Nine’s ad revenues exceed expectation

NINE Entertainment has flagged a better-than-expected start to the year, as families return to the couch for TV shows like The Block and Australian Ninja Warrior.

Chief executive Hugh Marks told investors at Nine’s annual general meeting yesterday that the ad market for the first half of 2017/18 had been at the upper end of previous earnings guidance, while good ratings had lifted Nine’s share of the metropolitan TV ad market above 39 per cent, compared to expectations of 37.5 per cent.

It comes after the broadcaster posted a $203.4 million dollar loss in the 2017 financial year.

“The market is certainly a little better than what we anticipated back in August and our share of the market has accelerated from where we thought it would be at this point in time,” Mr Marks said.

Driving the network’s successful ratings is the growing demand for new premium content including Married At First Sight and The Voice but, in particular, audience demand for Australian Ninja Warrior and The Block.

Australian Ninja Warrior brought in an audience of 2.5 million while season 13 of The Block delivered a 20 per cent lift in audience growth across all demographics in the firstquarter and was well received on its catch-up service 9Now, with 5.5 million long-form streams.

Mr Marks said premium content and rights would continue to be a major focus for the network and will help compete against the $6 billion video market – which includes competitors Google, Facebook and Netflix – by monetising through its investments including free-to-air channels and 9Now.

“We aren’t blind to the fact that audiences are fragmenting,” the CEO said.

“The fact is the media that is on the rise is video and video is the thing that people are consuming.”

Earlier in November, rival television broadcaster Seven West Media cited financial pressure on the back of competitive industry headwinds, disruption from global players and increasing content costs.

It announced it would make $25 million worth of job cuts over the next 12 months to offset falling ad revenues and a competitive TV market.

Mr Marks said while there was a lot of change going on behind the scenes at Nine, he said job cuts were not on the table.