Antony Catalano's Australian Community Media (ACM) has again upped its holding in regional television broadcaster Prime Media Group to almost 23% from just under 20%.
The company paid $2,637,578.16 for another 10,989,909 shares at 24 cents a share, taking the total holding to 84,219,336.
Prime shares closed yesterday at $0.245.
Catalano has been steadily buying shares from billionaire Bruce Gordon, the owner of WIN Corp and a substantial investor in Nine Entertainment. Gordon still holds 11.38% of Prime.
Last month Prime posted a 9.2% rise in full year revenue to $178.7 million. Statutory profit after tax was $19.6 million, up 195.6% on the year before.
CEO Ian Audsley: “Prime’s financial performance has continued to improve over the course of the past six months, with strong support from national advertisers."
This momentum continued through to the Tokyo Olympic Games with regional prime time audiences peaking at a 63.7 share.
Advertising revenues from the Tokyo Olympic Games exceeded expectations, with advertising revenues for July up 40% on the same time last year.
Prime’s audience share this calendar year in regional New South Wales and Victoria stands at a 45.4 share. The audience share in regional Western Australian has reached a 59.0 share. Prime’s east coast PRIME7 regional network is in its tenth-consecutive year as the market leader in audience and revenue.
Audsley says that Prime’s local news services in New South Wales and Western Australia have experienced strong growth with audience shares ranging from 51% to 80% this calendar year.
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