★★★★★ 0/5

FOX told to renegotiate TEN output deal

CBS plays tough with FOX and told to renegotiate its content deal or else.

25
Leave a comment

21st Century FOX has been told to renegotiate its content agreement with TEN, worth up to $195 million, or take a one-off $3.4 million payment from CBS.

Employees and general trade creditors of TEN will get 100% of what they are owed by the end of the year but content suppliers will only get their full payment if they stay with the network.

“Most creditors of the TEN Network businesses will get paid in full under the KordaMentha restructuring plan to sell the network to CBS,” KordaMentha said in a statement this afternoon.

CBS is providing $205 million to TEN to cover creditor costs, on top of $172.7 million it provided for the Commonwealth Bank and $12m each for Lachlan Murdoch, Bruce Gordon and James Packer.

Administrators have set aside $32 million for content providers. FremantleMedia Australia is owed $425,000, ITV Studios Australia is owed $1.9 million and EndemolShine Australia is owed $1 million.

TEN’s 750 employees will receive up to $56.2 million for annual leave and long service leave, and paying out any entitlements owed to former staff.

A second creditors meeting has been scheduled at the Sydney Harbour Marriott Hotel on Tuesday, September 12. That will be followed by a Supreme Court ruling to ratify the transfer of shares from existing holders to CBS, when any challenge is most likely to occur.

KordaMentha expects to formally complete the sale by mid-October, with most creditors paid by the end of the year.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian

25 Responses

  1. I would like to see a genuine dedicated FTA sports channel and CBS have an opportunity to do this.
    Past sports channel experiments like ‘One’ didn’t have their hearts in it, besides Channel 9 need their rather selective Wide World of Sports programming challenged for once.

  3. CBS is paying up about $600m in total. Including a $360m write off of their output deal fees (not the inflated $843m including possible future fees that they claimed as a creditor). CBS have offer the same deal to all content suppliers.

    If Fox walks away they get ownership of some programmes to sell that Ten might have had. The reality is that US content is worth a fraction of what it was 5 years ago because viewer just aren’t watching it on FTA and ad revenue rates have dropped. First run rights can survive beyond an output deal e.g. Nine retain TBBT first run after they dropped the WB output deal. So Ten could keep some shows at the current episode price, 9if that right hasn;t been voided by nonpayment already) without a deal.

    1. Given the comments made about TEN’s brand equity by CBS’s head honcho, Les Moonves, I highly doubt they would consider renaming the network or the channels. They might look to include their Eye logo though, place it alongside the existing TEN logos. Similar to the way the Nine dots are shown on NBN’s logo, and across Nine’s multi channels.

      1. Worth noting that CBS’s all-seeing eye wartmark in the US is in fact heavier than most Australian wartmarks, with an almost solid edge higlight/shadow. It’s also in the 4:3 safe area, like 7’s used to be (to many howls of protest).

    1. Given the complaining about Eleven not screening The Simpsons in its millionth repeat at the minute surely you’d want the Seven Network to claim it so they can screen it in higher rotation across 7mate and 7flix?

  7. Ticks for the designer of the CBSTEN logo you’re using in this series of posts David.
    The new owners should adopt it for the resuscitated network.
    Oh, and – since Friday – I now understand what the critics of the WIN “watermark” have been complaining about.

      1. I like it too David.
        Hopefully a CBS owned TEN will force it’s affiliates like WIN to not stain the network feed with massive blue map blob logos over the top of the CBS TEN logo, one can hope. The oversize and solid WIN branding on the TEN feeds since last Friday when WIN took over playout in Northern NSW may hopefully be shortlived?

        2. Don’t bet on it. Sure Bruce has that in their affiliation agreement. “Shortlived”? We in other WIN regions have had to suffer that for more than a year, plus the hideous One and 11 logos. Wish other here would stop referring to them as “watermarks”.

        3. The “watermark” fades away prior to an ad break which suggests that the Network feed is “clean” so that the affiliate can place their watermark anywhere on the screen. The video mixing process can allow the underlying picture to show through the watermark.
          I’m totally against all watermarks and would gladly buy a device that is better than my “mousepad against the screen” system.

          1. Unfortunately, TEN’s feeds aren’t ‘clean’, not the ones for Eleven or One anyway. It’s more noticeable when the programme comes back from an ad break – the metro transparent Eleven/One watermark will appear, before being block covered by WIN’s hideous solid overlays. Here’s hoping TEN takes a stronger position on this under CBS’s tutelage when the affiliation deal is next renegotiated.

    1. Gordon and Murdoch have local knowledge and experience and are committed to the Australian Industry. Freed from the US output deals they could probably make a profit, as long as Lachlan is kept away from programming decisions.

      CBS will be supply US content for nearly all of Eleven, and a few shows like NCIS for Ten. But days when NCIS generated 1.5+m views with broad demographics are long gone. Running stations in 5 capital cities and meeting the 55% local content and drama quota is a different ball game to CBS supplying 3 hours of primetime a night to US affiliates. And CBS will need a commercial return on their $600m investment and content to stay.

      1. Ten has to do 10 hours of programming a day between 6am – Midnight to hit 55%
        CBS network does 11 hours between 6am – Midnight

        Ten has 5 stations, CBS 20
        CBS’ 20 stations do about 5 hours of local news a day between 6am-midght – Ten stations do 1

      2. Eleven is an easy fix for CBS, with there huge back catalogue of shows all they have to do is make it where TV’s greatest hits live. Bring some like Matlock, Jake and The Fatman, M*A*S*H and etc., across from ONE, then add in some others like All In The Family, Maude, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Touched By An Angel, The Bob Newhart Show, Barnaby Jones, Kojak and on it can go.

        Wouldn’t even be suprised to see The Young and The Restless return to TEN to lead into The Bold And The Beautiful. The shame of it all is ONE, who once had the NFL and MLB, both of which CBS have the rights to stream and could have been on ONE for them if not now tied up with 7Mate and ESPN. CBS could have rebuilt ONE back into a Sports Channel again off the back of thoose if they wanted to, especially if it could go HD (like SBS have 2 HD’s), could see CBS going for all of the Cricket with Nine still baulking…

        2. Just because a show did, or does, air on CBS in the US it doesn’t mean CBS has rights to it now, or rights outside of the USA. M*A*S*H is a 20th Fox show, as is Mary Tyler Moore, and no doubt others are owned by WB or Sony etc. Y&R is distributed by Sony Television, not by CBS.

          1. I thought they still owned the non USA rights so my bad. So yeah most of those sitcoms aren’t CBS, ah well it’ll be wall to wall Cheers, Frasier, Becker, Everbody Loves Raymond, Rules of Engagement, The King of Queens and they could throw in Happy Days and Mork and Mindy again plus My Three Sons would be a good one. However they have a few of the others as in Walker, Texas Ranger, Mission Impossible, Jake And The Fatman, Mannix, Matlock, Diagnosis: Murder, Streets of San Francisco, Touched By An Angel and etc.

            In short they could still do it as now I’ve looked at the list instead of going oddff the top of my head. it’s still long

Leave a Reply