Quadrant sold the sister, outdoor advertising firm QMS<\/a>, to Australia\u2019s Nine Entertainment earlier this year.<\/p>\nMediaWorks (which was split off from QMS in New Zealand last year) was not part of the Nine deal, and it remains under Quadrant\u2019s ownership with Australian businessman Barclay Nettlefold as its chair.<\/p>\n
Potential new owners include Sky TV or TradeMe\/Stuff, although there would likely be major shareholder and\/or financial hurdles and questions with those two options.<\/p>\n
Similarly, NZME, which owns most of the other commercial radio stations in New Zealand, would undoubtedly like to be in the mix for some of the music brands, but would likely face an uphill battle with the Commerce Commission.<\/p>\n
The Australian Financial Review\u2019s Street Talk column reported overnight that Jarden\u2019s New Zealand banking team had been appointed to run a sale process.<\/p>\n
It was being led by Jarden partner Sam Ricketts and director Jeff Palfrey, the Australian Financial Review reported, and non-binding indicative offers were due by 5.30pm on April 30.<\/p>\n
\u201cJarden NZ issued a teaser to potential bidders in January, seen by Street Talk, touting MediaWorks\u2019 dominant market position and reach across all major NZ markets with 59% share in 2025 and over 2.4 million weekly listeners,\u201d reported the AFR.<\/p>\n
\u201cInterested parties were told MediaWorks is forecast to grow earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation to $25 million by the 2026 calendar year, led by expected growth in radio and digital revenue, investment in the sales team and growth of its digital platform Rova. Revenue is forecast to increase to $163 million from $154 million in 2025, and has grown 5% since 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n
It also reported that the company was working on several growth initiatives, including increasing advertising minutes and boosting its sales team by seven. It was also looking at artificial intelligence (AI) voice advertisements.<\/p>\n
A MediaWorks press statement today outlined its financial results, but did not refer to any sale process.<\/p>\n
The company has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n
In February, Nettlefold told Media Insider: \u201cWe haven\u2019t actually made any decisions to offload it at this stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve spent a lot of time over the last several years restructuring the business. It\u2019s shown good growth, and we\u2019re very encouraged by where it\u2019s going at the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut certainly, it\u2019s the only media asset that we\u2019ve got sitting within the group now.\u201d<\/p>\n
In today\u2019s statement, Nettlefold said: \u201cThe successful separation of the audio and outdoor divisions has validated the strength of the standalone audio business. With a return to profitability and a clear strategic path forward, MediaWorks is exceptionally well-positioned to continue its growth as New Zealand\u2019s leading audio-led media platform.\u201d<\/p>\n
MediaWorks chief financial officer Mike Asbridge said: \u201cAchieving a $22 million NPAT turnaround in one year is a significant milestone for MediaWorks. These are the best results we have seen in a long time, both in terms of year-on-year growth and delivering a clear profit. It demonstrates that our brands and digital platforms are delivering exactly what both our audiences and advertisers recognise as high value.\u201d<\/p>\n
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand\u2019s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The post-tax profit of $3.8m was a turnaround of $22m from the $18.2m loss reported in the previous…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[95,1863,138,3239,1644,1138,2082,2936,19133,1073,15150,111,139,425,69,5340,4965,5909,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-389778","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-and","9":"tag-back","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-buyer","12":"tag-financial","13":"tag-firm","14":"tag-for","15":"tag-insider","16":"tag-looking","17":"tag-media","18":"tag-mediaworks","19":"tag-new-zealand","20":"tag-newzealand","21":"tag-now","22":"tag-nz","23":"tag-profit","24":"tag-radio","25":"tag-results","26":"tag-to"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}