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Nine signs affiliation agreement with Southern Cross

Breaking News: Nine signs 5 year deal with Southern Cross, bringing an end to 27 years with WIN.

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UPDATE: Nine, Southern Cross,TEN, WIN: affiliate changes

Nine and Southern Cross have announced a 5 year affiliation agreement, ending a long-term partnership with WIN Television.

The deal from July 1 sees Southern Cross broadcast Nine content into its markets in Queensland, Southern NSW and Victoria.

Nine has secured a fee of 50% of SCA’s TV revenue -Nine currently received 39% of WIN TV revenue, but could not secure a higher deal from WIN.

The deal sees the end of a 27 year affiliation between the two broadcasters from June 30, following a tenuous relationship of late. Yesterday WIN lost a courtcase with Nine over streaming rights into its markets. Both extended their current affiliation deal until the end of June, after failing to agree to new tersm.

Nine CEO Hugh Marks told a senate committee Nine was not interested in buying a regional broadcaster.

Marks and Southern Cross CEO Grant Blackley are close, together they owned talent management agency RGM Artists.

WIN has previously been reported as having talks with TEN management about a new affiliation deal. Billionaire mogul Bruce Gordon owns around 15% of both Nine and TEN.

The release is as follows:

Nine Entertainment Co. (Nine) (ASX:NEC) and Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) (ASX: SXL) have today announced the signing of a new regional television affiliation agreement. The five year agreement will see SCA broadcast Nine’s metropolitan free-to-air television content into regional Queensland, Southern NSW and regional Victoria from 1 July 2016.

Under this landmark agreement, the SCA channels will carry Nine’s branding and broadcast its premium Australian and international content including The Voice and The Block, as well as all NRL and Cricket broadcasts, providing a seamless Nine brand across metropolitan and major regional markets.

SCA will pay Nine an affiliation fee of 50 per cent of its television revenue.

As part of the new affiliation deal, Nine and SCA have agreed to work together on a number of opportunities to mutually grow their businesses.

The agreement provides for a substantial expansion of news services broadcast by SCA. Nine’s market leading News bulletins featuring international, national and locally produced news will be broadcast to regional markets across Queensland, Southern NSW and Victoria.

As part of the arrangements, SCA will provide national sales services for Nine’s NBN channel in Northern NSW and NTD9 in Darwin. This will provide advertisers with a centralised port of call for their regional advertising on Nine’s content across the entire Eastern seaboard.

Hugh Marks, CEO of NEC said “This is a great outcome for Nine and SCA. We are confident that, together, we will offer a premium viewing experience for audiences and a best in class platform for advertisers.”

Welcoming the agreement, Grant Blackley CEO of SCA said “I’m excited SCA is entering into this landmark long term agreement with Nine, a media company which has so successfully informed and entertained Australian audiences for many decades.”

87 Responses

  1. The more I think about this the more I conclude that this is purely a business story for the big end of town. The effect on viewers will be negligible. Memorising different channel numbers and maybe seeing “Family Feud” on WIN at a time other than 6pm (they may even relegate it to GEM), but that’s about it.

    1. On ONE, not GEM. That’s where they’ve shifted ACA to so they can accommodate WIN Local News at 7pm. GEM will be with SCTEN. WIN Local News back at 6pm between TEN News and The Project.

  2. Nine wasn’t bluffing. The ball is now in Bruce’s court. For WIN, 61% of 10’s 18% is worth less than 50% of 9’s 27%. WIN now have to deal with the Murdoch interests. SCA has the problem of 9Live streaming. And viewers simply push a different button on their remotes.

    1. Bruce and Rupert have been mates since 1979 when Rupert sold WIN to Bruce so he could buy TEN-10 and ATV-0. Now that TEN has lost quite some tens of millions of $ in yearly affiliation fees that knocking you hear is TEN at WIN’s door, resuming the talks they’ve been having for months.

  3. Hi David , i am still a bit confused , SCT will carry all transmission for 9, for “all” of Australia ? even WA,so it would be something like SC10 / SC9 / SC7 now , ( with what ever watermark/logo ) for all of Australia? if WIN does not have an output deal , whats left for them in television, or is that the point, there is nothing left ?

    1. Goodness me, as the story says – first line – “Queensland, Southern NSW and Victoria”.
      Not Northern NSW, not Tas, not SA, not WA.

  4. I used to work for win… A mate of mine still does… He says management haven’t informed staff of this change with most reading about it in other media… It’s a pretty significant change to the network structure .. So nothing has changed then WIN…. So the voice starts on win and finishes with SCA… Awkward

    1. This announcement was from Nine and Southern Cross. TEN didn’t make any announcement either. Consider that perhaps TEN and WIN found out via the media release too?

        1. It would not have been wise for WIN to have made any announcement regarding two ASX-listed companies, TEN and Southern Cross, until they made public announcements themselves.

    1. It would probably rate as well as One/Eleven currently do!! Imagine it, a 24/7 old Crawfords shows channel and a non-stop Alive and Cooking channel.

  5. It’ll be like when Ten and Seven changed in Adelaide year ago….WIN will change is 5, 50 etc and SC will change is 8, 80 etc. Viewer will not notice anything except for a change in branding

  6. Is there some kind of law that states that channel 10 require to be aligned to a regional network in order for their content to be shown there? If not, does it really matter if Southern Cross is now with nine? Do ten have to make a deal with Win in order for their programs to be shown in regional areas or can they, you know, just show their stuff on their own channels there? I’m confused, as do a lot of other people seem to be.

    1. There’s no law but as 7, 9, 10, ABC, SBS buy “Australian” rights they have to sell the regional rights to make the cost -v- revenue dollars viable. In the old days the regionals would cherry-pick the best programs from the networks. Now, the networks “sell” all of their programs to the regionals by way of a share-of-revenue deal. If WIN does not do a deal with TEN then TEN will loose tens of millions in lost program sales, previously received from SCTEN. Nine, TEN and Seven do not have national regional networks like WIN, PRiME and SCTEN. SCTEN is not owned by TEN. It is owned by Austereo. But, no, WIN doesn’t have to do a deal with TEN. They could buy their own programs from elsewhere, which is what WIN has threatened to do several times. But TEN would not sell WIN cherry-picked programs so WIN could not reach their local-content quotas. So WIN & TEN Are talking, and have been…

    2. Wasn’t “aggregation” a Federal Government requirement so regional viewers would get the same TV as the Cities?
      So where will the Government fit in with all of this?

      1. Regional viewers will still get the same as they are receiving now. The only change is – to watch TEN programs press 8, instead of 5. To watch Nine programs press 5, instead of 8. Nothing is changing re programs in regional areas (well minor changes to accommodate WIN Local News, probably at 6pm, moving FFeud to 11 or One. WIN already has ACA on GEM to accommodate local news). Why would the government have any interest?

          1. If Ten goes to WIN then WIN/SC might also change LCNs do that Nine is still on 8 and Ten is still on 5… strange situation…

          2. TEN can’t afford to sit back and loose some tens of millions of $ annually by not selling programming to WIN.

  7. SCA are hurting with poor ratings on radio plus the loss of Kyle and Jackie O not to mention the death of the UK nurse affair. I said it months ago a WIN / Ten alliance has merits. It has been coming and it’s no surprise Nine want more. I reckon WIN have done a deal with Ten prior to this announcement. Nine is just getting in 1st.

  8. Now… David, help me here… When did I say this would happen? Around Dec 29 I think… Geez I wish you could put money on these… I would have cleaned up!

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