With the continuous erosion of revenue, it would not be sustainable long term.
Going to VAST is the only solution the Govt has come up with, basically kicking the can down the road.
The Govt needs to do some real and substantive legislative reform, onus is on them.
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Or 10Play.
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the ABC has finally clocked onto this story?
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In typical ABC fashion
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Mildura:
TV Tonight understands the costs to upgrade ageing transmission equipment was too prohibitive and a major factor in the decision making.
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Has the ACMA called for new bids for the license?
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ACMA already determined Mildura can only support two commercial broadcasters. They arenât going to offer a new licence when the two existing broadcasters canât even sustain a JV.
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Are you talking about when aggregation took place? That was decades ago and things have changed. Populations have increased, technology may allow for improved economies of scale, but viewers also have other choices such as streaming of network programs and online streaming service like Netflix. Does that mean there should be a third licensee or not? The answer could be the same now or different.
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I know we donât see the balance sheets for individual operations within a company, but the claim that Mildura had been unprofitable since its inception, I find difficult to believe. We are talking 18 years here and in the last few years of Prime Media before the Seven buyout was not declaring dividends.
From an operational perspective, it isnât believable considering accountabilities to shareholders etc. I would say it is more believable to say itâs been unprofitably for the last 5 or 6 years with increased affiliation fees, it might have been the case especially with the affiliation switch in 2016, then again in 2021 as well as technological advances.
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This is a bit of a grey area (although Iâm led to believe that at least one regional broadcaster has a legal opinion on it) - while it was long considered this was the case, issuing the MDT licence (and any other 3rd licence to a JV) without any restrictions on ownership suggests that there may be a willingness to allow a third operator in if the JV was to sell.
Iâm not convinced that itâs the role of the regulator to determine this without testing the market first - just because the existing holder handed back the licence doesnât mean that there is no one else that is interested. But that canât happen until itâs clarified whether the licence can be operated outside of a JV.
I donât, the JV operations were doomed from the beginning. Neither JV party was going to put substantial amounts of money or effort into making them successful to detract from either partyâs substantive networks, so they ran on crumbs possibly at a minor loss that may deliver some tax benefits. Not to mention that they were always the network that ran 3rd
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Channel 10:
âWe continue to call on the Federal Government to intervene and ensure that every Australian, no matter where they live or how much they earn, has the same access to all local free to air TV broadcast channels and the local content they love and enjoy such as vital news and emergency information, epic sports, comedies and entertainment.
Easy call to make from the cheap seats
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A station carrying a consistent 3rd rating commercial network to ~70k viewers was always going to struggle. With no connection to a larger network with adjacent profitable markets/affiliates to offset the losses like SCA has. Youâd have to be blind to doubt their claims it didnât turn a profit from the get go.
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Indeed perhaps the can look at their structures and develop plans to ensure their content is seen in these areas. They may have to acquire some of this loss making stations and work out a system to manage them on the cheap in some way. Donât just send out screeds blaming everyone else.
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Iâm not blind, but you arenât going to risk the long term viability of your operations by continuing to run a business that was operating at a loss for 18 years. This is why Woolworths closed its hardware experiment, Masters after just a few years - it operated at a loss, but certainly didnât run it for 18 years- operated for just 5 years.
Losses, whether small or large over a long period of time are not going to go down well with shareholders, regardless of tax advantages, because if shareholders see that they operated a venture for 18 years as a loss, shareholders will want to hold someone accountable.
I suppose creative accounting could give a paper loss, but we will see in the future whether or not itâs the case depending on the possibility of new players through either VAST or if another operator , unlikely as it is, attempts to come into the market.
I think this closure is more likely about lesser overheads and greater slice of the pie for the 2 operators. In a way, this is similar to the alternate proposal by broadcasters to continue to operate in a solus market and be allowed a supplementary licence to allow a second channel. It would have been interesting over time if say the majority screened say Nine programming on main channel (as the number 1 station in the late 1980s) and the second as Ten and Seven and perhaps evolving to Seven being primarily on one channel and have Ten and Nine on the other.
Mildura was the second market to get a JV 10 as part of the push to fill the digital divide between regional and metro. Later, it was the first market to switch off analogue as digital take-up was high thanks to MDT, which in turn made it the first market to get access to VAST, well before Remote Central.
Now I havenât researched this, but there is no doubt in my mind that Prime and WIN were in some way or another incentivised to keep MDT going. The losses were probably hovering at a point where Prime and WIN couldnât justify the ramifications of closing it, especially when overall digital take-up benefited their stations too. To them, MDT formed part of the cost of going digital in that area.
Times have changed. Mildura isnât a unique launch pad market anymore and with regional revenues at an all-time low I can see why now itâs just become too much to maintain. Now itâs about business and money has the final say.
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And your point about business and time has the final say is my point. The costs would have outweighed the benefits long before this and whether or not there were benefits we will never know, nor will we know how much any benefit was.
We can assume money or other benefits could have been thrown at them (like the NT and WA governments have), but an assumption isnât fact. In business there are benefits like depreciation that assets like transmitters can be applied to, to generate paper losses, but I think given the television advertising pie is only so big, which is now smaller than it once was due to choices, and advertising even appear on subscription services such as Foxtel TV channels. I personally think that WIN and Seven were always going to look at the bottom line and see that the local advertising pie just got bigger with MDT closure.
I think there will be interesting times ahead for Tasmania given that SCA says TDT operates at a profit, which I doubt WIN would want known, especially given WIN has kept Mum on the issue. If this is true, I wonder if WIN tried to pull the pin, whether SCA would want to take on the commitment to TDT.
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And the shareholders of MDT decided to wind the company up. The recent reporting from TV Tonight that MDT needed new equipment is possibly the straw that broke the camelâs back - they may have been posting paper losses but the required investment would have pushed that into a substantive one and itâs possibly unlikely that both JV parties were particularly interested in injecting further capital to facilitate the upgrade.
I donât think this is in question - but Iâd also add that one JV entity (Seven) isnât in the best financial position and the second (WIN) seems to be setting up to merge with their metro partner, in both cases they appear to be trying to simplify their operations and risk exposure.
WIN donât have to reveal anything about its financial performance - theyâve got grandfathered protections from needing to make accounts public
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I didnât mention anything about WINs financial performance being needed to be revealed. What I said if you actually read it, is that WIN wouldnât want it being known that TDT is not operating at a loss, especially if the simplification and merger scenario are the reasoning for discontinuation of JVs.
It should be noted in the government funding case, this is to assist to keep Ten on air in regional WA, but who knows how long it will be for as funding doesnât guarantee supply
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WIN donât want anything about the financial performance of their entities made public
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