Today, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Southern Cross Austereo's full year results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. Oh, I'd like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, SCA CEO John Kelly. Please go ahead.
Good morning and welcome to Southern Cross Austereo's results presentation for the year ended 30 June 2024. I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today, and pay my respects to the elders, past and present. I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples here today. I'm John Kelly. I'm joined today by our Chief Financial Officer, Tim Young. You'll hear from Tim shortly for a detailed overview of our financial performance. At the end of our presentation, Tim and I, as always, will be happy to answer your questions. I'll first give you an overview of our results and achievements for the year. In doing so, I draw your attention to the usual disclaimer at the end of the presentation.
FY 2024 has been a watershed year for SCA as we encounter the significant headwinds of challenged advertising markets, coupled with the business disruption brought on by corporate activity. Yet, we still have managed to deliver improving earnings with positive momentum into FY 2025. At SCA, we are all about audio, and our focus is on being the most profitable and successful audio company in Australia. As you'll see from our results, our unequivocal focus on the audience that matter across broadcast and digital audio is now delivering for our listeners and our business partners. We continue to focus on reducing our operating cost base, and we have progressively identified and actioned cost out initiatives so that we can reset our cost base and improve our margins and cash flow returns.
Our all-about-audio strategy is led by the LiSTNR ecosystem, which is powered by the broadcast content of the Hit and Triple M networks, along with Australia's largest podcast sales representation network. Most importantly, our last twelve-month trailing digital audio revenues are now AUD 35 million. Our second-half digital audio revenues grew by 57% with the introduction of the LiSTNR AdTech Hub. Having achieved EBITDA profitability in Q4 of FY 2024, we forecast LiSTNR will be cash flow positive for FY 2025. Turning now to slide three, which sets out the key financial aspects of today's results. In summary, you will see our FY 2024 revenue was AUD 499.4 million. Our strong focus on cost management capped non-revenue related or NRR costs below guidance at AUD 308.4 million.
Our EBITDA, excluding significant and non-recurring items, was AUD 66.2 million. Ongoing capital discipline led to a further reduction in CapEx for FY 2024 to AUD 15.8 million, with net debt at AUD 107.5 million. The board has decided to not declare a final dividend for FY 2024 as the group prioritizes deleveraging. For FY 2024, we recorded a statutory non-cash impairment charge relating to licenses for broadcast radio, and Tim will cover this in the presentation shortly. Turning to slide four. This slide sets out some key high-level operating and financial highlights from our FY 2024 results, particularly focused on our improved second half performance. The headlines on this slide reflects the benefits of the hard work and focus from the entire SCA team.
The stronger operating momentum within SCA that was first evident in late calendar 2023 has translated to stronger financial performance for H2, with year-on-year underlying EBITDA growth of 8% in audio and 6% at a group level. We have achieved substantial growth and continued domination of the metro radio audiences that matter, leading the audience share of the critical and lucrative 25-54 demographic for 24, and as of Tuesday, 25 consecutive national metro radio surveys. We have grown metro radio revenue share each and every month since December 2023. Continued cost and capital discipline meant that we achieved NRR costs of AUD 308.4 million below our guidance of AUD 310 million. We have reduced CapEx in line with guidance to AUD 15 million, with a further reduction to AUD 10 million forecast for FY 2025.
Finally, as we previously forecast, LiSTNR, Australia's best digital audio business in the fastest-growing segment of the media industry, achieved EBITDA profitability in the fourth quarter of FY 2024. Moving to slide five. The team at SCA is committed to building shareholder value. The next section of my presentation will focus on and demonstrate tangible progress of how we are driving improved financial performance and building value for SCA shareholders. Importantly, as I mentioned earlier, the stronger operating momentum within SCA that was first evident late in H1 carried into H2 of FY 2024, leading to a meaningful improvement in H2 EBITDA. Let me now share with you the composition of this improved H2 EBITDA in more detail. At a group level, FY 2024 underlying EBITDA was AUD 66.2 million, which was down AUD 11 million or 14% year-on-year.
