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Report renders TEN shares worthless

CBS now sitting pretty to acquire third-placed commercial network.

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TEN’s shares are worthless to those holding them according to an independent report, with the network’s value between negative $529.2 million and negative $1.055 billion.

The long-awaited report from KPMG shows that selling the network wouldn’t generate enough to  pay off its debts, leaving nothing for shareholders.

The report effectively limits a potential legal challenge from Lachlan Murdoch and Bruce Gordon and almost certainly means CBS will be successful in the transfer of shares, in the NSW Supreme Court.

Any shareholders seeking to appear in the court hearing have to file grounds by Friday.

A directions hearing will be held next Monday and a tentative date for hearing KordaMentha’s application has been set for October 31.

Source: Herald Sun, Australian Financial Review.

14 Responses

    1. Not a surprise given Lachlan Murdoch is the executive chairman of 21st Century Fox and Ten owed a huge debt to Fox which they will now only pay a fraction of.

  2. I really don’t think Ten is salvagable, there is nothing CBS can do other than lose a stack of money on it. Sad but true, the brand is dead, the “talent” they have isn’t on the level it needs to be to compete – that combo is deadly

    1. With the licence fee reduction, no debt and freed from the output deals with 21C Fox and CBS, Ten could show the same local content they did this year, plus CBS shows (and maybe a few Fox shows if the keep them), and make a profit now. But as Facebook and Google Hoover up all the advertising revenue and FTA go elsewhere the long term trend is not good.

    2. I disagree, you underestimate the giant that is CBS there is lots of money available from cbs it’s now more affordable to own a tV network in Australia .the govt has made it a very cheap proposition.i can only see ten grow from strength to strength .the only reason ten is in a mess is becuase of the Murdochs.

  3. And the Murdoch press are reporting that L Murdoch and Gordon disagree with the report claiming that it fails to take into account the tax value of the losses Ten has racked up and may challenge. And the FIRB better release its report before Friday too.

  4. Seriously, would Gordon/Murdoch consider starting up a 4th FTA commercial network?
    They both have contacts in buying programmes, there could be a mix of Foxtel titles and the bonus would be an affinity to sport as owned by the PayTV provider.
    Bruce has the TEN regional stations that could switch signals once the current affiliation deal expires. Really just a matter of convincing the government to say “yes”, establishing some offices in the main cities and taking the feed from Sydney. Or Melbourne.
    What do you think?
    Seriously.

    1. “What do you think?”

      A terrible idea. The capital city market is barely large enough for 3 FTA commercial networks now and will continue to shrink.

      Foxtel are struggling too. They won’t want to give too much stuff away for free that people currently pay for.

    2. My first question would be “where are they going to fit it?”. The digital TV restack leaves no spare RF channels in metro areas (except RF10, which ACMA has set aside for “experimental” use – in theory DVB-T2 conversion – or, in some places, DAB+ trials).

      Maybe the gov’t/minister could force them to become an online-only channel, like they did to Community TV? All in the name of helping them “deliver wider audiences at less cost on a wider range of devices”, of course 😉

    3. “Really just a matter of convincing the government to say “yes”
      Let’s convince the government to have a Yes/No vote…OK…we’ll have a plebiscite…no wait…we’ll have a non compulsory $122M ‘survey’ conducted by the ABS…but…the result won’t be binding. The idea of a 4th channel has been ruled out by all governments. Existing networks are reduced to all-day waffle/advertorial channels, “encores” to fill entire nights, not to mention the other 12+ channels that are choked with old 4:3 sitcoms and ancient British B&W films.
      “establishing some offices in the main cities and taking the feed from Sydney. Or Melbourne”.
      Isn’t that just what they all do now? Then there are the small issues of Australian content quota and diminishing TV ad revenue.

    4. They can’t start up a network without a broadcasting licence. At this point there aren’t any available and the fact that all three networks can’t be kept in profit indicates there is no viable argument for a fourth.

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