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eMedia Holdings, which owns e.tv, eNCA and OpenView, said on Thursday it was pleased with stability in its core profit for its year to end-March, which came even as unprecedented load shedding hit industry advertising revenue to the tune of R500 million.
Group profit fell about 10% to R378 million in the year to end-March, the group said, and while it cut its dividend a fifth to 20c per share, it managed to slightly grow operating profits.
Profit fell amid a R16 million deferred tax asset raised in the prior year, while the company also spent an additional R20 million on marketing as part of its fight for eyeballs. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda or core profit) rose slightly to R667.2 million.
Revenue of R3.1 billion was only R20 million less than the previous year despite the under-pressure television advertising cake and a reduction in the eNCA licence fee received from MultiChoice, it said.
eMedia said despite the pressure from load shedding, it once again outperformed the market in terms of advertising revenue in both the television and radio market.
"This benefit in advertising revenues can be attributed to the group maintaining prime time audience market share at 34.5% in March 2023 from 34.1% in March 2022, a slight increase year-on-year," it said.
"The group is forging ahead with numerous technology advances and strategic planning to continue to be the audience share market leader," it added.
Shares in eMedia, which is valued at about R1.4 billion on the JSE, were down almost 10% in afternoon trade on Thursday, and have fallen almost a quarter in the past year.
Click here for more details about the group.
