Latest / Best of Business / Michael Boggs: NZME Chief Executive on the company's 12 percent rise in half-year earnings

Transcript

Michael Boggs: NZME Chief Executive on the company's 12 percent rise in half-year earnings · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk ZEDB. Follow this
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  Speaker 2: Media company inz ME has revealed it spent five million
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  Speaker 2: dollars on restructuring and fighting off a bid to take
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  Speaker 2: over control of the company. The company which owns The
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  Speaker 2: Herald and of course ourselves in the newstalk zb made
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  Speaker 2: a four hundred thousand dollars loss for the first half year.
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  Speaker 2: Half of the year, down from one point nine million
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  Speaker 2: dollar profit in the previous year. It was the one
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  Speaker 2: off costs of just over five million dollars that drag
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  Speaker 2: the results into the red. Michael Bogs is the chief
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  Speaker 2: executive High Bogszy good afternoon. So if you take out
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  Speaker 2: the one offs, then inzign has actually been doing really
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  Speaker 2: well at a time when I can't think of any
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  Speaker 2: other media company that has been doing well. How are
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  Speaker 2: you doing it well?
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  Speaker 3: I think you're exactly right.
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  Speaker 4: You know, we're really pleased from an underlying perspective to
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  Speaker 4: have delivered a really strong result. Ebit Dhara improvement year
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  Speaker 4: on year, and it is a tough economic environment. The
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  Speaker 4: good news is we are seeing some of the large
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  Speaker 4: businesses back advertising again, so they're going, actually, we want
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  Speaker 4: to start spending on brand again. It's the small business,
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  Speaker 4: small medium businesses that really are doing it tough.
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  Speaker 2: So why are the big guys doing Okay, I.
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  Speaker 4: Think they're just getting ahead of it. They can see
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  Speaker 4: that things will get better. They're like they've got the
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  Speaker 4: bigger budgets and they've really come into radio and into print,
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  Speaker 4: which has been really good to see.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think they're right? Are we through the worst
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  Speaker 2: of it?
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  Speaker 4: Well, if you listen to the commentators, even in the
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  Speaker 4: last couple of days, seems to be people are seeing
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  Speaker 4: green shoots. But sadly, I've been saying that for the
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  Speaker 4: last year and every one of our results announcements. So
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  Speaker 4: in our pack today we did actually put a chart.
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  Speaker 2: How do you know then that this time is into full.
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  Speaker 4: Storm and so this time we've not done any forecast
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  Speaker 4: based on green shoots. All of our guidance has been
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  Speaker 4: based on the economy as we see it today, and
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  Speaker 4: that's an improvement on last year.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, what's going on with revenue radio? I see the
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  Speaker 2: revenues up.
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  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 4: Indeed, so for the first time in some time, we've
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  Speaker 4: seen terrestrial radio increasing as well as digital radio increasing.
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  Speaker 4: We've seen our overall revenue market share come back to
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  Speaker 4: where it has been previously, and we're doing some really
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  Speaker 4: neat things around audience. You'll hate to hear this, but
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  Speaker 4: you know I had Country New Zealand.
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  Speaker 2: I don't hate that at all.
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  Speaker 3: Why would I hate I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: You, I know I know what's going on. You're looking
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  Speaker 2: at me and you're going, I'm too cool to like country.
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  Speaker 3: That was it?
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  Speaker 2: Thank you. I appreciate that. Excellent, and yet I'm not
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  Speaker 2: that cool at all. Now tell me how much did
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  Speaker 2: you spend on the lawyers and stuff for fighting off
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  Speaker 2: the board takeover it.
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  Speaker 4: Well, it was a small portion of our one off.
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  Speaker 4: So you will have seen during the period.
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  Speaker 2: Read at the start like it was millions.
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  Speaker 3: It's exactly right, that's right.
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  Speaker 4: So some people have misreported that today actually that there
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  Speaker 4: was five million dollars of one offs associated with that.
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  Speaker 4: I can tell you it was less than a million dollars,
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  Speaker 4: and it's million dollars we preferred not to spend obviously,
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  Speaker 4: So without that five million dollars of one off, which
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  Speaker 4: included you know, well, I think you know, it brought
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  Speaker 4: some clarity to the business. That's being changed at the board.
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  Speaker 4: Our shareholders obviously wanted change, and it's working really well
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  Speaker 4: for us today.
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  Speaker 2: I think that the shareholders who were behind that may
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  Speaker 2: regret that, given that they now realized the cost of it.
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  Speaker 3: I can't talk for them because I.
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  Speaker 2: Would, and that's a lot of money to have squandered
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  Speaker 2: on something like that. Tell me how this editorial board
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  Speaker 2: is going to work well?
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  Speaker 4: A great news is I think Murray Kirknis, who runs
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  Speaker 4: our newsroom here, he's been intimately involved in designing the
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  Speaker 4: charter of the editorial Board, as has our board. It
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  Speaker 4: reports to the boards in an advisory fashion that has
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  Speaker 4: no executive influence as such. And the great news is
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  Speaker 4: that Murray and I are able to be part of
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  Speaker 4: those meetings while we don't.