However, H2 was up AUD 2 million or 6% year-on-year. Total audio underlying EBITDA was AUD 76.3 million, which was down AUD 3.9 million year-on-year. However, H2 was up AUD 3 million or 8% year-on-year. Finally, the rate of loss in television EBITDA reduced in H2, down AUD 1 million versus down AUD 4.4 million in H1. Moving to slide six. There was an increase in our revenue momentum in H2, with H2 sales up 1% versus a decline of 3% in H1. Total FY 2024 sales were AUD 499.4 million, down 1%. For broadcast audio in H2, metro was up 1% and regional was flat year-on-year.
In H2, broadcast audio advertising revenue was down 1%, outperforming the overall market, which was down 3%. For digital, revenue growth continued its strong acceleration path with a 57% increase in H2. Importantly, our H2 growth was significantly higher than the overall market, which grew by 31%. Slide seven highlights our metro radio national leadership in the core buying demographics of women, men, and total people aged 25- 54, which covers more than 70% of all agency briefs received. In particular, it shows that our lead grew in the second half, with average share growing 3.5 percentage points year-on-year. Hit is the number one metro network for women aged 25- 54, with average share growing 1.2% year-on-year.
Triple M is the number one metro network for men aged 25-54, with average share growing 3.8% year-on-year. This strong market position provides our sales teams with a point of focus and differentiation, and a compelling platform for continued share growth into FY 2025 and beyond. Moving to slide eight. The left-hand side of this slide further highlights our strong and growing metro audience position in an important 25-54 demographic. However, the right-hand side highlights how this audience share is increasingly being converted during second half FY 2024 to metro market revenue share, outstripping seasonal growth over the half and well-positioned for the future.
This improvement in metro market revenue share is in part due to the growing dominance of our audience share and in part due to a new and reinvigorated approach to our commercial structures and strategies implemented by our newly appointed sales executives in the first half of FY 2024. The challenge and opportunity for our sales teams is to now close the gap between our share of listening and our fair share of revenues. SCA Regional Radio has unrivaled scale and reach. Boomtown represents the 9.8 million Australians living in regional Australia, and the SCA-owned and represented broadcast network accounts for over 70% of the Boomtown regional radio audience.
Scale is the audience that matters in regional Australia, and we have the largest and most comprehensive network of regional stations accessing 3.6 million listeners with an increase in audience of 25% over the past 5 years. Slide 10 shows the LiSTNR addressable signed-up users since June 2021. We now have over 2 million signed-up users, with over half of them actively engaged on a monthly basis. A reminder that this has been achieved in a little over 3 years, and we continue to grow this base each and every week. We have split digital audio revenue between podcast and in-stream, which refers to our linear radio shows and music streams. Both enjoyed robust growth in H2, but in-stream advertising was a standout performer, supported by year-on-year growth of 17% in stream starts and 7% in time spent listening.
Importantly, our LiSTNR AdTech Hub is driving premium commercialization of digital audio and empowering our sales teams to generate improved returns from programmatic advertising. This allows us to better target advertising to relevant audiences on LiSTNR and other platforms for inclusion in over 20% of digital audio advertising campaigns. The chart on slide 11 shows the consistent impressive growth trajectory of SCA's digital audio revenues since the launch of LiSTNR only three and a half years ago. Achieving a growth trajectory of 34% CAGR since FY 2020. Pleasingly, FY 2024 has seen our revenue growth accelerate further, with 42% year-on-year growth and 57% growth in H2 setting up important operating momentum into FY 2025. Moving to slide 12. As I mentioned earlier, and as forecast, the digital segment achieved EBITDA profitability in Q4 of FY 2024.
