Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the oOh!media Limited FY 2021 results presentation. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Cathy O'Connor, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and welcome. As mentioned, I'm here today with oOh!media's Chief Financial Officer, Sheila Lines, and together we will take you through the 2021 full year results for the company. Over on slide 2, we touch on today's agenda. I'll start with a look at the highlights and our revenue and audience performance. Sheila will cover the financial results, and I'll return to talk about our future plans and the current outlook.
I'd like to firstly make a few comments before we take you to today's presentation. After 12 months in the role, I'm pleased to say, and as you'll see in today's results, that oOh!media has certainly returned to a strong growth path for the future. Today's message is not only about a recovery for oOh!media from the COVID impacts, but it's about structural growth beyond that for the sector and for our company.
When I joined the business a year ago, coming from another media sector, I was particularly upbeat about the prospects ahead for out-of-home and what I saw as the unique opportunities this medium has against its sector competitors. I remain upbeat with the benefit of a year in the role working within the sector.
In 2021 we took significant steps as a united industry to advance ourselves against other media. We launched our improved new measurement system, MOVE 1.5, providing measurement for digital out-of-home for the very first time on a sector-wide basis. We've worked with our customers, the advertising industry, on further strategies to make out-of-home easier to plan and to buy, and these will bear fruit for the sector into the future.
These moves bring additional strength to out-of-home and complement its existing strengths, from its mass reach audiences to its high impact, to the increasing ways that digitization is enhancing and improving the medium. We'll be talking more about that in the presentation today.
In terms of oOh!media as the industry's largest and most diverse digital operator, we are uniquely placed to benefit from sector growth and advancement. Accordingly, I'm leading the business focused on two main areas. Firstly, we remain focused within the out-of-home media sector for all the reasons I've just said, with a strong plan to drive revenue growth through digitization and a number of other key levers available to us, which we'll cover today.
Secondly, along with top-line focus, we have a particular opportunity within the diversity and scale that oOh!media has built to further optimize the business for profitable growth, to improve the efficiency and output of the business, and that process is also well underway. I look forward to elaborating more on these strategies for you later in the presentation.
That being said, I'll now take you to today's slides. If you have access to the slides, please move to slide 4. Starting with the highlights. oOh!media has delivered strong improvements on its prior year performance. Financial year revenues grew by 18% on the prior year, and underlying EBITDA grew by 24% on prior year. It's pleasing that road retail, street furniture, and our New Zealand business performed above pre-COVID 2019 levels in aggregate across November and December.
We have continued to digitize in key locations, and we're well-placed to participate in this strong return to growth in the sector. Our Q1 revenue for 2022 is currently pacing at 15% above 2021 and at 93% of 2019 pre-COVID revenues. The improved earnings performance and strong balance sheet as of December was geared at 0.8x and has resulted in the board declaring a AUD 0.01 fully franked final dividend payable in March this year.
Over on slide 5, we highlight the key financials for the year. As a result of a recovery in audiences and an ongoing focus on running a disciplined business, we delivered significant improvements in revenue and EBITDA. This has resulted in underlying EBITDA of AUD 77.6 million, which is 24% above PCP on a pre-AASB 16 basis. Revenue growth of 18% with COGS and OpEx growth at 17% on PCP.
Free cash flows return to more normalized levels relative to EBITDA, noting that the prior year benefited from the significant accounts receivable unwind in the first half of 2020, which Sheila will cover later. The balance sheet is in a strong position with only 0.8x gearing and a declaration of a dividend, which I also mentioned earlier. Now we'll move on to a revenue and audience update.
I'll ask you to move to slide 7. As was outlined in the interim results in August, the formats of road, retail and street furniture have performed strongly. These being less impacted by COVID-related audience declines than the formats of fly, office and rail. The road format, in particular, performed strongly with 34% growth for the year, but this was also 8% above FY 2019 revenues.
As you'll note from this chart, our growth in the second half was impacted by COVID lockdowns, and this was felt largely in the period from August to October, but this was then followed by a very strong recovery in November and December. Market share for the year was 44%, noting that the OMA has significantly expanded its membership base in 2021 to include all significant out-of-home operators.
This is an exciting development as we now have a fully representative industry body to facilitate growth of the out-of-home category. Again, we'll talk about that more in a moment.
