Report: Nine in talks to buy Adelaide, Perth stations from WIN.
Nine CEO David Gyngell is trying to secure a deal with WIN TV boss Bruce Gordon to buy Adelaide and Perth stations.
- Published by David Knox
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Nine Entertainment Co. CEO David Gyngell is trying to secure a deal with WIN TV boss Bruce Gordon to buy Adelaide and Perth stations, in a bid to help secure cricket rights.
Without the two stations Nine can’t guarantee Cricket Australia national coverage of cricket.
The Australian reports the two parties have been thrashing out a deal for the past week with Gyngell ready to purchase Nine Adelaide immediately and an option to buy Perth after the federal election if the75 per cent population reach rule is repealed.
Not owning those affiliates has also severely limited Nine’s capacity to effect change in two cities where it repeatedly loses to Seven and impacts on national figures.
Nine has asked Gordon to pay higher fees for its content, while Gordon has threatened to use WIN’s own library for content, which would be a disastrous move for Perth and Adelaide viewers.
But US hedge fund owners, Apollo Global Management and Oaktree Capital Group, are nervous at the costs, amid a falling Australian dollar and desire to float Nine on the stock exchange. It has been reported they do not want Nine to match TEN’s $500m bid for cricket rights.
If a deal is sorted between the two parties, it would mean Gordon would seek to combine his remaining WIN assets with TEN where he currently owns a 15 per cent stake while Nine would shelve talk of a potential merge with Southern Cross Media.
9 Responses
Channel 9 Perth, in my opinion, has had a long history of disappointing ownership, especially in its Sunraysia days. WIN appears to have invested little in 9 Perth since it purchased the local station. In fact, staffers were retrenched, and the station now appears to be running on a minuscule or tightly controlled budget.
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Stan is correct in such that it will take more than an ownership change to improve Nine ratings in Perth. Seven is well entrenched as part of the Perth community and their successful community involvement was used as a blueprint for the whole network when Kerry Stokes took over Seven nationwide.
It would appear that the budget for Seven News, and for station promotion, exceeds the combined budgets of all Perth stations. As I have mentioned in a previous post, our daily newspaper, owned by 7, is constantly filled with stories, cross promotions etc. Seven do it well in the West and they have had decades establishing their brand. Christmas Pageants, Telethons etc are a vital part of their community branding. Nine and Ten, because of their ownership structures, and tight budgets, are battling to compete in the Perth market, especially during a downturn in advertising revenue.
Often ratings for 7 Perth turn mediocre programmes into a 7 Network hit. Popular Seven shows are given an extra boost, courtesy of the west. Look at the news ratings for Sunday night. By achieving 301,000 viewers in Perth, 7 News became the top show of the night.
Many of us “old timers” long to see a more competitive tv market in Perth. Genuine competition is good for all networks. If the purchase goes ahead, one would hope that some 9 Network expertise and personnel would be injected into 9 Perth. Experienced news staff, for example, could head West for a “tour of duty” to help support and mentor a good local news team of reporters, presenters and production staff, who it now appears are being currently being stifled in the cost cutting WIN environment.
Please keep comments succinct.
MHA, your anti-WIN comments ignore the fact that Perth & Adelaide viewers just massively prefer Seven programming over Nine’s for some reason. A change of ownership from WIN Corp to Nine Co would make almost no difference. Unless they program STW & NWS differently from the rest of the network. I’m pretty sure 95% of Perth & Adelaide’s population neither know, nor care their Channel Nine’s are owned by WIN.
Bella, one little mistake & it’s all over?
Jason, Ellen was WIN’s only… Ahh, win. In 2007 you would’ve noticed WIN only independently programmed away from Nine in all timeslots except primetime & Today. If they touched those areas with more repeats of The Brady Bunch, they would’ve been killed in the ratings. So, no, Bruce can’t go it alone.
For me, I don’t see why WIN would want to do Nine any favours by selling Perth & Adelaide. Because these 75% reach laws are now pie in the sky. Unless Nine signs WIN on again for another affiliation term at a reduced or same rate & sells NBN to them for a penny?
If this goes through, I wonder what it will mean for WINs locally produced programming which currently airs on Nine Adelaide and I assume Perth. I would not be suprised if Nine chose not to purchase the rights to these programs in favour of cheaper content they already have access to in their back catalogues.
@ – It’s “Wollongong” (but a common mistake). Yes, Nine only have Syd, Mel, Bne, Newcastle & Darwin. WIN has the rest of the country. WIN has shown in the past they are quite capable of replacement programming – Nine’s morning show was dumped. “Ellen” was first on WIN. They have access to suppliers such as Paramount, Sony, etc.
Nine should never have fought WIN to get NBN. They may now swap NBN for STW and/or NWS.
Nine wants control and all the revenue from Adelaide, Perth and Wollongong. With the reach rules not being relaxed they can’t.
Gordon is obviously refusing to play ball over doing what Nine wants with the cricket, which is hampering their negotiations with CA, so they are exploring solutions.
The hedge funds are not going to want to sink half a billion dollars into a loss making cricket deal when they want to exit in the short term. So it may be academic.
We will find out more in week when the cricket situation is resolved.
Channel 9 still can not guarantee cricket rights nationally, just by buying Adelaide and Perth.
Win TV Queensland starts 120 Kilometre out of Brisbane and covers the whole state.
Viewers outside the Brisbane CBD only get Win TV.
So wouldn’t David Gygnell have to buy all the 10 regiona Win Newsrooms etc, Rockhampton, Cairns, Bundaberg, Wide Bay, Townsville, Toowoomba and the Win hub of Maroochydore which is run by a bloke that really didn’t get on with Nine Phiil Hind.
And the same with South of Sydney, Win own Woolongong, Canberra, Wagga, Albury, Griffith, Orange, Dubbo and in Vic, Bendigo, Ballarat Mildura etc… These are all owned by Win these towns… So if Win choose its own programs wouldn’t these towns be the biggest loosers apart from the ratings?
I think it would be good. For whatever reason Channel Nine Perth, GO! and GEM all went down on Saturday night at about 9:30pm for nearly an hour. It wasn’t just me as I checked twitter and some other people were complaining.
Nine should never had sold STW when they briefly owned it when Bond had TCN/GTV/QTQ/STW and SKY Channel. Nine has never owned NWS. Makes sense for Nine to at long last directly control these stations and hopefully put back resources and build both NWS and STW up again. For WIN to merge with Ten, WIN would need to divest NWS and STW anyway.
And one obvious flaw the in The Australian article is how it mentions that the mooted, but never offcially confirmed meger deal between Southern Cross and Nine is dead. Well, yes, it was always dead, as it can not proceed until the reach rules are abolished. As the same article mentions, there is a potential for WIN to merge with Ten. Therefore why would Southern Cross still need to continue its affiliation with Ten? It could still affiliate come July 1 with Nine for areas other than NRN Northern NSW being that Nine already owns NBN and the Seven Central service in outback regions where Imparja is the current Nine affiliate. That would still leave WIN being a Nine affliate only in Mount Gambier/Loxton, Griffith, Mildura and regional WA only.
There is still a lot to be sorted out. And who is to say this story is an attempt trying to encourage Canberra to relax the reach rules before the election, which is rather unlikely, probably all part of the power play over cricket rights? Who knows?