Seven West Media boss James Warburton welcomes Matildas’ success amid ‘challenging’ year

The Matildas’ success has been a ratings bonanza for the free-to-air broadcaster but the Kerry Stokes-led company’s annual profit has taken a hit.

Seven West Media chief executive James Warburton said the Matildas’ success has entered “another stratosphere” and the record ratings has been overwhelming for the free-to-air broadcaster.

He said Seven could see the potential of the Matildas’ after their performance at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and knew that a FIFA World Cup on home soil in Australia would be a winner both on and off the field.

“A World Cup locally is just going to be phenomenal particularly when you have such an inspirational group of athletes,” he said after the company released its full-year results on Wednesday.

“We felt they would go deep into the competition but to expect the types of numbers that we’ve been getting is just extraordinary.

“We thought it would go well but this is just another stratosphere.”

The broadcaster, which partnered with Optus to sub-license the rights to 15 World Cup matches for just over $4m, has had record-breaking numbers in 2023 and the quarter-final against France on Saturday night drew a national audience of 4.193 million viewers, official figures from ratings firm OzTAM showed, including 456,000 viewers on streaming platform 7plus.

“Full credit to Optus, particularly to Kelly (Bayer Rosmarin) the CEO … they did go to market knowing the nation would probably want to see this for free and I think they deserve a bit of credit.”

Optus charges customers to watch matches via subscription packages.

Seven West’s full-year results showed its annual net profit took a big hit in the last financial

year, falling 30.9 per cent to $145.7m.

The Kerry Stokes-led company said no dividend will be paid to shareholders after revenue edged back 3.3 per cent to $1.5bn, while earnings fell 18 per cent to $279.7m.

The media company’s leverage was steady, with net debt at $249.4m compared to $256.5m in the year prior.

Seven West’s digital earnings have grown at a compound annual growth rate of more than 65 per cent to $139m and digital earnings for the last financial year were also at $139m, but Mr Warburton concedes it was a “challenging” 12 months.

“Five years ago our digital revenue made up two per cent of company, now it makes up 49 per cent of company,” Mr Warburton said.

Sam Kerr. Picture: Steven Markham/ via Getty Images

Despite the significant falls, Mr Warburton said the 2023 financial year results were “solid”

“We have delivered a solid result for the 2022-23 financial year in what was a challenging environment, primarily driven by the 7.9 per cent decline in the total TV market over FY22,” he said.

Seven’s streaming platform, 7plus, has 6 million active users and the company is looking to grow this when the AFL and cricket go live on its platform from September 2024.

The company’s print publication, The West Australian, saw its digital subscriptions revenue increase by 17 per cent during the last financial year.

The company also spent $15m on shares under its buyback scheme.

Mr Warburton also noted Seven’s continued dominance in the TV ratings after the network crowned number one for national audience for three years in a row.

He also praised the new ratings system VOZ – which captures BVOD (broadcast video on demand) viewing – was launched in May.

“Getting VOZ into market and making that the currency where we have a proper measurement and a proper reach measurement of all our screens and what they are doing versus the linear television area,” he said.

The system captures viewing on 16 million devices regardless of a user’s location.

Seven West shares fell on the result, down 4.5 per cent to 38c each in midmorning trade.