Over on slide 8, we look further into the performance of our key formats versus FY 2019 on a monthly basis. In Q4, we certainly felt momentum in key formats. Looking to the right of this chart, we see that road, retail, street furniture, and New Zealand contribute to 75% of the overall revenue to O, on a pre-COVID FY 2019 basis. Rounding out the chart on the right, we can see that office and route formats contribute a further 15% of O's revenue and the remaining 10% comes from fly.
As a reminder, the bulk of fly's revenues are domestic passenger oriented. Due to the impact of COVID, the mix of key formats, road, retail, and street furniture increased to 91% of media revenues in FY 2021, with the balance of fly, office and rail contributing 9%. Now, looking to the left of the chart, we see that the key formats in the orange column perform closely in line with 2019 in the first half.
Following the downturn in the third quarter due to the New South Wales and Victoria lockdowns, there was a marked recovery from November, continuing through to January 2022 in all formats. To put perspective to that recovery, road, retail, street furniture and New Zealand built close to FY 2019 levels in November and then built further on that momentum to exceed FY 2019 run rate in December and into January.
We make the point, as we have in the past when looking at this analysis, that in these more audience-impacted environments of fly, office and rail, our rents have a larger variable component than the broader business and have benefited from key concession partners providing rent relief, and this, in turn, has lessened the margin impact of these audience declines.
Some further comments on the nature of our recovery over on slide nine. Having dealt with various forms of COVID lockdown for close to two years now, we consistently see that advertisers are very quick to return once restrictions are lifted or eased. These graphs show the revenue returns for road post-lockdowns in our two major markets of Sydney and Melbourne. From each graph, we see an emphatic return of advertising spend once lockdowns are eased.
December period in late 2021, where audiences recovered, we saw an even more pronounced surge in pent-up demand by advertisers. This really speaks to the underlying strength of out-of-home as a high appeal channel for advertisers who are keen to reassert their brands and position for the future. That concludes my comments on our FY 2021 performance.
To recap, out-of-home has continued to demonstrate that revenues return when audiences return. oOh!media has demonstrated the continuation of that trend with our strong growth in FY 2021, and this is despite the year being prone to audience fluctuations due to COVID. oOh!media has a strong exposure to those formats of road, retail and street furniture that are leading the sector's recovery and has accordingly delivered a much improved result in the fourth quarter.
I'll now hand over to Sheila and she'll take you through some further detail on the financials, and then I'll be back to talk about our future plans before we go to questions. Sheila?
Thank you, Cathy, and good morning. Before I provide commentary on the annual financial report, I highlight that these are principally presented on a pre AASB 16 basis, which is consistent with the presentation of the prior year comparatives. We believe this is appropriate as most analysts and shareholders analyze the company on this basis.
Our statutory reported results, including the application of AASB 16, are provided in the annual financial report and a reconciliation of key profit and loss items between our statutory results and these pre AASB 16 results is provided in the appendix for this presentation as well as in the operating and financial review.
Turning first to our income statement on slide 11. Revenues increased by AUD 77 million, 18% compared to 2020. Revenues for 2021 are also 78% of the pre-pandemic 2019 year. In aggregate, the formats of road, street furniture, retail and New Zealand were over 90% of the pre-pandemic 2019 year. As outlined by Cathy earlier, these formats returned to over 100% revenue momentum as audiences returned.
Office, rail, and fly were environments where audiences and revenues continued to be impacted by government measures to offset the effects of the pandemic. Our commercial arrangements in rail and fly include rent abatements to mitigate these impacts, which I will address in more detail on the next slide. Office is included in our locate business. Rent in office is variable and low compared to other formats, so gross profit remains positive notwithstanding the challenging external conditions.
Improved revenue for the period contributed to a gross margin uplift of 1.8 percentage points to 44.1% compared to the prior year, and a gross profit of AUD 222 million, a 23% improvement on the prior year. Operating expenditure, excluding depreciation and amortization, increased by AUD 27 million due to the reversal of AUD 25 million in prior year temporary labor savings, being JobKeeper and New Zealand wage subsidy, and also the implementation of a four-day work week across the company for three months in the prior year.
Temporary marketing savings of AUD 1.2 million in 2020 also reversed in the current year. Current year expenses do not include any government support. The business qualifies for JobKeeper and New Zealand wage subsidy for periods of 2021 as reported in the interim results. However, these 2021 amounts were repaid in the second half. The full run rate impact of operating cost savings announced August 2020 offset inflation costs for 2021.
