So it appears the the ACCC aren’t going to oppose the Gordon/Murdoch buyout
ACCC WILL NOT OPPOSE BIRKETU AND ILLYRIA’S PROPOSED ACQUISITION OF TEN
The ACCC has announced that it will not oppose Birketu Pty Ltd (Birketu) and Illyria Nominees Television Pty Ltd’s (Illyria) proposed joint bid to acquire Ten Network Holdings Limited (Ten) (ASX: TEN).
Birketu, owned by Bruce Gordon, and Illyria, owned by Lachlan Murdoch, propose to each acquire a 50 per cent interest in Ten, and to operate it as a joint venture entity. Mr Gordon and Mr Murdoch have links with a number of media assets in Australia.
“The ACCC considers that this deal is unlikely to result in a substantial lessening of competition in any relevant market, despite it lessening competition via a greater alignment of Mr Murdoch’s, Mr Gordon’s, and Ten’s interests,” ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said.
The ACCC does not have significant concerns about the potential for overlap between Mr Gordon’s WIN interests and Ten as the networks are broadcast in separate geographic areas.
“Our review focussed on how the transaction would result in an expansion of Murdoch interests in Australian media, when they already have a significant influence in newspapers, Foxtel, radio, and television production,” Mr Sims said.
“We considered whether the acquisition would significantly reduce competition, by causing a reduction in the quality and range of news content, or increasing the negotiation power of the combined Ten/Foxtel/News Corporation.”
The ACCC considered feedback from a wide range of market participants, including broadcasters, sports rights holders, independent content producers, and advertisers.
“On the issue of the effect on competition in the supply of news services, the ACCC took into consideration competition from news providers on other media platforms and in particular, the other free-to-air networks, given Seven and Nine have a stronger position in the market than Ten. Ten news in particular suffers the lowest news ratings of the three commercial networks and has a relatively small online presence,” Mr Sims said.
“The ACCC also considered the effect on competition in the acquisition of sports rights and other types of content. The parties will continue to face competition from the remaining free-to- air networks as well as streaming services for the acquisition of content.”
In assessing the effect on the advertising market, the ACCC took into account that Ten and Foxtel are already commercially aligned through their MCN joint venture. MCN acts as an agent for both Foxtel and Ten to sell advertising.
“The ACCC is not oblivious to the fact that significant influence can be exerted through partial shareholdings and family connections, however the ACCC did take into consideration that this is a proposed 50 per cent acquisition by Illyria,” Mr Sims said.
“Even though incentives to compete may be weakened if the proposed acquisition proceeds, Ten and Foxtel/News Corporation will remain competitors in a number of markets and will be subject to our competition laws which prevent them from making anti-competitive agreements.”
“While this transaction will result in some reduction in diversity across the Australian media landscape, we have concluded it would not substantially lessen competition, which is the test the ACCC is required to assess acquisitions against," Mr Sims said.
"The Australian media market is becoming increasingly concentrated and we will continue to closely examine future media mergers in light of the impact any future loss of competition may have on both choice and quality of news and content produced for Australian audiences.”
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So if this goes through, what’s the worst thing that could happen to TEN in the long run?
The worst thing will be the whole Ten News department is sacked, and Sky News provides all bulletins to Ten.
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This is positive news and looking likely as the way forward.
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So Ten News is nothing special and it’s disposable. Bye bye Ten News, hello Sky News.
This is true. One hour of news with middling ratings is barely anything.
But Sky News on free to air, here we come!
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Remember how the 2UE newsroom was closed in favour of Macquarie National News a couple of years ago? Now times that by five for the effect closing Ten’s newsroom(s) in favour of Sky News-produced bulletins would have for diversity in Australian TV news.
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Wasn’t there a proposal, of retaining Sandra Sully (or team up Sandra and Stephen Quartermain) for a national bulletin?
Using the resources of Sky News?
if no news department, The Project would need to source news from Sky?
If it isn’t axed.
The Project doesn’t seem to rely much on the news department as it is. They use footage and occasionally have crosses to reporters but other than that they produce all their own stories and the headline packages are very straightforward (and heavily reliant on international wire services rather than their own news gathering).
So you’d probably see some Sky News faces but other than that the changes would be pretty minimal IMO.
That assumes a narrow definition of competition; within the free-to-air broadcast TV arena. If you look at other media, including pay TV for instance, and then newspapers (& News Corp’s Internet presence), you get a reduction in competition.
The media ownership situation on the Central Coast of NSW would be interesting, which currently has 5 media voices. If the media laws change, Gordon would own both Ten & WIN in the market, whilst Murdoch would own Ten, on top of already having an interest on local commercial radio station Star 104.5, which is owned by Nova Entertainment. If the Central Coast market falls below the minimum number of media voices under the ‘4/5 rule’, Nova Entertainment would have to sell off Star 104.5.
The same situation would occur down at Campbelltown in South-West Sydney, where Gordon, through WIN, currently owns local commercial station, C91.3. There are currently 4 media voices within the Campbelltown licence area, so if Gordon owns both Ten & C91.3, the latter would have to be sold off to meet the ‘4/5 rule’.
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In Gosford there would be:
Nine/NBN
Seven
Prime
Ten/WIN/Star (if grouped together)
Sea/2GO
So there would be 5 voices. There are currently 7.
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Looks like there’s no other bids for Ten other than those two idiots so Ten will continue to be in a hole for the forseeable future.
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According to ACMA’s Media Control Database, there are currently 5 voices, as Seven/Prime is counted as 1 voice due to the ‘shared content test’. So if the media laws change, it would be at a required minimum number of voices for a regional commercial radio licence area of 4.
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Yeah, I misread that.
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Roy Masters stated for years that One was about to be replaced with Sky News. I don’t trust a lot of what he writes … he was much better talking about fibros and silvertails.
It’s a niche sport in the UK, and got very little television coverage until 1989. Masters has no clue. A proper analysis of rugby league television coverage in the UK is here:
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