His comments come after the television and publishing company posted a $67 million loss for the December half and a further $20 million worth of cost outs, as the weak advertising market hit the company's bottom line. Shares fell by more than 20 cent after the media group posted a 3 per cent fall in revenue to $772.4 million. Nine Entertainment Co, owner of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, fell 5 per cent to $1.74 following Seven's results, while outdoor advertising company oOh! Media fell by 6 per cent to $2.93. "It's that balancing act of transforming, investing in content and at the same time ... primary revenue source is declining ... so that's really been the focus and led to the revised guidance," Mr Warburton said. Excluding significant items, which included a write-down of its television licence and "onerous" content contracts including with cricket, Seven West Media posted a profit of $98.2 million. Underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation fell by 20.8 per cent year on year to $136.6 million while net debt sits at $541.5 million, including proceeds from the $28 million sale of Redwave.

Seven expects underlying EBITDA to be between $165 million and $175 million for the full financial year. Revenue from Seven's West Australian Newspapers dipped by 1.4 per cent, while Pacific Magazines revenue fell by 13.3 per cent for the half year to $57.3 million. The television business' revenue fell 4 per cent year on year to $603.3 million. Mr Warburton said he would continue to look at mergers and acquisitions to help transform the business, reiterating every asset was on the table. "We've got property and we've got [Seven Studios] and we've got some other things that aren't necessarily on the balance sheet that are good opportunities for us to reduce debt," Mr Warburton said. On a call with analysts, Mr Warburton said the new $20 million worth of cost cuts would focus on duplicated roles in areas such as back-end delivery. Programs including Sunday Night, Today Tonight and Queensland Weekender were among those axed as part of cost savings efforts last year.

Loading Mr Warburton's previous plans to turn the business around included a merger with Prime Media Group and the sale of magazine operation Pacific Magazines, both of which were stalled. The merger with Prime Media Group was blocked by media proprietors Antony Catalano and Bruce Gordon, and Seven is still waiting on a decision from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on its $35 million deal with Bauer Media for its magazine business, due in April. JP Morgan media analyst Eric Pan said the results were unexpected. "A lot of that has to do with continued weakness in the overall industry ad spending market. We were expecting a weak first half...but we were expecting a rebound in the second half," Mr Pan said.