Finally, higher than usual annual leave expense in the current year was offset by lower variable incentive expense. It is usual for incentive expense to vary depending on company performance in a period. However, the unusually high annual leave expense is due to the external conditions of 2021 and may reverse in the future. A new accounting standard in 2021 resulted in implementation cost of third-party controlled software no longer being eligible for capitalization.
The impact is not material for us and was AUD 1.2 million in the current year and AUD 0.6 million in the prior year, and is included in operating expenses. Current year operating expenses are now similar to the pre-pandemic 2019, with two years of inflation and costs which were previously capitalized in 2019, offset by the full run rate on Adshel acquisition synergies realized and cost savings implemented in August 2020. We have provided a comparison of the current year performance to the pre-pandemic 2019 on slide 31.
Efficient allocation of resources for revenue growth and margin expansion continues as a focus across the business and headcount remains flat over 2021 as revenues recovered. One-off transaction gains of AUD 3.7 million have been excluded from underlying EBITDA, consistent with the prior year treatment of such items. The 24% underlying EBITDA increase relative to the 18% revenue growth demonstrates the continuing operational leverage in our business.
On slide 29, we have provided an underlying EBITDA bridge year-over-year. Depreciation and amortization is AUD 3.3 million or 5% higher than the prior period. Net finance costs decreased AUD 9.6 million, principally due to lower average debt. NPAT was a profit of AUD 1 million for the period compared to a loss of AUD 24 million, and underlying NPATAR was a profit of AUD 13 million compared to an underlying NPATAR loss of AUD 9 million in the prior period. On slide 30, we provide a reconciliation of NPAT to underlying NPATAR.
Moving to slide 12. AUD 37 million of rent abatements were received during the year relating to the rail and fly environment. We reported AUD 19 million of rent abatements for the half. The quantum of abatements we will receive in 2022 in rail and fly will continue to depend on passenger numbers and revenue against a pre-COVID base. 2022 will not include abatements for Sydney Trains, as that contract was not renewed.
Moving to our cash flow on slide 13. Net cash from operating activities was AUD 64 million. The current year includes a net cash outflow of AUD 9 million relating to prior year COVID relief arrangements with commercial partners. No similar in current year. The prior year cash from operating activities benefited from a AUD 20 million unwind of working capital with a AUD 76 million unwind in the first half of 2020, subsequently reversing by AUD 54 million in the second half. Working capital over 2022, 2021 is substantially unchanged.
On the slide, working capital of non-cash items. While interest expense is lower than the prior year, interest and tax payments increased by AUD 9 million due to payments on the cessation of interest rate hedging derivatives in the year and due to tax refunds received in the prior year. Capital expenditure of AUD 15 million was focused on the digitization of key road sites, existing network, and our corporate requirements. New South Wales and Victorian lockdowns, second half lockdowns, impacted suppliers and installation teams.
While installations picked up pace in November and December, some projects intended for the second half will now complete in 2022, resulting in lower final capital expenditure for the year than the guidance provided in August. It is expected that full year capital expenditure for 2022 will be 45-50 million range and will consist predominantly of digital assets supporting revenue growth. No dividends were paid in the year.
Turning to the balance sheet on slide 14. Gearing continues to reduce due to both reduction in absolute net debt and an increase in EBITDA as calculated for the purposes of our bank covenant, which is on a pre-AASB 16 basis. Gearing is now 0.8 times. Given the strength of the company's balance sheet and the improvement in earnings in 2021, the board has now resumed the pre-pandemic dividend policy and declared a AUD 0.01 fully franked dividend, representing 47% of underlying NPAT pre-AASB 16, which will be paid in March 2022.
The board dividend policy of 40%-60% of underlying NPAT pre-AASB 16 reflects the non-cash impact of the adoption of AASB 16 and also that acquired intangibles do not have a cash replacement cost. The board will continue to evaluate capital management initiatives and consider the gearing in the short term of up to 1 time suitable while the pandemic recovery continues. I'll now hand back to Cathy.
Thanks, Sheila. We'll now look to the future. Please go to slide 16. From a longer-term point of view, the structural growth of out-of-home remains intact, with PwC predicting a 13% CAGR for the industry from 2020 through to 2025. The PwC outlook also predicts the medium to restore its share of the overall market to 7.3% by 2025. You'll also note on the left there, one of the world's largest advertiser groups, Dentsu, predicting sector recovery exceeding pre-pandemic levels in 2022.
