Nine Entertainment made a $972 million loss for the financial year ending June 30 - taking its total accumulated losses to more than $2.5 billion - as the media group headed for collapse.

In financial reports just released to the corporate regulator, Nine confirmed its dire financial condition over the last year with a $783 million write down on the value of its assets last year. This includes a $720 million writedown to the licence value of the Nine network.

The company recorded asset impairments totalling more than $1.5 billion over two years.

These writedowns do not impact on the company’s underlying financial performance but the report shows how badly the business struggled under the multibillion dollar debt load that threatened to sink Nine. The company was not generating enough cash to pay its way with operating cash flows in the negative to the tune of more than $17 million last year.

Nine generated $45 million cash from its operations for the prior year.