If Grant were to sell Zinc and Buy Mix, Mix would then take the 2ST / River log.
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Off-Topic, 2ST carries the āclassic hitsā log as currently heard on Zinc, which is separate from the more AC-based River log.
With that in mind, I wouldnāt be surprised if Mix does take the River log if Grant acquires it, leaving Hot 91 to continue carrying the Hot AC log as currently heard on Hot Tomato, Wave FM, Power FM & KRock, among a few others.
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Would they be selling as a package? Or individually?
Maybe weāll see a revival of BOGās āThe Heatā?
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I would say they would be sold as a package to maximise the price received by EON/Oceania Capital.
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Coast FM in Mandurah is having its 25th birthday. As part of its celebration, theyāll be doing the Top 400 songs of the past 25 years from Monday 27th September.
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Only $2 500? Times are tough with McClown closing the border?
$25 000 surely wouldāve been more fitting. Major tactic for survey or are times too tough for that too?
That nine point odd percent that the Camerons own of West Coast Radio sure must have influence. Mean as cat you know what. $2 500 is laughable.
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Iāve just been up to Wide Bay and can report that Breeze reception seems improved across the whole region. It kicks in strongly once you cross the range at Gunalda and it great all the way through to Childers. Didnāt go as far as Bundaberg. Incidentally the locals are embracing it and it was on in the cafe I had lunch in.
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Weāve all seen clusters of properties for sale, signs in a row. The usual thought is, whatās going on here, why does everyone want to sell?
In regional radio, the Sunshine Coast is that market.
Oceania would like to cash out of Mix and Sea and both ARN and the Camerons would sound out potential purchasers as part of their acquisition process to extract the highest price.
All three stations potentially for sale concurrently. A rare feat in todayās media environment of consolidation and low turnover.
The lack of sales indicates there is an emerging decline in interest of regional radio assets.
This brings us to a very interesting stage in radio within Australia.
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Caralis is the only one buying (like the recent purchase of Alice Springs and stations in North QLD).
Presumedly heās made an offer for the Sunshine Coast stations but itās too low ball or thereās too much overlap with 4GY?
Thought Resonate might want to add to their portfolio but itās probably a cash flow issue.
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Attracting new money to the sector is going to be tough (like it is across all of regional media) - I canāt imagine that youāll find many people wanting to enter the industry. Its hard to see anything but greater consolidation, the economics of being a smaller player in the market canāt be great.
The Grant/ARN tieup makes the future look interesting though, by shallowing the pool of buyers for any of the smaller players (like Oceania) that are still there - the industry (at least regionally) seems to be consolidating around a handful of networks
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Maybe a new conglomerate could purchase stations like 4KQ, 6iX, Krock, Bay93.9 and the Sunshine Coast stations?
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I suppose the question right now is, where do Nova see themselves? You have SCA and HT&E making the fully national play, so now they are without scale and will lose half the stations they syndicate content to.
To some extent you just pivot to podcasting and double down on your metro networks - take advantage of SCA/HT&E dealing with massive regional networks, and instead be very focused on their specific markets.
If thereās to be a regional player - youād have to think ACE is the only one right now pushing expansion, so they likely can make some moves, especially as prices will be low with sales that are fairly forced.
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Iād imagine that the other party in the joint venture stations may have the ability to exercise the first right of refusal. The remainder could go in a single line, but I wouldnāt be surprised if they get split - its a bit of an eclectic collection of stations to sell as a group
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Nova had their day in the DMG Radio era.
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Yeah, however I think that was them trading regional for metro - when things werenāt looking as doomed for the industry. When youāre out buying single licenses for $100m plus, then selling off regional made sense - they were gaining a footing in the Australian market, then switched focus to metro once it was available.
Right now the market is quite different, that weāre seeing a scramble for scale to try and fight off the death of traditional media, so youād have to think Nova are considering their market position. Thereād be good arguments for not buying into regional radio, but Nova are going to be one of the smallest of the radio networks soon.
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Iām excited to see what happens to Krock & Bay93.9 once Grants let them go.
Hopefully Krock will return to its roots of rock, and Bay will return to be an easy listening female-skewed station (like what 2DayFM is right now).
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Yes, itās most likely going to come down to those 2 operators unless Seven or ViacomCBS decide to enter into the radio market (unlikely).
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Agreed. ACE has been doing a lot of expansion recently with the purchase of Edge FM as well as leasing Nineās music stations in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
The next step for them would be to launch a streaming app similar to Nova Player/ Smooth Player and launch an extra DAB+ channel in each of Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne.
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Nova are still the third biggest radio company in Australia, in terms of their revenue and market position in the metros. They could possibly buy out a regional player in the future, for scale, but with the launch of their new apps, they will be looking at expanding into the streaming audio and podcasting space. They have just launched a Kylie Christmas streaming channel on their apps, so this could be a sample of things to come.
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I donāt know why people are saying this. They are keeping Geelong.
The family will retain Geelong, which would contravene ownership rules if it was sold as part of the deal, and the family will still retain holdings in the joint venture radio stations it runs with Kevin Blyton (Radioinfo)
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