Another possibility would be ARN acquiring both Hit & Triple M in Mildura and selling the AM station (River 1467) to someone like SEN. This would allow River to move to the FM band, which is pretty much an identical situation to what happened when 3MA moved from 1467 to 97.9 back in late 1999, in which the AM licence then became a Sport 927 (now RSN) relay before switching to the Easy Mix a few years later.
As for the other markets, I reckon either ARN or the Super Radio Network could be contenders for the soon-to-be-divested SCA radio licences.
Mt Isa and Roma could most likely be bought by Resonate with the West FM stream replaced on those stations. Would make Resonate more attractive for a sale if it eventuates.
I donât see 1467 going back to sport as we do have a local RSN repeater on 1359, and SENTrack on 89.1 (both HPON if I recall right). Should River go to FM, 1467 will more than likely get shut off entirely as the coverage area would be sufficiently covered without the AM as a backup.
I was thinking about that, but the problem is, it would not get back up to 4 voices if Resonate were to buy the FM stations in Roma & Mt Isa to pair up with 4ZR & 4LM respectively. Granted, they did have 3 voices before Seven acquired the SCA TV licences in those markets earlier this year, plus Mt Isa did have 4 voices when its local newspaper, North West Star, was still a daily newspaper until about a decade ago.
In 2015, when 4LM was owned by Macquarie Radio Network & had merged with Fairfax, who owned North West Star, the AM radio station was required to be sold, in which it was then acquired by Resonate. Hereâs an Radioinfo article about it from back then: Macquarie Radio Network to sell two radio stations | radioinfo.com.au
Look at this way⌠if you are selling your old car to someone.. you are going to want to sell it to whoever offers you the most money, and you wonât care too much what they do with it.. Itâll be the same thing here.
Ever since they moved the Hit & Triple M transmitters out to Yatpool Ouyen has seemed to have better reception from the Mildura FM commercial stations, I was driving out to Underbool which is 50kms west of Ouyen with a friend & we were still getting Triple M.
Having SEN broadcast on 3 frequencies would be pointless but, SEN could always sell off their Open Narrowcasting licences If they wanted to get greater coverage as we canât get SEN In Ouyen.
Why would paramount want to buy licences that wouldnât make a profit the MDV didnât make a profit for the whole time It was on air & last year the government had to pay a bailout to WDT these licences were joint ventures because It was determined that these markets couldnât support 3 commercial broadcasters, It would be a lot quicker to just sell the radio stations they are required to I can imagine that there would already be deals In the process to sell these stations.
Only thing wrong with that is that Mildura would be left with only 2 commercial licences & River 1467 is a commercial licence, but It could actually be changed to make It a high-powered open-narrow casting service & RSN or SEN could apply for that licence if ARN bought Hit & Triple M & converted the current 1467 station to FM, Bendigo many years ago had their AM commercial station on 954 before converting to FM & that AM frequency is now an open-narrow-casting service.
Given the ratings performance of both Seven WA and particularly the Hit network, Iâd think they should try and make it work another way. Itâs a tough ask picking which one to keep, and youâd certainly being paid unders for them when selling in this forced situation, ARN would probably want the stations, but donât have cash reserves.
Agree itâs hard to see whatâs in it for Paramount, Iâm thinking they could buy for a dollar, along with immediately ending the 5 year âparticipationâ period on the sale of the previous regional TV assets, to fully untangle them from SCA/Seven, I think they priced that around $15-20m in expected earnings from that deal. SCA would probably not make much more than that from selling Hit/Triple M WA and take an ongoing hit to their revenue, and would at least break even for Ten.
Thinking outside the box⌠we assume that they will want to keep the TV licences to have as close to a complete national network as possible. We also assume that the radio stations in question are somewhat profitable and worth keeping.
What they could do (subject to agreement from their JV partner - WIN or Imparja depending on the market) - is sell the 10 licence to Paramount. Likely for $1 or similar, and maybe even pay some compensation to WIN/Imparja for their share. Then, make a deal with Paramount to guarantee revenue for a period, say 5 years, to be sufficient to cover operating costs. It means Paramount donât have the risk for making a loss, and if the assets SCA/SWM keep are profitable enough, they still make more profit than going forward than if they had to sell the licences. Then, if in 10 years Paramount are over it and want to close down the 10 licences, the reduction in voices at that point isnât because of an action by SCA/SWM so they wonât be required to divest any licences at that point.
I clicked on this thread to speculate same. It does require ARN to be in a position to have money to spend on licences and corporate headcount to plan for such an acquisition, they may be too busy dealing with their other bushfires.
As a result of the SCA sell off to BA of their engineering infrastructure.
Considering Yatpool is the long established VHF TV site, it would be the best FM.
DMG spent what would now be viewed as extravagant engineering dollars on constructing their own FM site, east of Mildura on the NSW side from memory. Couldnât match Yatpool.
Any one driven by to see if the tower is still standing ?
If ACE bought one of the SCA stations It would be interesting to see If they would re-brand It to MIXX-FM, STAR-FM or even create a totally separate brand like they have In South West Victoria & Gippsland, Super Radio Networkâs FM stations all seem to have their own separate brand & perhaps Mildura could do program sharing with Hill-FM Broken Hill.