This reflects both the continued strong growth in signed-up users, engagement and revenue, and active cost management together with disciplined capital investment in deployment of ad tech. This growth means that after just 3.5 years in market, our revenues this year are almost twice the absolute level of our nearest local competitor, and our rate of growth is also double. Put simply, SCA's LiSTNR is Australia's best digital audio business. It is the largest and fastest-growing local operator in the fastest-growing segment in Australian media and is already profitable. Moving to slide 13. Over the last 4.5 years, we've committed to an extensive CapEx program to digitize the business.
This program has included building the flexibility and resilience of our networks, enabling us to broadcast our radio content from and to any of our locations, cover live sport from anywhere in the country, and to distribute our Triple M and Hit Network shows to our regional and partner stations. With investment in ad tech, digitization, and centralization of SCA's audio operations largely complete, our CapEx program has continued to reduce, with CapEx in FY 2024 of AUD 15.8 million, down 18% from FY 2023. We know that advertisers will pay a premium for the dramatically improved ROI delivered by campaigns that utilize our LiSTNR Customer Data Platform, data analytics, and dynamic delivery. With a major investment program now complete, CapEx in FY 2025 will reduce further to approximately AUD 10 million.
With that CapEx relating to the investment in delivering further monetizable improvements to listener, advertiser, and ad tech capabilities, and service infrastructure. Turning to slide 14. Against a backdrop of significant cost pressures in FY 2024, driven by high inflation and rising employment costs, I am pleased to confirm that our ongoing cost out reset program is continuing to deliver cash savings. In H2, despite an annualized inflation rate of 3.8%, our non-revenue related cost growth was only 0.4%. To finish FY 2024 at +2.5% at AUD 308.4 million, lower than our guidance of AUD 310 million. For FY 2025, NRR costs will be below FY 2024. We are activating initiatives across all parts of our business to realize savings to fully offset FY 2025 employment and contracted cost increases.
I'll now hand you over to our CFO, Tim Young, to take you through our financial results for the year.
Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. The next few slides set out our results for FY 2024, excluding significant and other non-recurring items. We've provided a reconciliation to reported results in an appendix to today's presentation. If you have any questions about those items, I'll be pleased to deal with those at the end of the presentation. Let's now move to slide 16. Group revenues declined by 1% on the prior year. Strong growth in digital audio of 42%, partially mitigated falls of 1.7% in broadcast radio and 8.6% in TV. Despite inflationary pressures, strong cost disciplines limited the increase in total expenses to only 1.4% and in non-revenue related costs to 2.5% or AUD 7.4 million to AUD 308.4 million.
This is below our guidance of AUD 310 million for the year. Depreciation and amortization increased by AUD 1.9 million in FY 2024, driven by accelerated depreciation of listener development investments, which were balanced by lower CapEx. Underlying FY 2024 EBITDA of AUD 66.2 million and net profit after tax of AUD 11.2 million were both down on the prior year by AUD 11 million and AUD 10.8 million respectively. However, as John noted previously, the operating and financial performance of the group improved considerably in the second half of FY 2024, with the second half EBITDA up 6.1% on the prior comparable period. In FY 2024, we've also recognized a statutory non-cash impairment charge related to the licenses of the broadcast radio CGU of approximately AUD 228 million after tax.
This non-cash charge to Broadcast Radio reflects the lower growth estimates for the segment and the separation of Digital Audio into its own operating segment for the first time in the second half of FY 2024. Broadcast Radio and Digital Audio will be separate segments and CGUs for FY 2024 and beyond. Looking at our segment results, let's first turn to Broadcast Radio on slide 17. Overall radio revenue decreased by 1.6% in FY 2024, with the rate of decline slowing in the second half, during which revenue was down 1.1%. Metro Radio revenues declined by 2.7%. The primary driver of this decline was an industry-wide downturn in broadcast advertising revenues, with the metro radio market down by over 3% for the year. The impact on SCA was reduced by the resilience of Regional Radio and local advertisers in particular.
