APN News & Media set to sell off Australian Regional Media as revenues continue to slide
APN News & Media saw its profits drop by 7% year on year according to its full-year results, with the company signalling it will sell off its struggling Australian Regional Media arm.
ARM posted a revenue decline of 7%, down from $202.1m to $188.5m. The division’s local display ad revenues was the only part of the business to post growth, up 1% year-on-year from $86.2m to $87.1m.
Audience revenues were down 4% and national revenues were down 13%.
ARM consists of 12 daily newspapers including The Gladstone Observer and Gympie Times, more than 60 community and non-weekly publications and 30 regional news websites.
Tiny typo: “pront subscribers”
Hi Angus,
Thanks for flagging – fixe dup now.
Cheers,
Alex – editor, Mumbrella
They get an ex radio boss at the helm and then they purchase another radio station. A co-incidence. I think not.
Would be interesting to see how APN run under this new regime. It will possibly end up as a radio only business i reckon
It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
Hard to imagine anyone would be lining up to buy the newspapers for anything more than petty cash money. EBIT of $18.4m and revenue down 7%. If those numbers continue for the next 2-3 years (which is extremely likely) the company will swing to big loses.
Which media company would touch them? None.
Which bank/private equity fund would touch them? None.
They will have to fire sale them and reduce all markets to once or twice a week print runs.
Sad for the staff and the readers….but it will have to happen.
It’s APN’s own fault. They could have done a million things to improve their image and brand. They could have printed their newspaper sheetfed on 73 GSM gloss paper. TV and movies have gone high definition, why not newspaper?