2SM 1269 Sydney

2HD & New FM in Newcastle would be the odd ones out. That’s because ARN wouldn’t be able to acquire the station, due to 2NM/Power’s licence area having a 30%+ overlap with the Newcastle commercial radio licence area. That would leave Nova, Capital or GSL Media (the new owner of Sea/Mix on the Sunshine Coast) as potential new owners of 2HD & New FM.

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I’d say if it came to that ARN would sell 2NM and Power.

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I agree. Newcastle would much better for ARN to get/keep given the opportunity and sell Muswellbrook instead.

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That is an extremely conservative estimate, a discussion I had on hear about 18 months ago, somebody hinted that he wouldn’t sell 2SM by it self for under $50 million. So I would most probably say the entire network would go for about $350 to $500 million, this is also in consideration that Bill is not wanting to sell, so whoever would be interested would really have a job on their hands in convincing Bill to sell.

If it was up to me, I wouldn’t let that arrogant twot anywhere near a microphone, the few times I heard him, he seems to be a rather agitated, angry man, and wow, that moment when he went ballistic towards Justin Kelly during the Athens 2004 Olympics just showed him in his true colours. He’s as judgemental as hell, and pretty much easily fits into the same half sinking boat as Alan Jones and John Laws.

In the hypothesis that I could buy the network, I would turn the programming into an equivalent of Classic Hits 2UW, with some of the shifts turned into a music / talkback combination. Marcus Paul, Mike Carlton, and an attempt of stealing Linda Mottram from the ABC would be my go. They’re great personalities who are able to engage with all fads of society, and not just with their “circle of cliques”.

In the time of Linda Mottram doing mornings on the ABC, I was able to get on air about three times to discuss some issues, Ray hadley just talks and barks over people, sometimes screaming and squealing like a child (gotta dig out that tape I have of him loosing it).

Mike Carlton and Marcus Paul come across as well balanced, neither being right wing nutters, nor tree hugging lefties, it’s good to get some debate from the middle ground, something that Paul and Carlton always done quite well. James O’Lachlan (old abc announcer) would have been good too for more towards down tempo evening entertaiment and quiz games. Chris Bath would be another possibility as well, she was relatively free of the political rubbish, and would be great for a life style weekend host.

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$50m for 2SM alone in this day and age??

No doubt the licence and access to DAB spectrum would drive this

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Hmm, my first thought was no but thinking about it further it could be a reasonable estimate - ARN bought 46 stations for $307.5m from Grants - SRN’s network is smaller (but not by many stations) - but that was a willing seller

Some stations are going to be more valuable then others (I’d imagine that say their Newcastle stations would command a much bigger amount on a per station basis) but the only realistic way for it to stay as one network is for a new buyer to enter the market which is probably reasonably unlikely, ending up in it being parted out to potentially a range of buyers

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he paid $8m for 2SM in 1999, which was probably overpriced even then given 2SM was only rating around 2%. Now nobody has a clue how many people are listening to it and it’s a more competitive market now. Even though there is now DAB spectrum in it, $50m seems rather ambitious.

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Perhaps $5m

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Goodwill will be worth very little - it’s value will come from whatever IPPE (infrastructure, property, plant and equipment) are part of the deal

The 2sm building alone (if included in the sale( could be worth $10+ million

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It looks like someone’s having a bit of a play around with the layout/design at www.2smsupernetwork.com

At this stage it doesn’t look like any major site overhaul.

Still looks terrible

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Further changes at the 2SM Supernetwork website. They’ve now introduced an ON AIR NOW feature.

Regardless of design, it’s great to finally see some regular movement & upgrades to their website.

They really should get their 2HD sister station to help out as they’ve got pretty good websites in Newcastle.

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I’m shocked! Did Bill receive his income tax refund?

I couldn’t see that. But do see the new LISTEN button that works :slight_smile:

Absolutely. Very encouraging.

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Great to see SRN developing and improving their websites

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Now they just need to develop an app to stream all their music and talk stations, or even just stream them on the RadioApp or on their websites.

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Good one. Though I’m guessing he is a tax minimisation whiz anyway…perhaps there is a pirate relay of 2SM in the Cayman Islands somewhere.

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Or he claims to be not for profit for tax purposes

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Is Graham Gilbert still with 2SM…

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Not sure but the improvement without GG is a huge relief. Gary Stewart when he is on that shift actually listens to his callers and gives them more than 30 seconds of air time each.

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