Nine Entertainment’s acting CEO, Matt Stanton, has signalled Australia’s biggest media company is now facing $100m in cuts over the next two years as well as a period of reckoning for individuals found to have engaged in bullying or harassment.
A bombshell report released last month revealed Nine has a systemic issue with the abuse of power and authority, bullying, discrimination and sexual harassment across the company, but no individuals have yet been named or held to account.
“It is still early days, but there will be change at Nine and individuals will be held to account for behaviour of this nature,” Stanton told investors at the annual general meeting on Thursday.
“The Board and management are absolutely united on the need to accelerate change and to support workplace reform.”
The Nine chair, Catherine West, who took over from Peter Costello after he denied assaulting a journalist, was asked to explain how she could not have known about Nine’s toxic culture despite being on the board for six years.
West said that when questioned by human resources, staff denied there were any problems working in the newsroom, but in recent months they had found the courage to report.
“After we’ve done various investigations, they’ve come back and said to us: ‘We just didn’t tell you the truth, because we were scared of the power of an individual’,” West said. “So with an individual removed, we need to stop that happening.
“People have accepted things that are not acceptable for far too long.”
The announcement of a further $50m in cuts, bringing total forecast cuts to $100m over the next two years, comes just months after former CEO Mike Sneesby culled 200 jobs including about 80 journalists in the publishing division which houses the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Australian Financial Review.
Sneesby announced he was stepping down in September, when Stanton was appointed interim CEO. He was among several high-profile departures this year: news and current affairs director, Darren Wick, abruptly left Nine in January after 29 years and communications chief, Victoria Buchan, is due to leave by the end of the month.
Nine announced a steep slide in annual net profit to $134.9m in the 2023-24 financial year.
“Like you, we are disappointed by the market valuation of Nine, which seems too heavily focused on our traditional television business while largely ignoring the digital growth opportunity of our key assets across publishing, streaming, audio and marketplaces,” Stanton said at the meeting.
“We have committed to take a further $50m of underlying costs out in FY25 – equating to a two-year total of around $100m.”
Stanton said Meta’s decision to walk away from the news media bargaining code will affect the “availability of fact-based and credible news content”.
“The government understands the importance of the issues and the potential damage that is being done, and we are encouraging a public policy response that ensures appropriate regulation is in place in Australia for the global tech players,” he said.
Stanton said the company was embracing AI and in September had produced more than 60 articles through an AI powered tool called 9Express. The articles were created by repurposing broadcast TV news segments as new content pieces for nine.com.au, he said.
The first question at the AGM was from a reformed gambler who lost $100,000 to gambling. He said gambling ads “were a major trigger that fuelled my gambling harm”. “Watching sports, something I once loved, has become painful with every ad break,” he said.
West said Nine followed the regulations that the Australian Communications and Media Authority put in place.
Gambling reform campaigner Tim Costello asked how Nine’s slogan– “Australia belongs at Nine” – sat with the fact that 72% of Australians want a total ban on gambling ads.
“And I note that you’ve said, ‘We’ll follow whatever ACMA does’,” Costello said. “But you have been doing more than that. You’ve been actively lobbying with free to air networks to actually defeat the recommended total gambling ad ban.”
West said that Nine has told the government if they were to lose the revenue from gambling advertising they would expect an offset.
