MARKET ANNOUNCEMENT

11 April 2022

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

2022 Annual Shareholders' Meeting Presentation and Addresses

AUCKLAND, 11 April 2022: NZME Limited (NZX: NZM, ASX: NZM) ("NZME") attaches the Chairman of the Meeting and the CEO's addresses, and presentation which will be delivered at the Annual Shareholders' Meeting being held online today, commencing at 3:00pm (NZT).

ENDS

Authorised by the NZME Board

For further information:

Kelly Gunn

GM Communications - NZME +64 27 213 5625kelly.gunn@nzme.co.nz

About NZME

New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME) is an integrated media company, with a portfolio of market leading news, entertainment and real estate brands strategically positioned across a network of digital, print and audio platforms.

With a combined audience of 3.4 million New Zealanders*, NZME supports commercial partners to grow customer engagement with a data driven, audience and customer centric approach. NZME is listed on the NZX Main Board (code NZM) with a foreign exempt listing on the ASX (code NZM).

*SOURCE: Nielsen CMI Fused Q1 21 - Q4 21 January 2022 AP15+

CHAIRMAN OF MEETING'S ADDRESS: BARBARA CHAPMAN

Welcome

Welcome everyone and thanks for attending New Zealand Media and Entertainment's Annual Shareholder Meeting for 2022.

It's a shame to once again not be able to hold this meeting in person, and I look forward to when we can get back to some sort of normality and have our ASM together. I'm optimistic that will be in the not-so-distant future.

State of New Zealand's economy

NZME operates within the context of the business environment around us. When looking at the state of our economy in New Zealand, we have experienced, and we continue to experience, a number of challenges.

As we all know, New Zealand experienced another difficult year in 2021 with COVID-19 re-emerging in August, resulting in full lockdowns and border restrictions between regions across the country. This caused the effective isolation of our largest city - Auckland.

Omicron is still very much in the community. Supply chains remain disrupted, inflation is rising, interest rates are rising, and the employment market, particularly with our borders having been closed for so long, is extremely tight putting upward pressure on wage rates.

However, despite these major challenges, NZME was able to achieve tremendous results.

Agenda

Today in my address I'll be taking shareholders through some of NZME's high-level results from the 2021 financial year, providing an update on our strategic priorities and NZME's guiding principles, as well as some insight on our commitment to sustainability.

Following that I'll share with you some details of our capital management plan and how we are tracking in this respect before I pass on to Michael Boggs for his Chief Executive address.

Financial Results 2021

Despite the challenges of 2021, our financial results were solid. Overall operating revenue was up 5 percent on 2020, which included a 13 percent recovery in advertising revenue. A 37 percent growth in digital revenue across the business was testament to NZME's focus on digital transformation and expansion of its digital platform offering.

NZME's Statutory Net Profit was up 138 percent, partly due to the sale of GrabOne. Operating Net Profit After Tax was up 6 percent on the prior year.

The increase in our share price, combined with dividends, resulted in a Total Shareholder Return for the year of 103%.

Michael will provide further information on financial results and an outlook for 2022 in his address.

Having a defined strategy with clear priorities and opportunities and maintaining a tight focus on what is going to help "shift the dial" shaped the financial result.

But alongside that we must also acknowledge the hard work and commitment of our people and our customers, in what has been a very challenging and uncertain trading and operating environment, for our success over the past 12 months.

2023 Strategic Priorities

NZME is committed to delivering shareholder value by focusing on our guiding principles, our key strategic priorities and achieving the 2023 targets we've set for the business.

Late in 2020 we shared our guiding principles that would be applied to each of NZME's strategic initiatives. These guiding principles remain a steady focus in all areas of the business, driving results and ensuring our 2023 key targets are met. They are:

Customer First - we remain focused on putting our customers first and adding true value - enhancing their experiences and being indispensable.

Win with Quality - we remain committed to setting the bar high to ensure our premium quality focus is applied to everything we do.

Digital Acceleration - we aim to deliver a world class digital business - driving the growth of digital content via our news platforms including NZ Herald Premium, growing digital audio through iHeartRadio and expanding and improving digital platforms such as OneRoof.

Audience Expansion - growing audiences across NZME's multiple brands.

And being a Top Performer - we will continue to set new standards and benchmarks to ensure top performance across all areas of the business.

In Michael's address he will speak in more detail about NZME's three strategic priorities and provide an update on how the business is tracking under each of those pillars.

The business' strategic focus continues to be on:

Being New Zealand's Leading Audio Company

The New Zealand Herald to be New Zealand's Herald, and

OneRoof to be New Zealand's completely property destination.