Total cost growth was contained to 1.7%, with revenue-related costs up AUD 2.7 million or 4%, reflecting increases in music licensing and the cost of sales. Non-revenue related cost growth was contained at AUD 2 million or 1%, resulting in EBITDA of AUD 87.2 million on a margin of 23.8% for the broadcast radio unit, 2.3 percentage points up on FY 2023. Moving now to digital on slide 18. LiSTNR continued its strong momentum in all revenue lines. Digital revenue of AUD 35 million was up 42% on the prior year. Total expense growth of 8.8% was due mostly to costs related to higher revenues achieved in FY 2024.
Non-revenue related costs rose by AUD 2.6 million, largely reflecting the strategic investments in revenue-driving technology, namely the implementation of the LiSTNR Customer Data Platform, which offset declines in marketing and other cost areas. The full year EBITDA loss has continued to narrow by 38% to AUD 10.9 million. The second half EBITDA loss was reduced to AUD 2.3 million, which reflects a profitable Q4 and an EBITDA improvement of AUD 5 million compared to the second half of FY 2023. The results of our television business are outlined on slide 19. Regional television revenues continue to contract, driven especially by weakness in the national advertising market. Overall TV revenue declined by 8.7% to AUD 97.5 million, reflecting an 11.5% drop in national revenue and a 9% decline in local revenue.
The decline in overall TV revenue slowed in the second half, down 5.6% versus the prior comparable period. At the same time, tight cost controls led to total costs being reduced by 4.4% to AUD 84.2 million, with revenue-related costs lower as a result of lower affiliation fees payable on the lower revenues. Non-revenue-related costs increased by AUD 1.5 million or 4% to AUD 38.2 million, driven by the CPI linkage for our broadcast contract costs. Our TV EBITDA for FY 2024 decreased by AUD 5.4 million to AUD 13.3 million, with the decline in EBITDA slowing in the second half, down AUD 1 million versus the prior comparable period. We'll now move to SCA's cash flow on slide 20.
Operating cash conversion reduced to 67.2%, reflecting the reduction in net cash from operations, largely a result of the timing of customer receipts. Net CapEx was down AUD 12.4 million to AUD 8.9 million. This significant reduction was driven by both lower CapEx and non-core asset sales. Free cash conversion in FY 2024 increased slightly to 86%, largely reflecting the reduction in net CapEx and lower dividends paid. Total dividends paid in FY 2024 were AUD 7.7 million, with the board deciding to not declare a final dividend for FY 2024 as the group prioritized reducing leverage. Net debt of AUD 107.5 million was up slightly on the prior year, although net financing costs increased by AUD 2.7 million due to the high interest rate environment.
Our leverage ratio of 1.87 times remains well within debt covenants, and we're focusing on improving this position in FY 2025. I'll now hand back to John and look forward to your questions after he's wrapped up our presentation.
Thanks, Tim. Our core strategic focus is all about audio and to be the preeminent audio company in Australia led by LiSTNR, Hit, and Triple M. Given this core focus and with the conclusion of recent corporate activity, we have recommenced our strategic review of our regional television assets. We are currently in active negotiations with several parties for the sale of our regional television licenses, and we will update the market further with material developments as and when they eventuate. Moving to slide 23. This is an important slide as it highlights the resilience and growth of audio since 2021, with not only broadcast audiences continue to hold and grow in the past year, but highlighting that digital audiences are growing at the same time. Digital audiences are complementary to broadcast audiences, which is a unique and compelling strength of audio.
The result is that audio audiences are strong and growing. Radio audiences are at an all-time high, with 12.2 million people listening each week to metro radio and 5.2 million people listening each week to regional radio. Time spent listening to radio and podcasts is now approximately 16 hours per week, which is the same time spent on social media. The key takeaway here is that audio accounts for 34% of total media consumption, but only 8% of advertising spend. As an industry, we have the opportunity to capture the revenue share that our audiences suggest is appropriate. Slide 24 sets out our expectations for FY 2025. Audio revenues for Q1 are pacing ahead of the prior year, although the market remains short.
