Fairfax are in a battle to the bottom in Brisbane, they know being free is only thing keeping them competitive.
Do you remember the outrage MediaWatch conveyed regarding Wagga’s newspaper going paywal some months ago? A disgruntled reader or three began cutting and pasting stories to Facebook to stick it up them.
Of course, that’s of little consequence considering the embarrassment that the Wagga Fairfax paper brought upon themselves with reporting of late as also outlined on Mediawatch.
THis was on Mediawatch last week, total PR disaster, it was a scam for some client of a PR firm which couldn’t organise a drink in a brewery.
No loss, they’ve already wrecked the best of it, how could it be missed by all but the most belligerent.
NZME’s radio network looks great on paper and great if you live in a big market and know no better, however like the newspapers, localism was wrecked and you have the SCA approach to destroying years of brand value at their own demise.
Your point? @Jason_Andrew_Toppin ???
NEC will simply take over the shareholding that Fairfax has in MML/MRN.
What 9 does with that share will be interesting.
They have the controlling share, but not full control.
Fairfax has, as all too often post 1987, been present but not participating.
Singo and his mate with the remaining minority stake have been running it as their own personal fiefdom.
The Clark Kent lookalike from the days of Fairfax radio, Adam Lang has behaved himself to do whatever they want of him in order to keep his job and so have many others.
9 will have different ideas. They will either fix MRN or flick their controlling stake to others.
The ego of Singo and others would have you thinking they’ll buy back their stake at the right price which considering their lack of success in selling the business (five out of seven assets an albatross on the books and ongoing success reliant on existing staff with no succession plan, who’d blame them) is a baffling decision (aside from ego and self interest).
9 of course would prefer to next acquire their regional affiliate SCA and in doing so, pick up the FM metro networks which despite the current disaster in Sydney are a more sustainable business.
