0/5

Nine Darwin jobs safe from takeover

Any sale of Nine Darwin to Imparja is said to include assurances of jobs for current staff.

Channel Nine’s Darwin staff have been assured no jobs would be lost if the station was taken over by Alice Springs-based Imparja.

The Northern Territory News understands the Nine Network wants to retain the same staffing levels as a condition of a proposed sale.

The newspaper reported on Friday that a takeover could see the station’s local news service cancelled and most of the production and editorial staff replaced by a small Darwin news bureau. NTD employs 46 people including journalists, production staff, sales and camera operators.

Nine’s Darwin general manager Andy Bruyn is believed to have spoken to staff and assured them that no jobs would be lost.

The Australian newspaper yesterday quoted a Nine source “close to the negotiations” confirming that Imparja had put forward an offer to buy Nine’s Territory Television.

The source said a cost-cutting drive by Nine was not behind the deal. “We weren’t in the market to sell this asset,” the source told the paper. “… Imparja made the approach.”

The Australian reported that Nine expects to have a formal position on the offer by the end of this week. But the NT News believes any announcement may still be weeks away.

Source: Northern Territory News

3 Responses

  1. Simple solution – why don’t CVC and Macquarie jointly sell DTD to Ten itself. It makes good business sense, given that DTD is the one that airs Ten programs. Otherwise, CVC’s sale of NTD and retention of the 50% stake it has in DTD could force DTD to re-affiliate with Nine and NTD to re-affilate with Ten (more confusion in the making, yeah right).

  2. This is just more cost-cutting by CVC-Nine. As the “Prince of Darkness” descends to the throne, I can’t see it any other way. So, isn’t it a little hypocritical for CVC to impose “conditions” on Imparja if they want to take it over, like retaining staff?? What will Nine do if Imparja cuts them anyway? Cut supply of programs? They were going to do that with WIN last year, but didn’t have the guts in the end…

    Now, they could just sell NTD to WIN (if they wanted it) & we wouldn’t need these “conditions” in the first place because WIN always invests in local news… Oh, but that’s right! WIN Corp & CVC-Nine both hate eachother, because Nine are nothing but cost-cutting hypocrites

Leave a Reply