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Murdoch, Gordon wanted to end TEN leases.

Leases on Sydney, Melbourne & Adelaide properties would go, under a Murdoch / Gordon-owned TEN.

Lachlan Murdoch and Bruce Gordon planned to discontinue leasing TEN offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide if they were successful in their network takeover.

The supplementary report from administrators KordaMentha, which details the differences between the Illyria / Birketu and CBS bids, it reveals:

B&I Transaction document made provision for the repudiation of the leases relating to Pyrmont, Melbourne and Adelaide. Operationally seen as moderate to high risk.

What isn’t clear is the plan they have for TEN operations currently located at Pyrmont, Como and Hutt Street, but there have long been various rumours of News Corp, SKY News, FOX Sports replacing TEN-generated content.

In addition to office space, those premises include studio filming for TEN Eyewitness News, The Project, The Living Room, Studio 10, Have You Been Paying Attention?, The Loop, The Wrong Girl, sports programmes and more.

The CBS bid made no proposal to exit the three sites.

Yesterday the NSW Supreme Court heard lawyers from Gordon’s Birketu argue it was a “disappointed over-bidder” and that TEN’s employees had been “poisoned” by not being allowed to properly consider a competing bid. ABC reports lawyers for 21st Century FOX also questioned why FOX would only receive less than 2 cents in the dollar, contrasting other creditors who received a full payout.

But Richard McHugh SC, acting for administrators KordaMentha said, “There is no substance in the Birketu and Illyria complaint.

“The bid had conditions which made it less attractive and less certain.”

The hearing continues.

28 Responses

  1. At this stage with media “reforms” being passed there is slim chance of a CBS controlled TEN. With the Murdoch and Gordon bid being refreshed and offers increased to creditors, it seems like they will win out. CBS’s bid as far as the creditors are concerned is now less attractive. The shareholders will once again learn the hard way that they have backed the wrong horse. under Gordon and Murdoch controlled TEN, there is no need to make money. It can be a loss making entity, because 21st FOX will subsidies it, just like they subsidies the loss making newspapers.

  2. Lachlan Murdoch has stuffed TEN and should be ashamed that the network is in this situtation. Once CBS takes over the network it will be a bright future for TEN and it’s staff.

  3. It sounded like that Murdoch and company were going to let the business fail, and then take it over at a bargain basement price. I’m glad that didn’t get it.

  4. Thank goodness Murdoch and Gordon didn’t get their grubby hands on TEN after these Revelations it’s very clear a Murdoch controlled TEN would have been the death of TEN as we know it .it would have just become a relay station for Rupert’s foxtel .everyone at TEN would loose their jobs incl the newsroom would be gone .the best thing for TEN is CBS buying TEN .under CBS TEN has a chance to become the number one network again CBS has the money the content and everyone at ten will be able to keep their jobs and their premises .it was only yesterday I read that the British govt denied Rupert any hope he had of aquiring SKY UK .

  5. Hopefully the Murdoch bid is successful. We don’t need anymore leftwing media in this country. More strong rightwing media is desperately needed. Plus from what I can see the Murdoch-Gordon Bid is a better deal for TEN and its staff. Hopefully the gov. step in and stop an American buying it.

    1. There’s the difference between the Left and the Right for you. The Left get _accused_ of wanting to stifle other viewpoints. The Right actually _want_ to stifle them…

      Not that you’re likely to ever encounter any real Left-wing media in Australia (sorry Wobblies & fellow travellers, whatever your handing out at demonstrations these days doesn’t count…)

    2. “Stop an American buying it.” ???
      Murdoch is a British-born Australian/American.
      Gordon was at least born here but now resides in Bermuda.
      So an American company can’t buy it because the two guys who appear to have actively killed the Network to drop the asking price want it??
      And are CBS “leftwing media” because they aren’t as far to the right as Fox News?

      1. CBS are extremely leftwing. Not something we need in this country. Hopefully Sky news takes over at TEN and we can get some real news and opinion which aligns with the views of a vast amount of Aussies and not more lefty fake news.

        1. Wow. What is it like to see the world in black and white?

          I’m guessing “fake news” = opinion that doesn’t align with your preconceived view.

  6. 21C Fox is questioning why CBS was only going to pay it pittance, while ignoring the fact that Gordon and Murdoch were only going to pay a slightly larger pittance to both 21C and CBS. Their output deals just aren’t worth much because fewer Australians watch their shows and this US Fall season looks like the worst ever. CBS offered less cash but more value because they aren’t paying themselves anything. Gordon and Murdoch offer both CBS and 21C a small amount, and more to ANZ and Westpac (to get their votes) but less to small creditors. And requires an unnamed 3rd party to hold a stake to get around media laws.

  7. I guess that we’ll never know if the plan was to make TEN a basket case, unattractive to other bidders and after some convenient Media Law changes, would rise like a Phoenix from the ashes of a fire-sale.
    The studios are safe, for now.

  8. All of the below plus the Illyria-Birketu bid requires that the govt’s proposed changes to the media ownership laws come to pass, and that is looking increasingly unlikely.

      1. After a protracted negotiation process, the Federal Government finally strikes a deal to pass a suite of changes to the media industry with the support of Senator Nick Xenophon.
        Source: ABC News…just now

    1. If media reform doesn’t pass, they need a 3rd party to hold a stake to avoid either Gordon or Murdoch being in control, and to convince the ACMA that this is really the case.

  9. The only reason TEN is in this mess now is because of how Murdoch ran it when he was in charge. Gordon is the opportunist, hitching his wagon on the Murdoch train in an effort to fulfill the dream of controlling a metro network.

    The Gordon/Murdoch offer would strip TEN of everything and turn it into a relay station promoting Foxtel content. The CBS offer strengthens TEN’s independence within the Australian media landscape. It’s a no brainer who offers the better deal.

  10. We should all remember how Murdoch the Junior scuttled TEN after taking control of the board several years ago.
    Out went several hundred staff members – in came abysmal programme content including Being Lara Bingle, Breakfast, Bikie Wars: Brothers in Arms, Underground, Don’t Tell The Bride, Everybody Dance Now, I Will Survive and The Shire as well as the pathetic reboots of Young Talent Time and It’s a Knockout. Exit one of the best TV programmers in the country – David Mott.
    Perhaps Birketu and Illyria should consider launching a fifth television network instead of acting as tele-vultures…

    1. Murdoch didn’t scuttle it, he just made the hole significantly deeper. He tried to meet the local content % with cheap unscripted shows, when they couldn’t promote them because no one was watching. He also bought the BBL for $100m for 5 years, which turned things around eventually.

    2. I’m not going to defend Murdoch because I think him getting his hands on Ten (after running it into the ground) would be disastrous for the network’s future, but to be fair a lot of those programs mentioned were well in motion (although possibly not on air) before he came onto the scene at Ten.

      Bikie Wars and Underground were actually fairly OK ratings performers if I recall correctly.

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