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TEN renews deal with Southern Cross Media

After much speculation TEN has announced it has renewed an affiliation with Southern Cross Media.

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hamish_mclennanAfter much speculation TEN has announced it has renewed an affiliation with regional broadcaster Southern Cross Media.

The new deal is for three years but as TEN advises, “No other details of the agreement will be released.”

However, TEN is understood to have extracted a higher affiliation fee than previously.

TEN Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Hamish McLennan, said: “After constructive discussions with Max Moore-Wilton and his team, we have collectively achieved a fair outcome for both companies.

“We look forward to the continuation of our partnership with Southern Cross Media.”

SCA Chairman, Max Moore-Wilton, said: “We are pleased to have renewed our agreement with TEN for a further three years and look forward to a stronger collaboration, focussed on improving TEN’s national audience share and revenue-generating opportunities.”

Meanwhile today Fairfax writes positively about the new direction of TEN under Hamish McLennan.

“McLennan inherited a mess but also some valuable observations about what not to do when it comes to the Ten board, a group dominated by the wealthy and powerful – Murdoch, Gina Rinehart and Jack Cowin. He will play politics smarter and as such has already shown he has a mandate to take more calculated risks,” it observes.

“TEN also needs to be smarter about how it competes with the big boys of free-to-air television in programming – in much the same way it did in its glory years under the stewardship of John McAlpine. Some cricket, rugby, formula one, the Winter Olympics and the Commonwealth Games are cost-effective entry points for TEN, but there is destined to be more.”

6 Responses

  1. Southern Cross had to sign a deal with Ten or they would have nothing to show. Gone are the days when cheap US content delivered lots of revenue for little cost. It is local content that is rating well and Southern Cross needs Ten for that (since they couldn’t get a merger with Nne and show theirs).

    Seven and Prime have a good relationship, and I think they still have some common ownership. So it is not as big a deal if Seven doesn’t extract maximum revenue from them.

  2. I know TEN has to pay for all those big ticket sports now, but I think Southern Cross Austereo would’ve been within their rights to pay the same fees, if not much less. I guess that penalty clause was really hanging over their heads? However, I don’t think TEN go all their way because I believe they only wanted two years, while SCA wanted three.

    Glennc, Seven West’s affiliation for the Southern Cross Seven stations in Tas, the NT, & GTS/BKN are still pending. Watch this space for news about them.

    GMPetrie, I think the only regional & metro networks that don’t have any bad blood between them are Seven & Prime7/GWN7.

  4. The SMH is also reporting that the affiliation fee rose from 29% to 35% of revenue.

    smh.com.au/business/ten-signs-again-with-southern-cross-20130726-2qpws.html

    Which is less than the 39% WIN had to pay to to stay in business with Nine. But Ten is not in as strong a position as Nine.

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