Nine Entertainment has told shareholders that the company has made a remarkable recovery.

After the advertising market turned down sharply in March 2020, it rebounded through October, November and December, and as a result Nine reported a strong profit growth for FY21 with Group EBITDA up 43% and Net Profit After Tax up 83% on FY20.

Group revenue was $2,332M.

As a result shareholders will get a dividend of 10.5 cents per share for the year after the payment of the 5.5c final dividend announced today.

New CEO, Mike Sneesby, told shareholders that while recovery in the radio market has lagged behind television, there were clear signs of improvement in the second half of FY21 with Nine Radio’s ad revenues up by 13%.

He told investors, “Nine’s Radio audiences grew by 11% across the year, importantly including growth of 14% in the 25-54’s Nines ‘s key agency demographic, which reflected in growth in agency share.”

 Sneesby also told Nine’s employees that among the key highlights for the Group, in radio “The role of our radio stations in their respective cities has never been more important than during the recent lockdowns. This period saw 2GB and 3AW achieve market-leading ratings.

 “While the radio ad market was impacted by the lockdowns in Sydney and Melbourne, momentum has definitely swung in recent weeks and the sales team are capitalising on this.”