Out-of-home has several factors that underpin this strong growth outlook. The medium has enviable mass-reach audiences, which are not under threat from fragmentation and are enhanced by population growth and planned growth in our cities. The industry association, the OMA, expanded its member base during 2021 to now include all of the main out-of-home operators, Shopper, Val Morgan Outdoor, and Westfield BrandSpace.
The industry has now updated its measurement system, termed MOVE 1.5, to include the measurement of digital out-of-home on a sector-wide basis for the first time. This is an important step for the sector, making it easier for advertisers to plan, buy, and measure out-of-home campaigns via an enhanced, more accurate, and importantly, standardized approach across all operators.
The sector is working collaboratively with agencies and advertisers in delivering these sector-wide improvements. We are also working towards more measurement innovations with MOVE 2.0, and this will provide even greater detail of measurement of monthly and seasonal variation, as well as hourly movements using a range of data sources.
Over on slide 17, we move to our strategy for future growth. I'll talk firstly about our strategy to focus within the core out-of-home sector. In doing so, our investments will be focused on the highest growth opportunities for the business. Further digitization for growth is a high priority, and we aim to further cement our position as the sector's number-one digital operator, maintaining our leadership in road, street furniture, retail, office, airports, and university campuses.
Accordingly, we have now completed divestments of assets which are non-core to oOh!media or that we considered subscale. Those have included Junkee Digital publishing, Edge, our events business, and out-of-home assets in health, gyms, New Zealand road, and New Zealand office.
Over on slide 18, we look more specifically at the pillars that will drive growth for the company. Our first pillar outlines our asset digitization plan. Our current base of more than 9,000 digital screens will be further strengthened in the retail and street furniture environments, and we have renewed the 100% digital Qantas lounge and in-flight contract, extending our long-term partnership with Qantas.
In our second pillar, we will drive top-line growth through a range of measures. Firstly, as out-of-home will increasingly trade in the currency of audience, continued investments in data to better target and monetize our mass audiences across our diverse formats is key. Secondly, growth through improved processes for rate and occupancy management. Thirdly, through diversification of revenues with increased focus on the SME market, where out-of-home is traditionally underrepresented despite its power as a localized medium.
Finally, the launch of oOh!media's new creative offering, post Junkee, we'll be working with advertisers to increase their ROI through better creative executions in out-of-home. To the right, our next pillar focuses on the evolution of the digital customer experience. At the interim results, I was excited to announce the launch of our Better Ways to Buy strategy for audience selling.
I'm pleased to say today that in addition to this strategy, we have now entered the programmatic market in the second half, introducing a new channel to oOh!media for revenue growth.
In our final pillar to the right, we continue to take a disciplined approach to running the business. As we did in 2021, we will further capitalize on the positive operating leverage in the business by maintaining our discipline on OpEx and improving our return on our investments, reprioritizing headcount so that we have the capacity to invest in critical roles for our future.
In summary, these four pillars increase OOH's scale as the most diverse digital operator in the out-of-home sector. Our plan builds on our capability to better optimize returns across our existing assets, while at the same time delivering new pathways for incremental growth. Over on slide 19, I really want to emphasize a few key points about digital out-of-home.
Before I do, I should firstly say that the unique power of classic or static out-of-home to build brands and offer 100% share of voice is widely acknowledged by advertisers, and this will continue to be the case. Advertisers have also, for many years now, increasingly invested in all forms of digital media for its immediacy, its flexibility, and the ease of trade. The digitization of out-of-home presents far more opportunity than just the conversion of a static image to a digital image.
There is now a breadth of opportunity to engage advertisers in new ways using digital out-of-home. The increasing sophistication to target audiences using data to capture consumers in the right place at the right time with the right messages to increase effectiveness is compelling. New technology continues to increase out-of-home's ability to provide an interactive, immersive, and high impact experience to consumers.
This profound evolution of out-of-home is happening globally and is one of the reasons why out-of-home is well-placed to increase its share of the overall media sector. Our company, oOh!media, has led the industry with innovations around data-led audience selling, and this remains a key part of our operating strategies. We'll now update you on our lease maturity profile.
Please move to slide 21. oOh!media maintains its balanced commercial lease profile. From the chart, you will see that over 50% of revenue attached to our leases has an expiry profile in excess of three years. Given our significant scale and diversity, no individual concession contributes more than 7% of CY 2021 group revenue or 6% of CY 2019 revenues. We continue to maintain and build a lease portfolio that has geographic, audience, and tenure diversity.