Underlying NZME's strong business performance in 2021 was our focus on these strategic priorities, underpinned by our clear guiding principles.

The business' transformation and performance was recognised publicly this year, with NZME recognised at the 2022 Deloitte Top 200 Business Awards, taking out the prize for Most Improved

Performance. This was a fantastic achievement and testament to all the hard work done to drive the performance of our business forward in another challenging year.

Furthermore, off the back of the Deloitte Top 200 win, NZME's news teams celebrated the latest Nielsen readership results confirming NZME as New Zealand's go to news destination, with 2.7 million Kiwis keeping up with the news via our multiple platforms.

Sustainability Commitment

NZME's sustainability programme is aligned to the guidelines set out in the United Nations Sustainable

Development Goals.

As a business NZME is committed to protecting the craft of journalism and broadcasting to keep Kiwis in the know. To do this requires a commitment to sustainable practices and the wellbeing of our community, people, and environment.

NZME is focused on connecting and empowering our communities. In 2021, with Kiwis once again impacted by COVID, keeping Kiwis in the know was more important than ever before - keeping them connected and safe during the pandemic. The 90% Project was a bold initiative driven by the NZ Herald that was hugely successful - driving a call to action to see 90% of the eligible New Zealand population immunised by Christmas last year.

To honour our sustainability commitment, we also need to provide a workplace that fosters innovation, engagement, and inclusion. NZME's Diversity and Inclusion Committee has been instrumental in driving a number of events and training programmes to help foster this. We are striving for diversity at Board, Executive and People leader levels and continue to make progress in this area.

We take our responsibility to the environment seriously and we continue to review the actual and potential impact our business practises have on our environment. We are committed to demonstrating leadership in this area, including using our many platforms to inform and raise awareness of environmental issues. An example of this is Our Green Future - a content hub shared across NZME's lifestyle brands and The New Zealand Herald, both online and in print. This content hub brings together sustainability content created by NZME's leading lifestyle brands and amplifies these important messages through various NZME channels.

Capital Management

Three years ago, NZME was in a very different financial position with a net debt position of about $100 million, leading the Board and management to place a strong focus on reducing that debt through a strategic capital management plan.

Thanks to disciplined management we can now report a much stronger balance sheet and significantly improved financial performance. This allowed for a return to dividend payments during the year, with dividends totalling eight cents per share paid in relation to 2021.

At the end of March NZME signed a letter of intent with Google which sets out terms for NZME to supply news content for Google's News Showcase and other news products and projects. Discussions with

Meta - the owner of Facebook - are also continuing.

In January we announced that we had completed our acquisition of business and economic news service BusinessDesk, which along with NZ Herald Premium, sees NZME further building on its digital growth, providing comprehensive and trusted business news to its consumer and business customers

On 4 April we commenced an on-market share buyback programme for an aggregate purchase price of up to $30 million, which may run up to 16 December this year.

Along with our progress on debt reduction, our market buyback programme provides us with an opportunity to return value back to our shareholders whilst remaining in a strong position to make future capital investments that align with our strategic priorities and put NZME in an excellent position for future growth.

Board reflections and shareholder engagement

Although this year has been another challenging one for NZME, the Board has been pleased with the progress that has been made and the financial position the business is in.

We have enjoyed the ongoing engagement we have with our investor community, and we hope this ongoing engagement allows shareholders to gain a deep understanding of our strategy and focus, and on our ongoing commitment to creating shareholder value.

We also hope it's provided shareholders with opportunities to provide feedback and ask questions - we welcome all feedback from our investor community, and we will continue to provide you with opportunities to engage with the Board and executive directly. This will include at our Annual Investor Day later in the year.

I'd like to take the time to thank the Board for their leadership and commitment throughout the year. We all bring very different backgrounds, skillsets, and experience to the Board table, which I think is a great strength, and it's been a pleasure to work together over the past year. Thank you also for your support of me as Chairman.

Before closing, I'd like to mention the item in NZME's notice of meeting regarding a matter raised by shareholders who are members of the New Zealand Free Speech Union. This matter will be discussed further on in the meeting, following our formal resolutions.

Closing remarks

On a final note, and on behalf of the NZME Board I'd also like to acknowledge and thank Michael and the Executive team for all their hard work in another challenging year.

A big thanks also to everyone at NZME, our customers, partners and shareholders for your commitment and ongoing support.

I will now pass on to Michael to deliver his Chief Executive Address.

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NZME Ltd. published this content on 11 April 2022 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 11 April 2022 03:18:07 UTC.