ARN’s revenue is falling, and it only managed to turn a $800,000 profit (NPAT) in the first six months of the year. The company has the country’s two highest-paid entertainers on the books, who are also partly responsible for the downturn in advertising.

Yet, Ciaran Davis, ARN’s chief executive officer, tells Mumbrella he is optimistic about the future of the business.

“Absolutely”, he answers, after coming off an investor call in which the term “reset” and “transitional” were used roughly eight million times.

“I think what we’ve done is we’ve streamlined operations,” he says. “We’ve simplified operations, which is a very difficult task to do. And when you’re talking about people — headcount — out, it can be challenging.

“But we have executed very well over the last six months. The business is settled.”

The restructure saw ARN launch into a $40 million cost cutting program, which involved 240 job losses. It brought in a new chief operating officer — Michael Stephenson, formerly of Nine — and a new CFO in Alexis Poole.

The company paid down $8 million in debt, decreased underlying costs by 5%, and have ‘actioned’ $35 million in savings.

“We’ve restructured the commercial team,” Davis continues. “We’ve brought in new leadership across several functions. We’re enhancing our digital audio capabilities. The commercial team is settled in market. We’ve seen some audience growth come back in the first half of this year, which is good. We should see share regain.

“I think we’re very well positioned to take advantage of the hard work and the difficult work that we’ve done over the last six months,” he concluded.

Ciaran Davis

Optimism is great, but the company’s financial results for the first six months of 2025 don’t paint a pretty picture.

Radio revenue is down 9% year-on-year, with metro falling 12% and regional down 5%. Digital audio grew by an impressive 21%, but the dollar number was only $2.4m.

That couldn’t make up for the $10m drop in metro advertising, or even the $2.9m regional drop-off.

For a company looking to........

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