Mac Media stays mum despite strong local ad sales

The media fund, which runs Ten affiliate stations in coastal NSW and regional Queensland, followed other media companies in declining to make a profit forecast for 2008-09, citing low visibility in advertising markets.

But Macquarie said regional markets were holding up better than metropolitan markets, helped by the resources boom and the easing drought.

"We had a steady start to the 2009 financial year," the chief executive, Mark Dorney, said. "We're cautious in looking forward to the next 12 months and that's just reflecting the fact that the national economy is a little bit tighter. But the thing that gives us confidence is that resilience in local revenues."

He said local ad sales accounted for more than half of the company's revenues in Australia.

Channel Ten, which delivers the programming to 80 per cent of Macquarie's TV stations, was the first media company to confirm the slowdown in advertising markets, warning in June its TV earnings would fall 10 per cent in its financial year ending on Sunday after ad spending fell in late April.

Mr Dorney said Macquarie's Ten affiliates were also affected this month by Seven Network's coverage of the Olympics.

Macquarie Media, which is managed by Macquarie Group, owns 68 radio stations and TV stations in 10 regional markets, reaching 7.5 million Australians. In the US, it owns 108 community newspapers, having acquired 43 publications over the past year.

Its net profit for the year just ended jumped 625 per cent to $273.8 million, helped by a $255 million profit from the sale of its Taiwan Broadband Communications business and contributions from Southern Cross Broadcasting's TV stations, which it picked up last year in an asset carve-up with Fairfax Media.

The fund's operating earnings from its media businesses rose 8.2 per cent to $215.7 million as its TV stations delivered a 10.6 per cent rise in earnings to $53.5 million and profits from its radio assets increased 13.5 per cent to $66.2 million. In the US, where newspapers were hit by the fall-out from the subprime crisis, earnings ped 5.6 per cent to $20.2 million.

The company has tucked away its chequebook in the US newspaper market amid the "challenging" conditions. But Mr Dorney said it may make other acquisitions to benefit from falling asset prices.