008 up from a 5.7% share in survey 5, 2007 – and an average of 6.5% share for the year. 2CH now regularly outperforms Mix, Triple M and Vega, maintaining a strong leadership position in adult music listening. • Macquarie Radio Network registers the strongest time spent listening of any Sydney radio network, 15 hours per week, with the nearest network registering only 9 hours per week. With time spent listening significantly declining in the younger demographics over the past 5 years, MRN expects the relative competitive advantage of 40 plus programming to increase over the coming years. MRN is the No.1 network for Baby Boomers 40 – 64. • MRN’s online portfolio has registered a 200.8% growth in Unique Browsers in the period July 2007 – June 2008, with a cumulative total of 520,000 for the month of June. LiveNews.com.au was launched in August 2007 and has gained a national audience growing 1148.2% in the 10 months with approximately 340,000 UBs in June 2008. The strong organic growth is expected to continue this year. 1 MRN Chairman Max Donnelly said, “It has been a difficult year with regards to the advertising market but we believe we have the best talent in Australian radio. Despite the tough Sydney radio advertising market (down 1.17% for FY08) our radio business has produced solid results on the back of strong ratings. We are likewise very pleased with our progress in new media. We have built strong brands in both on-line news and sports. The popularity of our sites has seen traffic and revenue grow steadily throughout the year. LIVENEWS.com.au was launched in September 2007, followed by the new rugbyleaguelive.com site in March 2008. “All MRN advertising proposals now contain an online advertising component and this integration is delivering incremental revenue to the business.“ CEO Angela Clark said, “Operationally we have produced a strong result given the radio advertising market conditions. This really comes down to the quality of our talent across both radio stations. Both 2GB and 2CH have recorded remarkable ratings throughout the year. “Digital media is obviously a new area for us but we have recently launched on-line assets in news and sports which complement our radio business. The portfolio of online sites opens up new audiences and demographics, which continue to grow organically, creating further value for our media business.” The final dividend is payable on 8 October 2008. -ends- Media information: Antonia O’Neill - 0417 252 805 or (02) 9368 4555 2 .

Load more