Our focus on resetting our operating model cost base has and will continue to deliver meaningful cash savings, which provides us with the confidence to commit to delivering FY 2025's non-revenue-related costs below FY 2024 levels. Our forecast CapEx in FY 2025 at approximately AUD 10 million, combined with forecast improved cash from operations and stronger cash conversion, will drive deleveraging by the end of FY 2025 to below 1.5 times. Digital audio momentum continues, and LiSTNR is expected to be cash flow positive in FY 2025. Divestment of TV assets will be actively progressed in the coming months. Dividends to remain within policy, but towards the lower end of the target payout range in FY 2025 as we prioritize deleveraging.
In summary and in closing, an improvement in operating momentum in H2 makes us both excited and confident as to the opportunity to improve the financial performance of the group in FY 2025. The team at SCA remains focused on accelerating shareholder value through monetizing the benefits of our digitized all-about-audio strategy and by delivering operational efficiency through meaningful and permanent cost reductions. That concludes our presentation. As Tim mentioned earlier, the presentation includes an appendix with additional details for you to consider, including a reconciliation to our reported statutory results. Tim and I will be happy to now take any questions you may have. I'll hand back to the operator to facilitate the Q&A. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question will come from Darren Leung from Macquarie. Your line is open.
Good morning, guys. Thanks for the opportunity and congrats on a good result. I just have two for me, please. The first one is just on the non-recurring costs in 2025. Obviously good that you're expecting it to be lower versus 2024. If I just kind of work through the drivers in the 2025, there's obviously inflation still in the business. Like, simplistically, I kind of assume that's about 3%. Is it as simple as there's about AUD 30 million of the cost out that comes out in FY 2025? Is there anything else that I should be thinking about that might move to cost base into FY 2025, please?
Yeah. Good morning. As I think you're aware, we identified cost out in 2024 about AUD 30 million. But we've also identified further cost out, Darren, in terms of this particular year, FY 2025, and we're activating them as we speak. We haven't identified the full amount, but you're right. You know, I think cost inflation in our view is about 4%. We've got a lot of contracts which have CPI related inflators associated with that. What we've been able to do is effectively offset both those costs and the people costs in order to deliver below AUD 309 million we achieved or recognized this year. Yes, more cost out is happening as we speak.
Okay. As a start point, if inflation's 4%, let's call it roughly AUD 12 million. Plus AUD 12 million minus AUD 30 million and then something else throughout the rest of the year, this year. Is that kind of the major building blocks?
Yeah. Look, I think that, look, obviously, you know, depending on what you assume for inflation, but those are the main building blocks. I mean, I think that the key point we're trying to make here is that real costs will be down year on year.
No, I understand. No, thank you. Just the second one. I just wanna make sure I heard a comment just in relation to the sales team being added in the last few months. There's obviously been some pretty good success in terms of your revenue share that we can see on the chart. Can you talk to, you know, the sort of objectives and thought process for that team? More specifically, how long do you think it'll take for them to bring the radio business back to a power ratio of one?
Yeah, I think there's a few things there. I mean, clearly, as we outlined, we changed our sales team and our key executives led by Seb Rennie, and also Luke Winter heading up our radio, metro radio team and broader teams. We changed some of the approaches in relation to regional radio. I think in relation to metro radio, as we've indicated, we put those changes in place in late December. Since December, each and every month, the shares increased, and we continue to see those share improvements into FY 2025. How long will it take in order to get EBITDA parity ratio? I'm hoping months.
You know, we expect to see a continued improvement, particularly with this new and unequivocal focus on this key audience that matters buying demographic, being that 25-44 demographic. I think up until probably July last year, we weren't focusing on as much as in terms of an unequivocal focus as we have in recent times. We believe that, you know, the fact that 70% plus of all briefs are driven into that 25-44 demographic, we're gonna see continued growth in share in the months and years to come. We're quite excited about share improvement.
Look, looking forward to seeing it. Thanks. Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question will come from Elsa Lei from UBS. Your line is open.
