I think of the local operators it would make sense for Nova to pick up some of the assets - 97.3 Brisbane, 102.3 Adelaide, 96fm Perth and 102.9 on the Gold Coast. They could complete the Smooth network in the capitals and launch Nova in the 6th biggest city in the country, Gold Coast. A joint bid with Nine makes sense with Nine picking up KIIS in Sydney and Melbourne. 5AA would go from Nova to Nine for them to complete a capital city talk network. Not sure what would happen to Gold in that scenario.
Also not sure about who would want the regional assets. But anyway, I think it makes sense for Nova & Nine at least. Possibly private equity or an overseas operator like Bauer could also be contenders. Literally anyone would do a better job than the current ARN.
I might be misreading this, but it looks like on slide 7 they’re saying that K&J rated a 7.2 share across S2 in Melbourne, which is wrong, they rated 5.8. Unless they’re including 9am-10am in this number?
It looks like their 101.1 station figure is wrong too. They’re saying they rated 7.4 in S2, but their 10+ figure was 5.7. Are they intentionally misleading or inept or am I an idiot?
Always the same way with the corporate C-suite. They make all the bad decisions at the top, but its the actual worker bees who get necked first. Its been one disaster after another committed by ARN senior management for years. As i stated here a while ago, ARN corporate deserves what’s coming because of management ineptitude. The real pity is the good staff that will suffer. Also feel bad for small shareholders that tipped their hard earned into this joint, shares now barely above 50cents. 3 years ago was $2+. 8 years ago was $4. Oh such great work ARN executives…
Andy Procopis, the Head of Branded Content & Influencer Network for ARN, has been made redundant from the role. He had been with the company for the last 8 years.
To me all these redundancies and also the tone of ARN’s official statements point to a company under a lot of duress. I wouldn’t be surprised if a buyout is looming.
But who would want to buy ARN, given what they’ll have to deal with? The only ones who would want to buy ARN are going to be those who, I’m going to go out on a diseased limb here, will want to split the company up.
Yes they would most likely want to split the company up if current ownership limits remain. I can see NE buying them to get FM stations in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth to complete the Smooth network and expand Nova into the Gold Coast on 102.9 and Hobart on 101.7
They could do it jointly with another company like Nine Radio who could then pick up 5AA. Nine might also like to retain KIIS in Sydney and Melbourne to complement their talk stations. They could beam KIIS into the other capitals on DAB
Would you really want to blow up Hot Tomato and 7HO, both very successful stations.
I am not sure you would also break away 7HO from the greater ARN Tasmanian network, 7HO seems very connected to the rest of the network providing VT for other stations and News.
NE show they have the appetite to run stand alone stations the example being Star on the central coast.
Dare I say that Star, 7HO and Hot Tomato would fit well together as a mini network that could share resources - provided they kept the key local identity and programming of each station.