We'll conclude today with some comments about our outlook over on slide 23. Looking ahead, our total Q1 revenues are pacing at 15% higher than Q1 at the same time last year. Road, retail, street furniture across Australia and New Zealand are pacing at 50% higher than Q1 2019. In February, we've seen aggregate audiences return to pre-COVID levels. Omicron's impact has been limited, as indicated by the January interim SMI report, which indicated 12.7% increase in revenue for all non-digital media.
From an audience point of view, there has been less foot traffic in the environments of office and fly compared to pre-COVID levels. We note we are now seeing a broad easing of health restrictions in Australia. We expect our full-year CapEx to increase up to pre-COVID levels as the company resets for further growth, and the business intends to invest between AUD 45 million and AUD 55 million versus AUD 15 million in 2021.
On slide 24, I'll do a quick recap of our presentation before we hand to any questions. A solid result in FY 2021 and momentum into FY 2022, demonstrated with an 18% revenue uplift and margin expansion, leading to a 24% uplift in EBITDA. Net debt is down at 0.8x and a return to dividends. We've demonstrated how consistently we see revenue uplift as audiences recover with our Q1 pacing at 15% year-on-year and 93% of Q1 of 2019.
Our strategy is to maintain our efforts within the out-of-home sector to deliver profitable return for shareholders. A united and focused out-of-home sector is a great enabler of our growth story. That concludes today's presentation, and now Sheila and I will be happy to hand over to any questions you may have. Thank you.
Your first question comes from Entcho Raykovski with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hi, Cathy. Hi, Sheila. Firstly, I've got a question around the CapEx guidance for FY 2022. I'm interested in the extent to which this is driven by deferral from 2021, given that you came in, you could say roughly AUD 10 million below your guidance. And so is the AUD 45 million-AUD 55 million the new CapEx base, or is there an element of catch-up in 2022 from 2021?
Thanks, Entcho. Sheila here. What we're guiding is AUD 45 million-AUD 55 million for next year. Certainly, we have increased commitments at the end of the year of about AUD 10 million versus AUD 5 million for the prior year. You could classify about AUD 5 million of that as being projects that we would have otherwise completed this year.
Okay. If we're thinking about, I mean, I'm thinking forward beyond FY 2022. I appreciate you're not giving guidance today, but something in, if we take 5 off the midpoint, is that a good base to be thinking about? Or do you retain flexibility depending on what happens in the market?
Well, actual CapEx in any one year will always also be affected by which concessions are renewing in the year and whether there is a significant refresh of the assets. It does tend to move a bit, which is why we give a AUD 10 million range. It is, as we said, more normal CapEx levels, so it certainly is a good indicator of more normal long-term levels in the business, but it does vary year to year, depending what's happening across the concession rates.
Okay. Got it. That's very clear. Secondly, ad spend revenue growth trends that you've indicated for Q1. Is your base case that that can accelerate into the rest of the year? I'm just conscious that there are obviously lockdowns over the course of FY 2021, so the comps should become easier as the year rolls.
Hi, Entcho. I think the right answer to that is, you know, the external environment, we can't reasonably predict what will happen. We do know that the impact of Omicron has been marginal, in the data that we see and in our Q1 performance. It's difficult to predict beyond that, and we aren't giving guidance for that reason. We've probably learned over the last two years that the external environment is subject to change.
I think what we've tried to do today is to really make the base point that, you know, so long as audiences, the restrictions easing as they have been gradually, and also things like borders opening and so forth, that is all additive to performance. I think we really, like everyone else, are just, you know, of the hope that the worst is behind us. At this stage, the 15% year-on-year is the only indication we're giving in today's presentation.
Okay. Got it. Maybe I'll ask a final one. It is sort of related to the external environment, but just your view on the federal election impact on the out-of-home market. I mean, I'm just conscious that in the past it has had a funny impact, where perhaps it's been negative, a negative on out-of-home. Do you have any views on what might happen this time around?
Look, historically, federal elections are, you know, they create both a push and a pull. I think a lot of advertisers do pause their spends in anticipation of federal elections. Then, of course, we get a surge of government revenue and political party revenue. The one comment I'd make is relative to other mediums, out of home attracts proportionately less of that political party advertising.
Some of our environments prohibit us from being able to carry those types of messages. Certainly, government spending, you know, has been very, very strong for the sector and looks strong in Q1 as well. That element of elections we should participate in well.
