A story from today’s SMH about the forced sale of 2CH: http://www.smh.com.au/national/government-regulator-to-force-sale-of-radio-station-2ue-20161016-gs3ldk.html
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They really are being dragged out kicking and screaming about selling 2CH.
People like Singleton think that they’re above the law. “How dare ACMA tell us what we can do!” Give us a break!
Hopefully it’ll give ACMA added impetus to get the thing done after 18 months of dithering. MRN was never serious about selling 2CH.
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““Who the hell does ACMA think they are?” said an angry John Singleton after the government regulatory body announced late on Friday afternoon it was effectively forcing the sale of radio station 2CH.”
Umm, the media regulator?
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I am sure Alan Jones could get the laws changed and MRN could keep 2CH. Alan was the man behind allowing businesses to be able to vote in the City of Sydney council elections (although Clover was reelected with an even greater majority) and he also stopped the ban on greyhound racing from proceeding.
Singleton should get Alan to have the law changed. Easy.
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Wonder how long it will take. Guess it’s like the receivers coming in with a business going broke ie in this case Deloitte taking charge. How far will they go to get the best price? Would their be a minimum? How long CH stay on air? Will the commercial dollars remain with Macquarie or go to Deloittes?
Deloittes I assume will take out their fee from the sale as well as Bob Rogers payout fee unless he stays with 2ch with the new buyer or goes to UE or Gb. He could have a Sat night music show on GB.
Interesting times.
Very informative summary by Mark Day in The Australian. Day writes that ACMA knocked back the NSW Council of Churches and Grant as owners as it was deemed Macquarie would still be in control of 2CH as the station would still be in the Pyrmont studios and with Macquarie selling the advertising.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/opinion/mark-day/john-singleton-and-alan-jones-cant-whinge-over-2ch-sale/news-story/c10a6863c835b2b881ca85293b7d225e
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Agree…Mark Day’s article sums it up. He got Bob Roger’s salary wrong though but the rest is pretty much spot on.
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Grant would be a decent owner if they got it 100% away from Macquarie.
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Alan Jones takes aim at ACMA, via Radioinfo.
Someone is going to get 2CH for a dirt cheap price.
I would think it could only be profitable as part of a duopoly of sorts, either 2SM or Sky Racing running it as a bare bones operation. Or Grant sharing operations with its existing nearby stations Wave and 2ST, and taking their Forever Classic network programs. … Or possibly one of the narrowcast/off-band multicultural stations wanting to increase their broadcast area.
Thanks for that.
It’s the law Alan. Such a sad little person. Mark Day’s article was very enlightening and spelled out why Jones is so wrong.
But then his little temper tantrum would be of no interest to the legions of 75 year olds listening in.
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Yes, most of Jones’s listeners will only be interested in whether Bob Rogers will be staying on air and that’s about it! The intricacies and complexities of media ownership rules will be of no interest to them whatsoever.
A ridiculous rant from Jones. He knows full well what the law is. In my view ACMA has already treated Macquarie more than fairly, giving them plenty of time to conclude an acceptable deal.
ACMA’'s position would seem to suggest that the chances of Magic continuing on 1170 as some sort of franchised operation are now much reduced. ACMA seems to want a clean break
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Good, the Satanists will pick it up dirt cheap now. Bob Rogers might be a bit shocked when they move the baby roaster next to his studio.
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In a legal sense, whats to stop the new owner working from Macquarie’s network studios and getting Macq staff to look after the advertising? Given another radio network has already bent the rules in the Sydney market. The Edge is a good example where ARN get away with this. Though its not really a Sydney Licence, it for all intends and purpose is a “Sydney lite station”. They do not really provide much for the local community in Katoomba. ARN “bend” the rules. They also run it out of North Ryde where KISS and WS reside. Now since Macq apparently wanted to sell to the church or Grants but maybe the buyers were willing to pay Macq to run the station, that too is bending the rules as well. Which is the worse crime ? 
Just a different prospective.
Though I am happy the ACMA, is putting it’s foot down, but they do need to be consistent. I do like most here, want a fresh start. But if it is going to be used by Sky Racing for extra horse racing or a pure religious radio station, I’d rather listen to Magic.
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Exactly.
Part of the reason The Edge is less controversial (at least outside of the industry), I’d guess, is due to it providing a point of different musically - an urban CHR format.
That I don’t particularly agree with, but then you get 4BC in Brisbane which has one show per day from its license area.
+1
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Yeah agree, AustralianAerial a lot of the commercial radio stations including MRN are just as bad as each other with the lack of local programming these days. I totally disagree with what they did with 4BC.
I have to try and listen to the edge in the morning, do they give a weather forecast for the blue mountains?
If The Edge is like every other radio & TV station in Sydney, they’d probably at least give you the current temperature during their Weather Updates.
Not sure actually, been a while since I’ve listened (since it’s carried on DAB+ in Melbourne, among the other capital cities)
From the legal perspective, any deal which involves MMN controlling the programming of the station breaches the 2 to a market rule. Discussion of control usually revolves around ownership and company directors - both of which would be satisfied by any sale. However, control also includes anyone else who has control over the content that goes to air. We don’t know the exact details of the proposed sale agreements, however it sounds like they involved Macquarie running the studios, programming and sales, with the purchaser having very little involvement in the running of the station.
There are 3 similar types of situations in other markets, however they are also very different:
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ARN ownership of KIIS, WSFM and The Edge.
This is allowed because the 3 stations were historically licenced to different markets - Sydney for KIIS, Western Suburbs Sydney for WSFM and Katoomba for The Edge. Now that Western Suburbs Sydney as somewhat been absorbed into Sydney, and populations have changed, a network would not be allowed to purchase these 3 licences now, however, these laws are not grandfathered, which basically means that ARN were not breaching any ownership laws when they purchased the stations in the 90s, so revised laws and conditions only apply to any ownership changes after they go into effect. Another example is that under the most recent population figures, there is a significant (more than 30%) overlap between Devonport and Burnie in Tasmania, however Grant Broadcasters can still retain ownership of their 4 stations across these two licence areas since they owned them before there was the significant overlap.
However, I do agree that running a Katoomba station from Ryde is questionable, particularly when it comes to meeting local content requirements. -
Sunshine Coast Stations - Sea and Mix FM taking Southern Cross Austereo Content
As we all know, SCA were required to sell the Sunshine Coast stations because of the overlap with Brisbane, but these stations still take a lot of SCA programming. This is because despite taking SCA programming, EON broadcasters are in control of what content goes to air. They run their own studios, manage their own sales, have local content for most of the daytime hours, and are in a position to drop SCA programming for their own programming if they wish to (subject to syndication contracts) - it’s really no different to all the other stations that take individual shows from Macquarie Sydndication. -
Shared factilities.
There are several stations that share facilities with stations owned by other companies. For example, SCA and Grant Broadcasters in Townsville and Gladstone. While these station are under the same roof and use adjacent studios, each company own and operate their own studio equipment, administration and sales staff etc, so share no operational aspects to give a control conflict.
I would suspect that up until 30 September, MMN would only entertain offers that allowed them to keep 2CH networked as part of the Magic network and included in sale proposals with 2GB and 2UE. I can’t imagine a MMN run 2CH would be ideal for Grant Broadcasters to own, so find it strange it was part of their offer to buy 2CH. I wouldn’t be surprised if they still end up buying it - and a reduced rate to their previous offer. They already have an office and sales team in Sydney, so could easily build some studios and add it into their existing structure without needing to employ too many extra staff, particularly if they’re able to avoid inheriting Bob Roger’s substantial contract.
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Great post webguy, it clears up a lot of my questions.
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