Seven’s got some weird business priorities. Buying a dead duck regional affiliate which has no real option but to pay them whatever they want in affiliate fees and flogging in-house production capability with Seven Studios. I know what’s more valuable for a digital, future focused streaming business.
The press release Prime Media Group have put out about Seven’s proposal outlines that both Catalano (through his WA Chess Investments company which owns 22.99% of Prime shares) and Gordon (through Birketu Pty Ltd which owns 11.4% of Prime shares) both intend to vote in favour of the proposal unless a superior proposal emerges.
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This probably cements a successful deal - 44% of the shareholder base voted for the original proposal in 2019
You have to wonder what has changed with Catalano though, for all the bluster of saying that the original deal undervalued Prime, he had grander plans of making Prime part of his regional media “empire” if the ownership rules changed. Perhaps this is an indicator that neither side of Parliament will entertain changes that would allow an ACM/Prime tie-up
All major shareholders have said they intend to agree to this revised deal, which is sweeter than the one they put forward last year. Good enough for even Thorney/Catalano to say yes.
The government has no intention of fixing the rules, just producing green paper after green paper dragging their feet. They didn’t listen, probably because they saw no political motivation.
Its a cash offer rather than a scrip one - I havent looked too closely at the numbers to see what the difference in value is
The PRT board unanimously recommended the original deal too
If the takeover goes through, and going into speculation territory. I wonder if Seven West Media will intend on rebranding Prime as 7 New South Wales (7NSW) and GWN as 7 Western Australia (7WA)
The above speculation would be similar to rebranding Sunshine Television to 7 Queensland (7QLD) when they bought STQ decades ago.
Farewell Prime and GWN.
Nice knowing you.
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Maybe not straight away, but I’ve got no doubt that Prime (possibly GWN) will no longer exists.
Seven will rebrand the network.
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I have my doubts that the purchase from 7 onto prime will be successful because there are a number of people anxious to save what’s left of localism. I have a feeling that the brand GWN and Prime will be around for a long time yet to come
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I’d be willing to predict that if the merger happens, the current Prime7/GWN7 Local News bulletins will probably survive but rebranded as Seven News (LOCATION), as per regional QLD.
Of course I highly doubt there’ll be any new regional services launched, especially in the current media climate.
If this latest attempt by Seven to acquire Prime Media gets the nod, I reckon we’ll almost certainly see the Prime7 & GWN7 brands become part of TV history. Makes sense to have a consistent brand along the entire East Coast + the whole of Western Australia.
In the long run, it’d also be interesting to see if a Seven-owned Prime7/GWN7 would continue to be played out from MediaHub or eventually move to NPC.
What will be really sad to see: Prime7 Possum & GWN7’s Doopa Dog permanently put to sleep, even though those mascots haven’t really been seen outside the 7.30pm “Kids Goodnight” segments since local kids shows got the flick around the end of 2013.
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I think we need to prepare for the eventuality that localism in regional media is dying rapidly and despite best intentions is unlikely to return. In many respects, the tokenism that has been shown towards local content has contributed to its demise.
By all accounts, the Government refused to even meet with regional media companies to discuss the issue
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Yep, I agree. Localism in regional media has been dying since aggregation (if not earlier) anyway.
And while it’d be sad from a branding enthusiast POV to see Prime7/GWN7 become history, the average viewer (who’s probably already referring to Prime7/GWN7 as “Seven”) won’t really care for as long as their favourite shows are on.
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New valuation is double the 2019 offer:
Mr Warburton first attempted to acquire Prime Media Group in 2019. But the group was blocked by shareholders Antony Catalano and billionaire WIN Corp boss Bruce Gordon because they felt the offer - which valued the business at $60 million - was too low.
Under the previous deal, Prime investors would have received 0.46 Seven shares for each share they held in the regional broadcaster. The offer was at a 3 per cent discount to the current share price was unanimously recommended by the Prime board. The revised deal is a 57 per cent premium on the closing share price of Prime last Friday. Shareholders will receive 36 cents per share including a special fully franked dividend of 26 cents.
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Weeks? More like hours.
“Seven has presented a very attractive offer to shareholders and Alex Waislitz and I will now explore other opportunities to expand and grow the ACM business. We wish James Warburton and his team great success in bringing the businesses together and are pleased the Prime’s regional audiences will now be served by a large-scale media company.”
This does seem to bode well for a successful takeover, it seems like this is pretty well wrapped up.
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at the end of the PRIME media release and statement to the stock exchange, it clearly says that Gordons company has given the nod to h=make it happen, the only people not mentioned are those connected to ACM.
i can see that PRIME may do some restructure in the local news departments. re settle staff to maybe start something like WIN has recently done, but i doubt that they will remain untouched. lots of $$$ to keep it running.
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Yep, 7News will most likely take ownership of the local news brand. Seems local news will stay in some form, but we might see a constant local news time slots added to all markets. Similar to how WIN News in now operating.
7 regional bulletins could all be broadcast at 5.30 and now be complemented by their main metro stations at 6.00.
7 News Queensland (individual bulletins as there are)
7 News Gold Coast
7 News New South Wales (South)
7 News News South Wales (North)
7 News Victoria
7 News Canberra
7 News Western Australia
I think this is a win win.
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They’d be better off producing a half-hour national bulletin that can go into all markets. Prime already does it, just needs to be 7 branded and pumped into 7Queensland.
This is a trigger event in regional markets. Can’t remember what the increased local commitments will be given such a trigger event. I’d say there would be some form of local news in each prime aggregated market like 7Qld.
This is good news overall. Prime was a dud brand that offers nothing.
I’d like to see Nine but Win.
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