New Zealand’s largest commercial radio company is heading into Australian ownership. Melbourne-based Sports Entertainment Group has signed a binding agreement to buy all of MediaWorks, the owner of The Rock, More FM, The Edge, The Breeze, Mai FM and George FM, in a deal that values the business at NZ$130 million on a cash-free and debt-free basis.
The sale was announced on 11 August by SEG, which is listed on the Australian sharemarket under the code SEG, and by MediaWorks’ private equity owner Quadrant. RNZ and 1News both reported the deal on Wednesday. Completion is targeted for 1 October, subject to conditions that include approval from the Overseas Investment Office.
MediaWorks is the country’s biggest radio operator by audience. SEG told investors the business reaches about 2.4 million listeners a week and holds a 59 percent audience share among 25 to 54 year olds, the age band advertisers pay the most to reach. Alongside the music stations it runs the rova audio app, the Magic, The Sound and Channel X brands, Radio Dunedin, an outdoor advertising arm and an in-house creative studio called Passionfruit. Put together with SEG’s Australian sports network SEN, the combined group will reach more than five million listeners a week across both countries.
What makes the price notable is that SEG has been here before, and left. In November 2023 the company agreed to sell its New Zealand arm, SENZ, to TAB New Zealand, handing over the SENZ brand, its website and app, 28 stations across 29 frequencies and the audio rights to cricket, netball, rugby league and Premier League football. The handover began on 1 February 2024. TAB paid about NZ$4 million. Two and a half years later SEG is buying back into the New Zealand market at roughly 32 times that figure, for a very different set of assets.
The purchase is being funded through a mix of existing cash, a new senior debt facility from Commonwealth Bank of Australia and a fully underwritten share placement raising about A$35 million. Business News Australia reported the CBA facility at A$87.6 million, a substantial step up in borrowing for a company whose shares were trading around 30 Australian cents earlier this month. SEG has told the market it expects to identify about A$5 million a year in cost savings, lifting group earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation towards A$41.1 million once those savings are banked, and bringing its debt ratio back down from about 1.9 times earnings to 1.2 times within two years.
On MediaWorks’ own numbers the business is forecast to earn NZ$25.4 million in EBITDA over calendar 2026, with SEG telling investors it sees a path to more than NZ$38 million by 2030. On the forecast figure, the NZ$130 million enterprise value works out at a little over five times earnings, which is a modest multiple by media industry standards and a reflection of how hard the past few years have been for radio and print businesses on both sides of the Tasman.
SEG chief executive Craig Hutchison called the purchase “a transformational step for SEG” and said it gives the company “immediate market leadership in New Zealand, a highly complementary content offering, and a genuine platform to extend our sport, digital and entertainment capability across the Tasman”. In comments reported by Australian trade publication B&T, he added that MediaWorks “is New Zealand’s number one audio business, third biggest media business, and has an incredible connection with its market leading audio audience”, and that SEG has “enormous respect for the business and see huge upside in driving growth in step with our content and services offering”.
MediaWorks chief executive Wendy Palmer, who is expected to stay on and continue running the New Zealand business after settlement, said the deal was “a hugely exciting moment for MediaWorks” and described SEG as “a media company that shares our relentless focus on audiences and customers”. Their investment, she said, “is a strong vote of confidence in this team, our brands and the position we’ve built as New Zealand’s leading audio and digital business”. She added that “joining forces gives our team access to genuine scale and capability”.
Anyone who has followed MediaWorks over the past decade will understand why a vote of confidence is worth saying out loud. The company sold its television arm, including Three, to Discovery in a deal that settled on 1 December 2020, walking away from the news operation it had built over 30 years. It launched the talk station Today FM in 2022 and shut it down in March 2023, with the loss of dozens of jobs. Several years of multi-million dollar losses followed. Only in April this year did the company report a turnaround, announcing a post-tax profit of $3.8 million, its best result in years. The sale is happening on the back of that recovery rather than in spite of it.
The ownership churn behind the scenes has been just as busy. MediaWorks’ majority shareholder QMS bought out US investment firm Oaktree Capital’s remaining 45 percent stake in April 2025. Quadrant then sold QMS itself to Nine Entertainment for A$850 million, a deal that completed on 31 March this year. MediaWorks was carved out of that transaction and stayed with Quadrant, which made a sale process for the radio business close to inevitable. It has taken about four months to land a buyer. Australian trade outlet RadioInfo reported that SEG saw off rival bidder Nova to win the auction.
For listeners, nothing changes on the dial before October at the earliest, and the buyer has given no indication it plans to touch the music brands that make the money. The more interesting question is what a sports broadcaster does with a music radio network. SEG’s business in Australia is built on talk, commentary rights and events, none of which MediaWorks currently does at scale in New Zealand since Today FM closed. Whether that capability comes back across the Tasman, and what it might cost in jobs elsewhere in the business, is the thing worth watching between now and settlement. The Overseas Investment Office decision is the next formal step.
What do you think about another chunk of New Zealand media moving into Australian ownership? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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