The only one I could really see being bought would be 7 Tasmania by 7. That would be the only one making a decent amount of money and with good enough production values with the news etc… that a transition could happen relatively seamlessly.
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Prime NNSW is a larger market than Perth and Adelaide and over 4 times larger than Tasmania. I’d imagine it brings in a lot of revenue
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I’m sure Seven recognised that - hence trying to buy Prime. Bruce Gordon owning enough of Prime to vote down the deal meant it didn’t happen, which is an utterly insane set of circumstances…
So SC Tasmania would be pretty much the only thing they could buy to expand.
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This is what I kinda don’t understand. SCA are on the record saying they want to get out of TV, but are holding onto 7 Tasmania. Surely Seven has made them an offer? Maybe it wasn’t high enough.
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SCA’s Seven-affiliated stations seem like a pretty integrated business unit, especially when it comes to news, so there’s one issue with a partial sale. SCA may only be interested in an all-or-nothing sale; Tasmania would help make such a sale more attractive, remove Tasmania and where’s the incentive for a buyer to be interested in the rest of the stations?
Besides, having a market as strong as Tasmania (at least compared to SA, Darwin and Central) means they can use Tasmania’s success to help make up any shortfall in their weaker markets when needed; if they sold Tasmania but kept the others they’d lose that safety net.
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Yes this is true. But perhaps Seven may be interested in the SCA TV assets in Southern NSW and Victoria as a way of circumnavigating Bruce Gordon and Antony Catalano’s pushback on Prime.
It’s not ideal that Seven owns stations with a Nine or Ten affiliation in the short term but it could be possible way to gain ownership in those markets.
I can see GTS/BKN, Seven Central and Seven Darwin being sold off for next to nothing unless Seven wants to own them. Although they might keep Darwin in an attempt to compete with Nine.
SCAs Queensland stations would be sold off as Seven already have ownership there.
Bringing this back on topic, WIN will run their stations to the ground before there is a potential buyer.
Oops, just reread and forgot to say that I was talking about just the 2 (3?) Tasmanian stations but yeah, they’d be some mainland ones definitely worth snapping up - but I guess it depends on if the cost is right.
If Nine goes with WIN again (My area is Rockhampton) could that mean this area gets 9Rush?
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Highly unlikely. The ad market is too small to support more channels
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I doubt WIN will give up Sky News on WIN to make way for 9Rush.
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The regional affiliates should have the same channel choices as their metro counterparts. The content would be part of the existing affiliate agreements I would think, which means it’s an extra channel in their play out facilities which wouldn’t cost much if it is just relaying an existing feed. The regional affiliates are very quick at deploying shopping channels but have been very slow at everything else. Its not good enough.
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as well as religion and right-wing news channels!
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Judging by the talk previously between Southern Cross/7Tas and 7 it doesn’t sound like all the channels are automatically included in the negotiations. Even now despite Prime having had 7flix for several years it’s still not in Tasmania despite a couple of contracts having gone through in that time.
Also, can see why WIN and the like would do it too with the additional channels - they don’t have to do anything for them, they don’t have to sell ad space and they are paid for 24/7 coverage on their network by whoever is putting the channel on, much better than paying additional money (possibly) for a channel and then having to sell more ad space or making your current ad pricing worth less by having to spread it across more.
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I agree SCA would want to sell their 7 network affiliates together (for the same reason they sold Ten Northern NSW); the overheads can become huge with just a a few small stations are on an affiliate network.
Tasmania is complicated by the joint-venture station currently affiliated with Nine (Ten before the 2016 swaps); 7WM would end up owning half of a Nine affiliate.
Could SCA sell 7 Tasmania but keep their half of the Nine JV?
(And maybe even buy the other half of the JV from WIN.)
There’d be all sorts of practical issues, SCA’s TV facilities in Tas would presumably be included in a sale to 7WM, so SCA would need to replace those, and the result again would be more overhead than now, and for what’s basically a relay of GTV9 Melbourne.
Perhaps WIN would buy out SCA’s half of the JV.
Presumably any sale of the SC7 affiliates won’t happen until well after the Nine affiliation renewal is sorted.
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Nothing stopping SWM from owning half of a Nine (or potentially Ten) affiliate, NEC already owns half of Ten Darwin…
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I don’t know the details surrounding this but the impression I’ve been given is that SC could have 7flix in Tas/Dar/SA/Central any time they like but they’ve determined that it’s not worth it (same story for 9Rush in SNSW/VIC/QLD).
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The advertising markets are not big enough to support all channels
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I’ve heard it said that adding more multichannels just spreads the same advertising dollars even thinner and doesn’t increase revenue. Actually if you divide your own audience too much the amount of revenue generated goes down.
Catalano has said that he’s keen to expand, but that there would have to be legislative changes first.
Helped that another investor (Catalano) was of similar mind (which put the vote beyond doubt)
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The regional affiliates are already going down the road of implementing statewide feeds for multi-channels rather than localised ones. I doubt we will see additional ones launched often.
Seven has already gone down this road in Regional QLD.
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