Operative word being regional. Nine don’t give a shit about regional anything anymore.
I can’t see Nine pining for the likes of 2NM and Power FM in Muswellbrook.
Hence my use of the word “maybe”
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Just crazy isn’t it, 96fm Perth was sold to ARN for about 75 million.
Nov 2021 Grants sell to ARN for 307 million, 21% given in shares worth about 69 million, share price Nov 1 2021 was about 1.75
Today that 69 million is worth 9.5 mill.
When will the chairman fall on his sword.
Hopefully my maths add up 
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I see Nine wanting River94.9
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One problem: It would breach the 4 voices rule, as the Ipswich RA1 licence area would fall below minimum number if Nine were to acquire ARN, therefore leaving it with just 3 voices (Seven, Nine & Ten). That would mean that River 94.9 would have to be owned by someone else.
It would be a similar story for CADA in the Katoomba RA1 licence area.
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Is there a newspaper that would count as a voice instead?
No. Ipswich used to have its own daily newspaper until 2020, when News Corp axed its print edition & moved it to online.
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Considering there’s a Cameron on the board of ARN and would be familiar with the business, I wonder if we might see ARN bought by the Cameron’s at a bargain price…
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Why? They just offloaded two radio stations, what makes River 94.9 so damned attractive?
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Which two radio stations are you talking about?
They just sold 2GB, 3AW, 4BC, 6PR, 2UE, 4BH and Magic.
Are you talking about the TV stations they transferred to WIN?
If you’re talking about the AM stations, there has been speculation that Nine are interested in FM stations, and they wanted to offload the AM network first.
FM makes money. AM talk doesn’t anymore.
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He would be meaning in Brisbane. 4BC and 4BH.
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That’s them.
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Pretty much the top rating station in SEQ (at least in Brisbane) and already simulcasts 9News.
The only way they’d get River would be if ARN goes under and is broken up. Nine would not want a lot of tin pot country radio stations.
If it comes as a package at a bargain price, metro + regional, they would buy the lot and keep the metro and regionals or maybe on-sell some of the regional stations, but they’d be worth so little, it would be a waste of time to off-load them unless they had to.
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Might be able to get them swapped for a couple of meat trays at the local rissole raffle on a Friday arvo.
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The thing is with the regionals, I have a gut feeling a lot of them are not profitable at all (and are probably losing money), so at the end of the day, one would have to ask, who really wants them? I don’t think there’s many out there that are willing to take a risk on the regionals - maybe ACE might take a punt? But even then, they may run into some trouble in some markets due to the voices rule, and already being the main competition in those markets against the ARN / Grants stations. So its nearly a given to have them bundled in with the metros during the initial clearout should ARN go bust, then likely sold off peace-meal later on down the track (and more likely where ACE if they were interested in anything would pick some up).
Either way I do know one thing is for certain, should ARN go bust, there will be a lot more full FM transitions - not keeping the AM on as seen mainly in South Australia - seeing as the AM band is in its twilight years and likely a fairly big reason as to why some are not profitable.
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The Camerons ran their stations on the smell of an oily rag and ARN have hardly changed that approach. I would caution against assuming they aren’t profitable, if nothing else because expenses aren’t particularly high to begin with.
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Some might be, some might not be. Wasn’t ARNs decision to keep hold of River 94.9 and Hot 91 instead of 4KQ due to River and Hot being more profitable than 4KQ, despite 4KQ being in the third largest metro market.
Hot Tomato, Wave, 7HO, Hot 104.9 and LAFM + Chili in the larger regional markets would probably be worth keeping, if Nine were to merge or buy ARN outright.
However even in some of the smaller markets like NW TAS, Muswellbrook, regional SA or south coast NSW, there is still value in keeping these stations for national advertising and the ability to save costs via networking the programming outside of breakfast, and expanding reach.
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