Kerry Stokes’ Seven West Media has suffered a $1.887 billion full year loss after making major writedowns to the value of its TV assets.
Seven’s net loss for the year to June 27 was hit by more than $2 billion in writedowns and compared to a $149.19 million net profit for 2013/14.
The company warned that underlying earnings in the year ahead would fall by up to 10 per cent.
Revenue fell four per cent to $1.77 billion in 2014/15 and the final, fully-franked, dividend was cut by two cents to four cents a share.
However, Seven’s underlying profit of $209.1 million was in line with its earlier guidance range $205-$215 million.
The media player, which owns the Seven Network, Pacific Magazines and The West Australian newspaper, made $1.15 billion worth of writedowns during the first half of 2014/15.
Announcing the group’s full year results on Wednesday, chief executive Tim Worner said Seven had included another $973 million impairment charge relating to the value of its TV licences.
He said that while the overall advertising market had grown 3.1 per cent during the financial year, the metro TV market fell 1.6 per cent.
Seven expected low single-digit growth in the TV ad market in the year ahead, and there were early signs of improvements in the newspapers, he added.
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Worner forecast earnings before interest and tax to fall by between five and 10 per cent in 2015/16 from the $356.3 million made in 2014/15.
During the year, TV earnings fell to $296 million from $312 million, with revenues flat at $1.3 billion.
Newspaper revenues fell 10 per cent to $260.9 million while earnings were down by more than a quarter to $51.7 million.
Seven’s magazine revenues fell 7.3 per cent to $220.1 million and earnings were flat at $20.3 million.
Seven announced its results a day after it and pay TV operator Foxtel retained AFL TV rights in a record $2.5 billion deal.
