MediaWorks weighing up acquisitions despite posting $4.8m loss
Monday, 31 May 2021
Radio and outdoor advertising business MediaWorks says it is looking out for acquisitions after selling its television business to US entertainment giant Discovery late last year.
The company on Monday reported a loss of $4.8 million in the year to December 31, after a $12m write-down, with revenues stable from its ongoing businesses at $184m despite the impact of Covid.
The company’s full results, which have yet to be put online by the Companies Office are expected to show how much Discovery paid for MediaWorks’ TV business.
Chief executive Cam Wallace said MediaWorks radio advertising revenues had remained robust during the pandemic and this year had been better, providing the company with a “clear road to profitability”.
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“The core advertising market has probably bounced back quicker than most media participants had anticipated.”
A number of advertisers including Vodafone, Spark and Kiwibank stopped advertising on MediaWorks’ talkback channel Magic Talk in January amid outrage over racist views expressed on the show.
But chief operating offer Jeff McDowall said some of that lost advertising had been redistributed to other MediaWorks services and overall the impact of the Magic Talk boycotts on MediaWorks this year was not proving material to the company.
Wallace said with regard to acquisitions that MediaWorks was looking both for additions that could give its core business “more scale” and that could add to its portfolio.
“We are at the stage of assessing some assets and we’ll have more to say on that in the next few months.”
MediaWorks was looking at some small incremental assets but also some more significant ones, he said.
These could include other radio stations, he said.
“We are keeping an open mind about all assets, but we do want them to be in the media segment.”
Wallace said MediaWorks employed about 690 staff, a bit over half the number it had when it owned its TV business before Covid.
“It is certainly a different business,” Wallace said.
MediaWorks was “pretty comfortable” with its staff numbers now, he said.