Nine in no rush to spend Domain money as Stan adds subscribers

Nine Entertainment boss Matt Stanton says he is not in a rush to spend the windfall the company is pocketing from sale of its stake in property listing site Domain as it posted better-than-expected results for fiscal 2025.

As Nine posted a 2 per cent jump in full-year revenue to $2.68 billion, Stanton said the media company needed to be disciplined when it came to investing the newfound millions.

“We’re not going to rush out and buy stuff. You have to make sure it works for your strategy around scale, diversity and making sure it works with the core,” he said.

“Regardless of what we did with Domain, the cash that’s coming in the door today, that will not have really influenced us about what we are going to buy,” Stanton said about upcoming sports rights deals such as the NRL.

New sports rights are a key commodity for media companies, and Nine’s recently secured broadcast deal for English Premier League has already helped add more than 200,000 subscribers to its streaming service Stan after just two weeks of action.

Stan was the standout performer in Nine’s full-year results on Wednesday, with its earnings rising 31 per cent to $60.3 million and its revenue up 10 per cent to $492 million.

Nine’s profit slipped 10 per cent to $194 million for the period, but Nine, owner of this masthead, said it would pay $840 million in dividends to investors after completing the sale of its stake in Domain to the American firm CoStar.

This includes a special dividend of 49¢ per share, worth $780 million in total, and a 4¢ full-year dividend, with both to be paid out next month.

Following the EPL acquisition, Nine raised the price of its Sport package from $15 to $20 per month, on top of a basic Stan subscription. Stanton said there were no immediate plans to carve out a standalone sports subscription offering.

“You’ve got to spend $40 to get on Kayo. If you go on Stan Sport, you have to spend $35 bucks, so we’re still below, and you get the entertainment with it as well,” Stanton said.

Nine shares jumped 11 per cent in early trading and remained up 7 per cent up by mid-afternoon.

Nine has flagged an outlay of between $45 million to $55 million in “organic investments” in the business, such as using AI for operational efficiencies, content maximisation and developing new products.

Stanton on Wednesday ruled out a sale of the company’s publishing assets that include The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review.

“Our publishing assets are absolutely part of the core, and they go together as a suite of assets as well,” he said. “So there’s no intention at all [to sell].”

Revenue for the publishing division fell by 6 per cent to $526 million, partially caused by the end of a commercial deal with Meta, and a weak digital and print advertising market, though digital subscription revenues offset print advertising declines, Nine said.

Around 63 per cent of all publishing revenue is now digital, with paying subscribers growing 5 per cent to 510,000 across the three mastheads. Despite revenue declines, earnings were flat for publishing, totalling $152.8 million, having taken $33 million in costs out. An earnings margin of 33 per cent was “as good as any major publisher worldwide”, Stanton said.

Total revenue in the broadcasting division, which includes free-to-air and the digital streaming platform 9Now, rose 2 per cent to $1.26 billion, though earnings fell by 22 per cent in the segment due to rising costs.

After commercial TV rivals Seven West Media posted a subdued result this month, Stanton rejected the proposition put forward by Morgan Stanley that structural falls in TV audiences and revenue, and therefore earnings power of TV assets, would continue in perpetuity.

Having a mix of “spikes” from major TV events across the year would continue to prove an exciting proposition for both audiences and advertisers, he said. “I think the days of just chucking, what I call ‘run of network type stuff’ is going to be difficult to hold on to.”

Total cost savings across the business reached $80 million across the year, with $60 million ongoing, Nine said, in a bid to reach $150 million in annualised savings by the end of the 2027 financial year.

Domain Group posted revenue growth of 4 per cent and earnings of $146 million – up 7 per cent. Stanton’s full remuneration for 2025 was $3.2 million, while it disclosed that it spent $2.15 million on “termination payments” relating to Stanton’s predecessor, Mike Sneesby, which included entitlements owed.

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