A soft advertising market has led to Nine Entertainment Company declining revenue by 5% YOY to $690 million in the first half of fiscal 2016. Net profit was also down nearly 10% to $80 million.
In a separate announcement, Nine chairman David Haslingden will step down to be replaced by former treasurer Peter Costello.
Costello had been an independent non-executive director of the company. He will start in his new role as chair as on 1 March.
Nine CEO Hugh Marks says the results were solid in a challenging advertising market.
“Competition from both within and outside the sector kept pressure on our revenues,” he adds.
“However,our stringent cost focus has resulted in a group-wide decline of 5% for the period, mitigating much of the revenue impact.”
Nine reported an advertising market share of 38.2% and a slight 2% decline in digital revenue due to lower display revenues. Digital video and search grew, helping digital achieve EBITDA growth of 13.4%.
The net proceeds of Nine's sale of its Willoughby headquarters, worth $135 million, are due to complete in 2017.
In the past year, Nine launched 9Life and catch up player 9Now.
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