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  Speaker 3: Specifically sit on the board.
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  Speaker 4: So I think it's a really good way to bring
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  Speaker 4: different perspectives, different voices.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it sounds like, and tell me if I'm wrong,
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  Speaker 2: but it sounds like what they're going to be doing
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  Speaker 2: is basically just listening to the radio, reading the papers,
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  Speaker 2: and then coming at you and saying, look, we think
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  Speaker 2: that maybe this is not working. All that is working,
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  Speaker 2: so kind of informal like.
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  Speaker 4: That, I think it is, but they'll I think they'll
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  Speaker 4: take a much more longitudinal view of what have we
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  Speaker 4: been talking about for the last three years, five years,
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  Speaker 4: ten years? Are we covering topics good enough?
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  Speaker 1: Right?
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  Speaker 2: So they may come to you and say, hey, this
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  Speaker 2: is a really big issue that you are not covering
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  Speaker 2: at all, and you should be.
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  Speaker 4: Absolutely And you know, I think it can be quite
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  Speaker 4: easy at times. Sometimes we can be focused on the
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  Speaker 4: here and now. So if you've got people standing back
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  Speaker 4: with a little more time coming and giving advice, I think.
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  Speaker 3: That's really helps.
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  Speaker 2: Is this a political leaning thing?
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
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  Speaker 4: The Charter and I'm not sure if you had a
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  Speaker 4: chance to read it says it must be from diverse
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  Speaker 4: backgrounds and that's political spectrum as well.
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  Speaker 2: What I mean is is it possible that, for a
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  Speaker 2: long time, I think the criticism has been fair that
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  Speaker 2: many media outlets, and I'm not going to name anybody,
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  Speaker 2: but that many media outlets have allowed themselves to become
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  Speaker 2: perhaps overly caught up in what we would consider to
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  Speaker 2: be quite left wing views or woke views. Some would say,
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  Speaker 2: is it possible that they will come to you and say,
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  Speaker 2: you know, hey, you guys are going down this particular path,
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  Speaker 2: and that's not a good path to go down or
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  Speaker 2: balance it out.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I could definitely give some perspectives of
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  Speaker 4: what we're covering, on what we're not and are we
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  Speaker 4: you being balanced and everything. But I think the other
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  Speaker 4: thing is you will have seen from some of the
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  Speaker 4: recent research by Curia that says we are the most
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  Speaker 4: balanced of all media, and so that's something we should
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  Speaker 4: hold our heads proud with.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, Now what about the situation with Herold? Now, how's
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  Speaker 2: that going? He pleased with him?
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  Speaker 3: Please with it.
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  Speaker 4: So we're seeing really strong take up not only on
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  Speaker 4: our own platforms, but certainly externally as well. So obviously
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  Speaker 4: on the Herald website you can see it a little
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  Speaker 4: harder to see on the Herald app, and we'd like
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  Speaker 4: to improve that experience.
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  Speaker 2: Actually that's a good point.
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  Speaker 3: But we're seeing.
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  Speaker 4: Huge take up on YouTube, for example. Are you so
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  Speaker 4: many people sitting at home?
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  Speaker 2: What are people doing? Are they going back and watching
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  Speaker 2: the interviews again.
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  Speaker 3: They are or even watching it live.
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  Speaker 2: How many people have you got sitting down over their
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  Speaker 2: breakfast watching it on their laptop?
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  Speaker 4: I think you would see there would be many, many thousands.
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  Speaker 2: Are you being deliberately a bit vague here, I am confidential,
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  Speaker 2: fair enough. Okay, where are we at? By the way,
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  Speaker 2: with the Google and the Facebook guys paying for news.
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  Speaker 3: There's nothing more we're doing at the moment. You know.
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  Speaker 4: I think the New Zealand government's very focused on what's
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  Speaker 4: happening in Australia and likely to be a fast follower. Yeah,
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  Speaker 4: so we'll have.
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  Speaker 2: To first watch what they do. We're not going to
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  Speaker 2: do anything until then, and then we might follow them
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  Speaker 2: very quickly.
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, Now, Boxy, tell me when you think everybody's going
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  Speaker 2: to feel better about the economy, Like, I mean, it's
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  Speaker 2: one thing to talk about green shoots and turning around
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  Speaker 2: in the big advertisers coming in, but what about the
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  Speaker 2: average guy out there? When's he going to feel better?
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  Speaker 3: Maybe?
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  Speaker 4: You you get more commentators in here than I do
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  Speaker 4: every day to talk about that.
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  Speaker 3: You know, we've been playing a part of our role.
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  Speaker 3: In the last few months.
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  Speaker 4: We've written over or just under sorry, five hundred stories
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  Speaker 4: titled on the app trying to tell good news stories
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  Speaker 4: about what's happening in business?
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  Speaker 2: Is it working?
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  Speaker 4: And I think people are going Actually those are really
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  Speaker 4: good stories. We've seen communities engaging in them.
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  Speaker 3: And people going, we just like more of that things Boxy.
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  Speaker 2: It's good to talk to you. I really appreciate your time.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Michael Boggs, Chief executive
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