ARN puts 2025 in the rearview as revenue and profits fall
ARN's CEO Michael Stephenson told investors that 2025 was a transitional year -- and pointed toward a bright multi-format future
ARN is writing 2025 off as “a year of transition”, as net profits dropped by 68% and the company hacked away at costs.
During the investor call on Wednesday morning, new CEO Michael Stephenson sold investors on the future shape of ARN, where it can “create and distribute content across multiple platforms and monetise that content off the one cost base.”
Stephenson said that 2025 was all about transformation, a year that saw the company cutting costs and resetting its strategy.
“We put a line in the sand that says we’re going to transition from a traditional business to a more digital business, an entertainment business,” Stephenson said.
“We’re in the executional phase. The vast majority of my time is spent on how we execute that plan across our entire business, diversify revenues, and generate greater profits for our shareholders.”
Michael Stephenson and CFO Alexis Poole hosting the ARN investors’ call
It’s not surprising that Stephenson was keen to focus on the future during the call, given ARN’s lacklustre 2025 full-year results.
Revenue fell by 10% to $285.2m, a $30.4m year-on-year drop, while EBITDA dropped by 27%, to $45.7m.
Net profit after tax was $6.1m — a $13.3m fall from $19.4m in 2024 — representing a 68% drop.
Metro radio revenue dropped by 16.1% or $28.3m, from $175.6m to $147.3, in a market that only fell by 3.7% overall. ARN explained the underperformance as “a combination of broader market conditions and softer advertiser demand for the Kiis network.”
Stephenson said the company had implemented a “content overhaul and brand safety measures” to counter the advertising shrinkage.
While the CEO is talking about a more holistic “entertainment company”, metro radio currently represents 52% of ARN’s total revenue. Regional radio, which makes up 38% of ARN’s revenue, also fell, albeit by 5%, to $110.5m.
Digital revenue grew by 6.8%, or 1.8m, to $27.4m, less than 10% of total revenue.
ARN is growing its digital footprint
ARN delivered 24.1m in cost-savings during 2025, and increased its initial $40m cost-out goal to $55m between 2024 and 2027. It also reduced its net debt by $24.6m, to $63.8m, helped along by the sale of 8.2% of its SCA stake as well as the shedding of Emotive (see Tim Burrowes on the sale price of $1).
Note that in filing its accounts, ARN restated 2024 figures to exclude Cody and Emotive, both of which are classified as being discontinued. Emotive was sold back to founder Simon Joyce in May 2025, while ARN is actively looking for a buyer for Cody.
Stephenson also revealed the company has signed a 10-year extension with iHeart for its digital player. The length of this deal had never previously been revealed, with executives simply calling it a “long-term multi-year agreement” when asked in the past.
Stephenson said he sees “the convergence of audio and video as a clear medium term growth opportunity for ARN”. The company is planning to extend its existing radio and podcast assets into video formats.
“This will help improve the engagement, but also broaden distribution,” he said.
“Increased utilisation of our existing studio capability and use of our existing video technology enables video production at scale, importantly, with no incremental cost. This strategy is expected to diversify revenue whilst improving the long-term monetisation of core audio assets.”
ARN’s 2025 financial results (click to enlarge)
ARN’s chief financial officer Alexis Poole said that the company’s 6.8% digital revenue uptick was due to doubling live streaming revenue, and “was achieved despite podcast revenue decline”. Podcasting declined by 2.6m, or 20%, with its podcast market share falling from 34.9% to 24.2%.
Poole said this was due to cancelling “low margin third-party agreements with onerous minimum revenue guarantees. A conscious trade off was made to improve earnings, prioritise content ownership, reinvestment into ARN’s own podcasts, and a deeper integration into the iHeart ecosystem”.
“This is an example of our improved financial discipline.”
Looking to the current year, ARN expects revenue to be flat. It forecasts “low single-digit declines” in radio revenue, offset by digital revenue growing by the mid-high teens.
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In the Directors Report – Summary of Financial performance from continued operations – NPAT attributable to Shareholders is only 4.8 million down from 16.9 million (so down over 70%). Not only do they have overall net debt of 68 million. In terms of talent remuneration they owe Kyle and Jackie more than ARN is worth in Market Cap – Liquidate it, walk away from K&J, find a buyer and start again
The reported liability to K+J is $20m per year. You may be thinking of the headline that they had a $200m deal across ten years.
Tim – Mumbrella
Hi Tim – my understanding is that K&J are only 3 years into the deal (could be wrong) that would mean ARN still owes / has a liability of $140million – more than current mkt cap which will be about 109 million tomorrow
What a debacle!!
I do hope the previous CEO and senior executives are living comfortably, on money they squirreled away during their, highly remunerated, time with the company.
Some blame should be directed at the Board though. Seems many of the members have been asleep at the wheel!