Okay. Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Desmond Tsao with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Oh, thanks, operator. Morning, Cathy. Morning, Sheila. I've got a couple of questions as well. I guess maybe firstly, just on the revenue sort of comments you made into January. Obviously, you know, you've noted that your core segments are, you know, well above pre-COVID levels, but office and fly still lagging behind for obvious reasons. I guess I'm more curious about how you see calendar 2022 playing out.
Are you more or less confident, I guess, over the past few months that potentially, you know, your revenue profile could actually get back to pre-COVID levels, even if fly and office sees more of a prolonged slower recovery?
I think possibly a point of context for you to help with that question would be to look at our December performance, where we achieved 93% of our FY 2019 revenues with very little contribution from office and flight and rail. I think that does speak to the underlying strength of the formats that are leading the recovery. Further to that, in terms of the recovery of flight and office, we have said that we expect those recoveries to be slower than the core formats.
The core formats of street, road, and retail are really the substantial part of the inventory, 75%, and last year, even more than that. We think the recoveries will come gradually. The domestic passenger activity is starting to build, and that's substantially where the flight revenue is targeted. Obviously international will be somewhat slower even though the borders are open.
In terms of offices, I think once things like mask are further eased, we'll see a gradual return of audiences to offices. The point we've made today is that audience equals revenue, and like you, we're pretty keenly attuned to see those audiences reset.
Gotcha. I guess second question, just around programmatic. I think I may have asked this at the last result, but now with you guys sort of noting that you've launched in November, December around programmatic, just keen to revisit this topic. You know, hear from you how you're thinking about the opportunity here ahead, and I guess, you know, what sort of percentage of your revenue base do you think you can actually get from programmatic, as we roll through the calendar year?
Thank you. Yes, as we announced in the presentation, we launched our programmatic offering in November. For the purposes of today's presentation, I'm not gonna make predictions about, given it's very early days, about the percentage of revenue that we think we can attract incrementally to the business because of this new channel.
What I will say more broadly as an overriding comment on this development and developing area for the industry, it's a AUD 9.5 billion digital market in Australia, and programmatic is the third-largest contributor to it. There is a massive addressable audience there that OOH is currently not participating in. I think what we're going to see is the evolution of a sort of dual focus for out-of-home, what I would call a hybrid approach.
Where you're just going to frequent the medium because of all of the large, big branding value that it provides. Generally, if your approach in your campaign is for mass reach and audience, brand fame, then you're probably gonna continue to buy out-of-home traditionally. Increasingly, we think that programmatic will marketing objectives, things like reach extension, things like tactical campaigns, things like topicality, seize the moment.
All of these types of marketing campaigns have really been the domain of print media, radio, and to a lesser extent, television. You're gonna see out of home now appeal to both the top of the funnel and the bottom of the marketing funnel type campaign. I think it broadens our addressable market. For us, it's really the question is about what the right approach is to retain, you know, the significant value we have in our assets, and make sure that we're playing into this channel so that it gives us incremental growth.
That's very clear. Thanks for that, Cathy. That's all from me.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Fraser McLeish with MST Marquee. Please go ahead.
Hi, Cathy and Sheila. I've just got a few, I guess, Sydney Trains-related ones. First, can you just confirm there's no Sydney Trains revenue in that Q1 pacing that you've indicated? Actually, if you are able to say what you would be pacing relative to Q1 2019 without Sydney Trains in the base, that would also be really helpful.
Just also, Cathy, your latest thinking on the kind of network impacts of Sydney Trains, which you've kind of previously said you thought you could, you know, get that advertiser, you know, it wouldn't be a big network impact, if you could just what you're actually seeing. Then finally, just are there any OpEx savings that you're able to make as a result of losing that contract? Thanks.
Thank you. There is no train revenue assumed in that Q1 pacing figure that we've given you. In terms of the network impact of Sydney Trains, I think we got a lot of questions about the contract last year at the interim results and actually almost a year ago at the full year results as well. At the time, we said that even notwithstanding you know the appeal of the contract, it's quite a high-profile contract, but it really in terms of our network you know provided only a limit.
Even without trains, if you look across our assets in retail and street furniture, our reach of the Sydney Metro area is still in the city of 98%. We knew at the time that that contract was worth a certain amount to oOh!media, and of course, we were thinking about the revenue that we could deliver to the contract, the CapEx required, obviously, to update the plant, which was quite a high level, and also where it sat and the duplication within the network.
