Australia's only locally owned streaming service has delivered record earnings, helping to boost the bottom line of its corporate parent.
Stan's earnings climbed 24 per cent to a record $37 million as paying subscriber numbers grew five per cent to 2.4 million and the streaming service received its first revenue from the launch of advertising on Stan Sport.
Overall Nine Entertainment made $95.2 million in net profit from continuing operations in the six months to December 31, up 30 per cent from the same time in 2024.
Revenue fell five per cent to $1.05 billion while group earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation climbed 6.0 per cent to $192.2 million.
Stan's performance was notable because the same corresponding period included an audience boost from the Paris Olympic Games and screening of the popular drama series Yellowstone starring Kevin Costner.
Nine's earnings from its television division fell 1.0 per cent to $98.9 million, a result Nine CEO Matt Stanton told analysts was "pleasingly robust", given the softness in the advertising market.
Print advertising declined by 11 per cent and digital advertising dropped 14 per cent, but earnings dropped just 1.0 per cent to $73.7 million for Nine's publishing business.
Part of that was due to $8 million less in defamation costs, primarily a result of Nine's successful completion of the Ben Roberts-Smith litigation.
Increased digital subscriber volumes and average revenue per user at the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review more than offset the decline in print subscriptions, Nine said.
Mr Stanton said Nine had successfully begun licensing content to other Australian corporations for use in their in-house artificial intelligence large language models.
Two such deals have been completed and Nine has a pipeline of other opportunities that it sees as a good revenue stream for the future, he said, while declining to specify how much cash they might generate.
"We've done a couple of deals, and they will depend on the size of organisation and the size of the deal we do," he said.
"They will change a little bit depending and depending what sector you're in, whether in tourism or banking or mining, etc."
The company confirmed it expected its sale of Nine Radio to be completed by the end of April and its $818 million acquisition of outdoor advertising business QMS to be done by the end of June.
Nine ended the first half with $158 million in net cash, reflecting a $720 million net impact from the sale of its real estate platform, Domain, to US property business CoStar in 2025.
Nine will pay an interim dividend of 4.5 cents per share, unfranked, up from a 3.5 cent per share a year ago.
Nine shares finished Tuesday up 0.5 per cent to $1.065.
