Nine Enterainment Co. is part of the JV with SCA for Ten Darwin, though.
Yeah, I reckon itâs a real possibility.
I was going to say earlier, it looks like they are getting everything ready for a takeover of the Queensland, Southern NSW and Victoria markets. That is why I wrote goodbye to Southern Cross
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Isnât this illegal? Nine Entertainment Co is a publicly traded company and is therefore subject to strict laws with regards to insider knowledge. Iâm not an expert in the field by any stretch of the imagination, but I assume some sort of âbackdoor dealâ would be against some trading legislation. Itâs fine if theyâre in talks, but if theyâre changing signs and gearing up for something, I assume that has to be way beyond the stage of âannouncing the intent to mergeâ.
edit: skimming the Wikipedia page on âinsider tradingâ and Iâve found an interesting quote:
In the United States, Canada, Australia and Germany, for mandatory reporting purposes, corporate insiders are defined as a companyâs officers, directors and any beneficial owners of more than 10% of a class of the companyâs equity securities. Trades made by these types of insiders in the companyâs own stock, based on material non-public information, are considered fraudulent since the insiders are violating the fiduciary duty that they owe to the shareholders.
So if this is happening, they have to be careful. Any Nine or SCA exec or employee who knows these two companies are planning to move in together and then sells their stock would be guilty of insider trading. I would assume there are more laws pertaining to when it is appropriate to announce merging/takeovers to the public/shareholders.
I also assume the ACCC would be wanting to okay any business venture as well.
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[quote=âRadiohead, post:1470, topic:1198, full:trueâ]
Thatâs weird that this is STILL going on!
They never had this problem in the SC10 days, did they?
WIN didnât have this issue with Nine either, did they?
[/quote]They did, but it certainly wasnât a regular thing unlike now. The timing errors with SC10 usually occurred with shortened metro ad-breaks, breaking news updates and the like. WIN very rarely had any timing error issues (their issues were applying coverups correctly! 
)
[quote=âWAtvVideos, post:1480, topic:1198, full:trueâ]
Only on Media Spy would anyone give a flying fuck about that! 
[/quote]Very true! 
[quote=âAlanCramer, post:1495, topic:1198, full:trueâ]
Does anyone think that maybe Nine and SCA have done a backdoor deal involving Nine acquiring the SCA Television business (except NRTV) when the time is right? I mean there is an awful lot of signage changing going on, and specifically for Nine.[/quote]
[quote=âando9185, post:1496, topic:1198, full:trueâ]
Wouldnât surprise me but would be interesting to see what they can manage in Tasmania - would they be willing to give up their dominant Seven station which they could rename or would they keep with the TDT joint venture that they likely canât call Channel Nine.
[/quote]Highly likely IMO. Tassie would be interesting with the TDT9 JV though. If itâs allowed or not WIN would be totally against Nine acquiring TDT of course. SCTV would be an interesting scenario though.
Realistically, status quo I reckon.
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Iâd say that the signage changes are purely due to Southern Cross using the Nine branding for their TV operations in Victoria, Southern NSW and Queensland - they have no other logo to use that is relevant to the market.
The choice to use Nine branding goes a lot further than a potential merger/takeover/sale. Yes, it will make things a lot easier to not have to change branding, but to act on a potential deal (which at most would likely just be mutual knowledge of intention to buy/sell) would be reckless (1. a merger/takeover/sale is currently illegal due to media ownership laws, 2. spending money unnecessarily puts an extra burden on the bottom line, 3. it gets dangerously close to illegal conduct and insider trading). Even without a merger, branding the SCA stations as Nine strengthens both brands and makes it easier to sell - media buyers arenât always 100% aware of ownership and are more likely to buy with brands they know.
So the Southern Cross Austereo logo is not something to consider using? Many companies have their logo plastered on a building where the person seeing it may not know what the company does as such. Effectively SCA are using the corporate logo of another company on all their sites, irrespective of the fact they are affiliating. Even when they were Southern Cross Ten, even though they had the ten logo on display before the star existed, it still had Southern Cross written underneath it.
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Given the choice of the SCA logo or 9 (which is the one used on screen) which one is more recognisable?
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I wonder if they have replaced a Southern Cross logo with a standard Ten logo on the building in Coffs Harbour.
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Many sites are using that logo aswell.
I wonder if theyâve done the same thing in Newcastle?
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I doubt theyâd bother in Newcastle. They less than 12 months left in that building. Theyâre also still using the Southern Cross Ten logo on the website and Facebook, so itâs no as though theyâre trying to hard to do away with it.
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They had a standard Ten logo on the Coffs Harbour building for many years but it was taken down a few years ago. There is nothing on the spot that had the ten logo and previously the NRTV and 11/8 logos. I will be moving there soon and can have a look once I get up there.
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Following the discussion a few days ago Iâve put together these comparisons this afternoon from SCAâs version of 9Gem and 9Life compared to the metro Brisbane feed.
As you can see, SCA uses the dirty feed for programming, except they play the channel ident over the top of sponsor boards.
SCAâs feed is on the left, the metro feed is on the right.
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On a separate note, Iâve spent a bit of time recently comparing the metro feeds of 9 and the multi-channels to the SCA feed that I receive here in Townsville.
Obviously, Nine uses the Brisbane feed with local adverts.
While 9Gem and 9Go! also seem to use the Brisbane feed with local adverts.
However, 9Life is running off the Sydney feed, and shows statewide ads.
This isnât a problem at the moment, however, SCA will need to swap from the Sydney feed of 9Life to the Brisbane feed at some time over the next month, otherwise the schedule in Regional QLD will be out by one hour due to daylight saving.
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Or they might just use a delayed feed from Sydney?
Though they will need to fill in that first hour when DST starts.
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After a few weeks without too many problems, tonight SC9 has aired a âLove This Cityâ advert featuring Melissa Downes promoting the âBrisbane Festivalâ, mentioning events to head to.
As well as airing a promo for The Block featuring a radio competition currently running in Brisbane right now which said something along the lines of âwatch The Block on Nine, then tune in the next morning to Rob, Terry and Bob on 97.3â
Re Nine acquiring TDT - canât happen due to the type of licence they both operate under - when aggregation was introduced across larger markets, the only way for regions like Tasmania, Mildura and Darwin could have another license was to allow for two station markets where there are two different owners to apply, either separately or jointly, to operate a digital-only third station. These are known as âSection 38Bâ licences, and were created by the Broadcasting Services Amendment. For Nine to acquire a Section 38B Licence, and if both parties approve and application is needed to change the classification.
My understanding is that s.38b licenses are only allocated that way, and that thereâs no restriction on transfer- other than that a company purchasing such a license wouldnât be grandfathered into the provisions that allow for the breach of the one commercial tv station per license area restriction normal licenses would have.
For s.38c licenses the law mentions a two year restriction on transfers - but nothing in 38b.
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