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
Yep, I agree. Localism in regional media has been dying since aggregation (if not earlier) anyway.
And while itâd be sad from a branding enthusiast POV to see Prime7/GWN7 become history, the average viewer (whoâs probably already referring to Prime7/GWN7 as âSevenâ) wonât really care for as long as their favourite shows are on.
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.
âSeven 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 Primeâs regional audiences will now be served by a large-scale media company.â
This does seem to bode well for a successful takeover, it seems like this is pretty well wrapped up.
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.
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
Theyâd 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. Canât remember what the increased local commitments will be given such a trigger event. Iâd 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.
If 7 network wants to buy prime there should be a condition that the stations in the prime / gwn area be branded as channel 7 BUT the the prime and gwn local news branding should remain similar to WIN and NBN
And the 7 local news in Queensland should have kept the Sunshine Television News brand even if the channel is branded as 7
Why? Itâd be ridiculous to have the Channel Seven branding for everything except local news - one of the most important representations of a television network.
Thatâs not needed. Seven Local News is fine. It will save money and unify the brand. Youâll probably get more local news from seven than prime produced.
Maybe if Seven actually had Fat Cat on-screen outside of Perth post-1991, the Kids Goodnights featuring him would actually mean something special. But sadly they donât.
Catalano could play Fat Cat in a new incarnation perhaps?
In all seriousness though, I love how these threads go down the path of bizarro-land. I wouldnât have even have thought about Prime Possumâs job security in all of these possibilities about Seven taking over.