Good morning, John and team. I've just got the one question on CapEx. Given that it's guided to come down in FY 2025, I guess, how do we get comfort on future investment levels given the competitive landscape and continued investment in other digital platforms? Thanks.
Yeah. Thank you for your question. We have spent a considerable CapEx probably in the previous three years, and we've highlighted the CapEx journey we've been on. I think the advantage we've got is that we are now completely centralized and digitized across our network. That spend is complete. We've also spent considerable dollars in recent times on building out our ad tech capability for our listener platform. That is also substantially complete. Not only have we reduced our CapEx considerably over time, in line with guidance, AUD 15 million in FY 2024, FY 2025, AUD 10 million, and we expect a similar level for future years beyond that, given that we are now a fully digitized network.
Okay. Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question will come from Brian Han from Morningstar. Your line is open.
Thanks. John, are most of the work you're doing on cost reduction focused on the radio division, or is cost reduction also happening in TV?
No. Most of the work is happening in radio. You know, we did highlight it's almost absent TV at the moment, given the announcement we've made in relation to TV today in terms of the divestment process. Yeah. Look, I think we're different to other companies who talk about headcount and costs being removed over time and putting targets in the market. We're just giving you an unequivocal commitment to deliver costs below FY 2024, which absolutely means we continue to activate changes. These are not things that we have to ideate and implement. These are things we're activating here and now.
Okay. The strategic review you're undertaking for regional TV, is that related to just TV or are the discussions pretty fluid and could involve some parts of the wider company in some form?
No, no, Brian. Just to be clear, just involving TV and really it's about the divestment of the key television licenses which are currently under the auspices of both Ten and Seven. We're reviewing those licenses. As you would appreciate, we were in discussions to sell some of those licenses in October before the corporate activity started last year, and we've recommenced those discussions with various parties as we've highlighted today.
Okay, great. Perhaps a question for Tim. On the radio license impairment, of the AUD 320 million-odd in carrying value of these radio licenses, how much relates to digital audio, or is there no license value attached to those digital?
No, there's not. Morning, Brian. No, it's all pertains to the broadcast assets.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thanks, Brian.
Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star one one. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from Roger Colman from Pax Pasha. Your line is open.
Good morning, gentlemen. I've just got a few questions. Number one, the variable on revenue growth in the radio market in fiscal 2025, what's the drop-through rate of any revenue change increase in regional versus metro, and also the total package, obviously? Because the revenue-related items that you disclose are running at around about 22% and 16%. I couldn't imagine the sales reps take that larger proportion of the money, especially in the agency market.
Roger, good morning. Are you talking about the commissions paid to our sales staff there or in-
Yes. Yes, commissions paid.
No.
Total cost of repping. If we get a surprise revenue rise in the radio market in regional Australia and metro Australia, what's the drop-through rate?
Oh, look, Roger, I mean, clearly you're aware of agency commissions, you know, 5%-6% would be sort of the general drop.
Yeah.
Through in terms of the additional element. That's what I'd imagine. Yeah, it's
Yeah.
Clearly, in regional, you know, slightly different, but metro, I would say 5%. Yep.
Revenue rises should flow through at a well over 90% rate in the metro market.
Yeah. Post commissions.
Somewhere less.
Post agency commissions. Yeah.
Yeah. Just on the sale of the TV interest, right?
Yep.
You know, is this thing gonna be negative to EPS in terms of the EBITDA multiple you sell at?
Oh, look, we're clearly mindful of doing the best economic deal we can, Roger, given the circumstances and given the TV market. We're not gonna go into details of what it looks like, and we're still yet to, you know, finalize those negotiations. We're in active negotiations, and all I can say is we'll come back and give you the full story and the full announcement if and when we sell those assets.
The third and fourth quick ones are in respect to the restructuring costs, significant items. What's your expectation for fiscal 2025? You know, at AUD 10.7.