Also the fact that no contract represents more than 6% of our revenue at the time we made that bid. All of those things meant we bid what we thought that contract was worth, and in the process, we weren't successful. I think my comments remain that we still remain a very large, diversified out-of-home player across Sydney Metro. Also a note that we're now one year closer to the tender for Sydney Metro trains.
Again, that was part of our consideration when that tender was submitted. Of course, Sydney Metro trains will provide significant duplication of aspects of the Sydney Trains contract. That's in our thinking as well.
Cathy O'Connor, I'll take the rest of Fraser's question. Fraser, in Q1 2020, there was very little rail revenue in either of the contracts given the environment. We are prohibited under our confidentiality agreement from detailing. I know that investors would love to have the exact details, but we are prohibited from doing so. We have provided an adjustment on that, an adjusted contribution on a pre-COVID basis from our combined rail and locate businesses.
In terms of OpEx, obviously, clearly, there are all the direct OpEx savings that go with that contract in it, which was largely through the COGS line, where we have operatives on that contract who would be maintaining those. It does affect the OpEx lines that would be going through COGS.
Great. Thanks a lot. That's helpful.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Darren Leung with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for your time. I've just got two questions, please. One is just on the revenue maturity profile slide. We're working through the percentages, the 13.8 and the 21.9. In calendar year 2022, it looks like it's increased pretty materially versus the 5.4% previously. I know there's a bit of a change of the 2021 versus 2019 revenue, but on a dollar million basis, it looks like it's doubled. So just a reconciliation there, please.
The second one is just on rental concessions. Presumably you're striking these deals sort of every 12 months, but can you just get a feel for how we should think about them in calendar year 2022 and 2023? Is there any risk that they actually stop occurring, please?
Just to clarify, Darren, your question is in relation to the lease maturity slide. Is that correct?
The first question is yes.
Yes, the first year always changes each time we present this slide because we always have a substantial number of leases in holdover status for a variety of reasons. Obviously, given they are in holdover, we always have to then reset them into the first year. That happens on that first year throughout. That would be the main reason why 2022 now looks different to the 2022 that we would have given you this time last year. I think your second question, was it in relation to how are we seeing the environment different in our concession renewals?
In the rental concessions, the AUD 37 million. Just trying to get-
Yes.
a feel for how
Abatements. Yeah, the existing abatements in 2022, as we've said before, are substantially fly and rail. We are not seeing any changes in those other than the one we've called out in that 2022 will not include abatements for Sydney Trains because we have not renewed that contract because all of those abatements are set off at pre-COVID base. We don't have additional abatements because, of course, our revenues and audiences have recovered in other environments, and therefore, there's no case for further abatements.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Brian Han with Morningstar. Please go ahead.
Hi, Cathy. I see that digital as a percentage of your total revenue remained at 57% in 2021. Do you have a view as to what that could get to longer term, or do you not run your operations to any such target? Also, was there much difference in margin change year-on-year between static and digital? I mean, did digital enjoy a better margin improvement than static last year? Thanks.
Thanks, Brian. I'll take the first of those. We don't really set a target for percentage of digital revenue because it is dependent on, you know, what plant we're building and of course, our contracts and the profile of our contracts when we have big renewals, and so forth. Those digital factors can vary from year to year. Obviously, we remain, you know, a large player in digital out-of-home, and it will be a significant part of our revenue. We will obviously, you know, maintain a very competitive share of the digital revenue.
As that revenue grows as a percentage of total sector revenue, you can expect we'll grow with it, based on the pipeline that we have. In terms of classic, all I would say before I hand to Sheila on the detail of the margins is it's an incredibly valuable part of what we do. I think in this digital world, there are very few media opportunities that provide the share of voice that classic out-of-home does.
We've actually also seen data from our advertisers throughout 2021 that shows that classic small format advertising shows terrific ROI in a lot of the proprietary data analysis that our customers are now doing. It's going to continue to be an important part of the future, notwithstanding the power that we have ahead of us with our digital evolution as well. On your question about margin by format, I'll hand over to Sheila on that one.
Yes, thanks, Cathy. The margin mix is much more driven by partner than the physical type of the asset, as we've talked about before. That's the biggest driver of margin category of concession partners. Certainly, when we digitize an asset, assuming that it's capable of digitization, you can get the DAs. When we make those, there's a strong in-house return on investment case for that digitization. In terms of the margin mix, the bigger factor would be the rent structures we have in particular concession categories.
