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Seven Group Holdings Executive Chairman Kerry Stokes reacts during the West Australian Newspaper Holdings (WAN) half-year results briefing in Sydney February 21, 2011. WAN has agreed to takeover Seven Media Group in a $4.1 billion deal to create Australia's largest television and newspaper company and more than trebles the size of WAN. REUTERS/Tim Wimborne

With the announcement of the AFL deal on Tuesday, Kerry Stokes, executive chairman of Seven West Media group, revealed a AU$1.89 billion loss over the year through June.

The loss has been recorded after the value of its television licences reduced by AU$929 million and, followed by more than AU$1 billion reductions in the December half.

Apart from write-downs, profit of Seven media valued at AU$209.1 million, a straightaway slump of 11.5 percent as the company recorded revenue AU$1.77 billion, decreasing by 4.7 percent. However, Bloomberg’s consensus estimates showed that analysts had predicted a profit of AU$208 million for the company.

Meanwhile, the current net loss has been compared to the low the profit of AU$149.2 million incurred in the last financial year. The final dividend, payable on October 9, is 4 cents, down from 6 cents last year.

On joining the biggest sports rights deal in Australian television history, Seven is all set to pay AU$840 million in cash and provide AU$ 60 million worth of advertisements, which would ensure them 3.5 AFL matches per round for its free-to-air TV channel. In its AU$2.51billion deal struck with the Australian Football League for the six years, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is paying about AU$1.3 billion, while Telstra is paying AU$300 million for broadcast rights.

The company’s half yearly report posted in February showed that it cancelled AU$961 million used for television goodwill and for magazines and newspapers goodwill it wrote off AU$$65.7 million.

The company also wrote off AU$38 million of magazine and newspaper mastheads and licences. It said that most of the $2.1 billion impairment for the full year "relates to television goodwill and licences recognised as part of the 2011 West Australian Newspapers/Seven West Media transaction.

Seven Media Chief executive Tim Worner said that a lot of transformation has taken place in the current financial year as the company focuses to bring about new structural and architectural changes for its betterment in near future.

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