Yeah, look, clearly we're doing cost out activations at the moment, and we'll continue to do so throughout the year, as I've mentioned previously, in order to deliver out our cost below that AUD 309 million mark. Yeah, I'd say AUD 2 million-AUD 3 million in terms of NRIs is what we anticipate at the moment in terms of those restructuring style costs.
Right. In respect to the big problem in Sydney, what's the plan to catch up with the 52-year-old and the 49-year-old, you know, the Donald Trump of radio?
Sorry, in what regard? Sorry, could you clarify the question? Sorry.
Well, you've got to find some talent to get past Kyle and Jackie O. You know, they're
Right.
They're heading towards over 50, each one of them.
Yep.
You've got to be growing some sort of talent that's gonna be there when they get to 55+.
Yeah. Look, clearly, we've made some changes in relation to our Sydney breakfast team in recent weeks. We thank Hughesy, Ed, and Erin for their 3.5 years of both commitment and passion for the business. We're currently going through our approach in relation to what we'll put into Sydney breakfast for 2Day FM next year. Fair to say, as we've stated today, we're really focused on profitability. We're really focused on the audiences that matter, being 25-54, in the case of 2Day FM, predominantly a female audience. I think you'll see us make some changes in that regard in alignment with those thoughts and those objectives in the coming weeks and months.
Right. In respect to the dividend payout ratio policy, would it be better to move to a cash free cash flow percentage policy? It's not clear in the accounts. The AUD 31.1 million post-IFRS 16 gives you a fair buffer against the AUD 10 million CapEx projection, free cash flow-wise.
Yeah, look, it's actually an interesting point, Roger, which we have been discussing as a board in recent times. I think the one thing that's hopefully coming through in the result today is our focus is on profits, but it's on cash flow return. With a reduction in CapEx, reduction of non-recurring items in a negative way, focus on the realization of and the drop-through, as you would put it, of operating cash flow and getting the highest conversion we can. That's our focus.
Yeah.
If we can deliver cash for the business, deleverage our business, and return, most importantly, dividends to our shareholders, that's absolutely our absolute goal at the moment.
Right. One last statement, I presume the four directors are listening in to this. I know the company hasn't got any directors with media experience other than one who's running ACP New Zealand. It will be handy if the executive team, that's you, would have experienced directors in the field supporting you in your endeavors to turn this company into a much better performer. That's to any of those guys and women listening. Okay. Thank you. I'm signing out. Thank you.
Thank you, Roger. See you tomorrow.
Thank you John .
Thanks, Roger.
Thank you. Our next question will come from David Ambler, Private Investor. Your line is open.
Good morning, gentlemen. I've noted with some concern that in 2020 there was a share issue made at AUD 0.09, around about the time the market was AUD 0.11. Now, that would represent on current price yesterday AUD 0.53, a drop of 50% in share price. At the moment, it's probably at the lowest it's been for many a long year. Why do you think the market is appraising your company so poorly?
Yes, thank you for your question and, you know, I do appreciate your concern and I similarly am concerned. Look, in terms of our company, we like most traditional media companies have been challenged by a very difficult market, particularly over the last 3-4 years. Radio in particular was impacted by COVID more than most media. We're seeing a return to better times. You know, I think being a predominantly audio business, you know, we make the point in our presentation there and in our release today that, you know, we think that particularly broadcast radio and audio is underrepresented in relation to our share of ad spend.
We make the point that, you know, we currently garner 34% of audiences in terms of attention, but only receive 9% of revenue. I think everyone in the audio business believes that our share of revenue should increase, and then we'll fight for that share. At the moment, we're underrepresented and I think we have a very collaborative audio sector, where we're all working very hard to try and improve that dynamic and try and get a better return and therefore higher growth rates in revenue, which should assist our company and other companies who have a focus on audio.
I think all we can do now is focus on the future and hopefully the results and the momentum we've got building into FY 2025 that we've highlighted today, a control on costs, a reduction on CapEx, a focus and analytical focus on the audience that matter in terms of acquiring audiences and monetizing those will provide a recipe for success in terms of improving our shareholder return and in this case, our share price.