That's great, Sheila. Cathy, while you're there, can I just ask 1.5. From your experience, from your previous role, how long does a change in audience measurement like this take before it gets reflected meaningfully in the industry share of the pie?
That's a very good question. I must say the sector I came from never had a currency change, so I couldn't speak to that with great authority. What I will say is the history of the journey with moved 1.0 from 2010 when it was launched. You can actually see the correlation of lag in those early years to the MOVE measurement system and the revenue.
Look, I think because we are introducing new metrics like the Neuro Impact Factor for digital advertising, the industry is uniting around Share of Time as the standardized way to buy out-of-home, which gives you a nice common approach across all formats and all companies. These things are behavioral changes, and they may take some weeks, if not months, to bed in with agencies.
I think what I'm observing in this very early stage, because we're less than a month since we launched, just the interest, the dialogue, and the new approach and the conversations that our sales forces, and I'm sure our peers' sales forces are engaging in, is incredibly powerful opportunity to capitalize on raising awareness and interest for the medium. I'm very upbeat that it will lead to growth for the sector as are all of the operators within it.
I think that's evidenced by the fact you now have all the major out-of-home companies joining into the OMA in a united approach. I think MOVE 1.5 is the principal pillar that we're coming together to really drive growth.
Thanks, Cathy. Thanks, Sheila.
Thank you. Again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from John Campbell with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, Sheila and Cathy. Thanks for the opportunity to ask a couple of questions. Just firstly around, while we're on the subject of MOVE 1.5, what is the expected date of MOVE 2.0, Cathy, to be essentially commenced rollout?
The MOVE 2.0 pipeline continues and the development of the next evolution of the measurement is well underway. We did have some delays in 2021 in some of the test research and pilot programming that we needed to do. The obvious reason for that was we simply couldn't get to people to conduct some aspects of that pilot study. Now the estimated timeline is early in 2024.
In the meantime, I think we'll harness the interest and momentum that we can get out of 1.5 because I think above it all, what the industry, the advertising industry, is most keen for is a measurement for digital. We now have that. I think it'll serve us well in the interim.
Okay. I'm sure 2.0 has a lot of additional bells and whistles, but the core of it, of capturing digital is sort of done by 1.5. You haven't missed a sort of a big revenue growth opportunity in the interim?
No. It doesn't MOVE capture all formats or regional Australia and all those things that really help the industry to properly size itself as a sector against other media. Those things will be really powerful when they come online. In the meantime, in the major formats where the substantial amount of the revenue lies, we have digital measurement, which is a great step forward.
Okay, good. Thank you. Just jump back to that commercial lease expiry slide. The 13% in 2022 and the, I think, 20% in 2023. Just a simple question. Within those two years, what would be the largest expiry from a revenue perspective?
Yeah. We don't give out that level of information at a concession basis. What we do say, and we can certainly say it again, is no one concession is more than 7% of our revenue base, and that just reflects we have such a diverse lease portfolio that no one contract is larger than that. We don't usually, because these are commercially sensitive negotiations and also because no one contract is more than 7%.
Okay. Thanks for that. Just while I've got you, Sheila, and on the CapEx of AUD 45-AUD 55, of which some of it's catch up, but in terms of your minimum targeted break for that sort of digital investment, what is the figure?
What we use, and it is absolutely a minimum, but it's not just the CapEx, because when an asset is digitized, the rent structure on that asset changes as well. Obviously what we look at is the new revenue on the digital asset with all the direct costs of that, such as agency and sales commission. We also look into rent structure changes on that particular concession, and we run a discounted cash flow model over the life of the asset, and also to make sure we have sufficient concession length for remaining for the asset.
At a minimum, and it really does vary, at a minimum, we would use circa 9% as an internal WACC benchmark, but quite often they're in excess of that.
Okay. All right. Thank you for that. I think that is it for me. Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand the conference back over to Ms. O'Connor for closing remarks.
Thank you. As mentioned, this is a strong result for oOh!media. It signals a recovery of the business out of two years of COVID impacts, and a very strong pacing result at 15% for Q1 on a year-over-year basis. We have a united industry and many innovations to advance out-of-home against our sector competitors. As the largest player within the out-of-home sector, we are uniquely placed to benefit from sector growth.
Our strategies allow us to optimize the assets that we have while we also build new pathways to incremental growth through further digitization and an evolution of many of the channels in which we trade out-of-home to customers. For those of you that we're catching up with one-on-one, we look forward to deepening those conversations with you. Thank you all for your time.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.