Okay, fine for that. Have you considered any expense reduction by trimming your staff back?
Well, yes, you know, we have reduced our staff significantly, like most media companies, over the last 18 months in particular. We continue to take opportunities to reduce our staff, both through churn, but we're required also, unfortunately, through redundancies. Yes, we continue to do that, and as we've made the commitment today that our costs will be below last year, and the only way we can achieve that is in part by making changes to our staff and our people in terms of the roles.
Okay. I think on the due diligence with regard to the offer, how much did that cost, please?
Around AUD 3 million for us and alone. I think the difficulty here is that that's the absolute cash cost. What it's hard to assign is the distraction value that it caused, particularly in the first half to our revenue and our revenue shares. AUD 3 million in absolute dollar terms, but can't quantify the impact on the first half in particular in relation to revenue loss.
Right. Well, what concerns me about the due diligence, I feel that the advice you had was flawed. When I look at the share price reduction from the nice little lift it got when the offer was announced to where it is now, I expect that would represent a loss in value of perhaps 75%. I feel that the advice you got was flawed.
I would remind you, we didn't actually. The consortium ended their bid. Anchorage pulled out of that consortium. That's exactly what happened in that circumstance.
Okay. Well, I expect with the current share price there may be a few more interested parties. Look, thanks for giving me the opportunity to have a shout. I've lost a bucket load investing, but that's my fault. I should have bailed out when I could have. Now I'm locked in. I've got to wait for a miracle to happen, I think. Okay. Look, thanks and best regards. Thanks for allowing me to chime in. Thank you.
No, I appreciate your comments. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question will come from Jack Bulfin from Deep River Group . Your line is open.
G'day. Our question is about the television business and the AUD 1.5 million dollar CPI broadcast infrastructure contracts. AUD 1.5 million dollars CPI puts the value of those infrastructure contracts around the AUD 40 million-AUD 42 million mark. What is that? And what is in that category? There's a second question to follow, but could we deal with that one first?
Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you're referring to. The television contracts that. Where are you getting this from in terms of the question? I'm just not sure I understand.
If you go to page 19 and there is a reference. I'll read non-revenue related expenses.
Yeah. I've just seen the note. That's a series of contracts. That's both transmission and playout of our TV. We have approximately 105 signals going across regional Australia, and it's the playout and transmission costs associated with those contracts.
If I could be sort of specific, that's the transmission is from the BAI company and the playout's from another firm, is it?
Yeah. From NPC. Yep. Correct.
Right. The second question is, obviously regional television has got two franchises in the Southern Cross group. The Seven, which is Tassie, and Ten, which is regional, pretty much everywhere else. Can you give us a bit of an idea of the performance of those separate franchises? In other words, which is soft, which one is providing bulk of the revenue? Is there any information you can give us there?
We don't normally break up, you know. You're right, there are two main franchises. You know, look, I think we pretty much run in alignment with the performance of the various networks. The main asset we have for Seven is in Tasmania, where it's in fact probably the highest rating station in Australia. We do about a 60% share, both in terms of revenue and audience. The vast majority of other areas, we have the Ten network, and we pretty much run in alignment with both their revenue share and their rating share. You know, that's obviously a sub-20 sort of commercial revenue share and a sub-20 audience share. That's probably as best guidelines I can provide you with at this point in time.
Just to continue on that. Does one subsidize the other? Is that sort of how it works?
No. No, they're both profitable. It's just the mix of the assets, you know, combined to give it the results we've provided today.
Thanks very much. Appreciate it.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. I am showing no further questions from our phone lines. I'd now like to turn the conference back over to CEO John Kelly for any closing remarks.
Thank you, Crystal. Thank you for everyone who's joined the call today. Thank you for all the questions we've had in the last 20 minutes. We appreciate everyone joining. We're excited about the momentum we've got going into FY 2025. I look forward to speaking with many of you over the next few days. Thank you very much.
Thank you. This does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.