ACCC has nothing to do with this at the moment. Murdoch and/or Gordon can’t have a controlling interest in Ten under the current broadcasting legislation - that is ACMA.
ACCC would only come into play if e.g. Foxtel wanted to control Ten - then there would be a case to answer that that arrangement would be anticompetitive / lessen competition e.g by giving Ten an advantage in sport rights negotiations or lessen competition for TV advertisers.
Thank god for this 
Looks like we never may see the ■■■■■■■■■ on TEN.
than whoops to Max Mason, as he has said this
The timing of the deal is interesting, with News Corp co-chair Lachlan Murdoch looking to take over Network Ten, with Bruce Gordon as his joint-venture partner.
The ACCC is examining a Murdoch-Gordon takeover of Ten and is due to give its decision, or release a statement of issues, on August 24.
ACCC started a preliminary investigation but that review would only be relevant if the legislation is changed.
As the article says
The potential deal falls foul of current media ownership laws, but the passage of a reform bill due in parliament on August 8 could open the way to “vary or remove” the restrictions, according to the competition watchdog. “The potential transaction is contemplated on the assumption that the Bill is passed into law,” the ACCC said.
By starting the review early ACCC may be able to come out and say that even if the legislation changes they will not approve any takeover.
See if there’s a way around these things. The reform was never going to get through due the insistence of keeping 2-out-of-3 as part of the package.
There is nothing stopping someone from buying Ten and being in breach for around 12 months before having to do something about their licences. So Murdoch/Gordon may try to take Ten and then await parliament to make the required changes so they are no longer in breach. If the law does not change then within 12 months you may see further changes to either Ten or WIN as Bruce would be forced to make a decision. Depending on what happens, you will most likely see the Murdoch camp sell their stake to Bruce should Bruce sell part of the existing WIN to get it under 75% in the event of the rule not being repelled. I can’t see Murdoch forgoing their existing properties to retain Ten in the event of.
What are u on about? Yet again flying off the handle with simplistic understanding of broader issues.
Gordon and Murdoch referred their potential take over to ten for a premeticr decision IF the laws passed. It’s not enough just for the laws to pass because the ACCC can still knock back the take over due to anti competitive behavior that could result from such a tie up.
That’s not how the reach rule works; an owner can’t get around the rule by just appointing separate lackies/representatives on different boards.
How about diminishing the Ten brand by inflicting mappy & the other WIN shitstains on regional viewers, and any reduction in ratings the shitstains have caused?
While that sounds possible in-theory, in reality it’s not so simple:
(It seems) you’re talking about as many as permissible broadcast licences WIN own being sold/transferred to Ten (to still keep Ten’s reach <75%), then Ten having to take over playout, sales, etc. for those transferred licences’ regional areas, while WIN being diminished to be left with a litlte over 25% reach.
That’s a huge upheaval - and even though playout would be outsourced to MediaHub (so be done at the same place), and they could do a advertising sales deal like Nine & SCA have- it wouldn’t fit with what we’ve seen of Gordon’s ego; he won’t want the WIN brand diminished like that because he obviously sees it as an extension of…himself.
I know. But he did. I wrote to ACMA about Gordon’s previous rep on the board, that he shouldn’t be there, but they didn’t do anything. Same with Siobhan McKenna representing Lachlan Murdoch, it shouldn’t have been allowed but ACMA let it go.
Board representation isn’t identical to a controlling interest, and the latter is where the reach rule comes in and is supposed to prevent Gordon from buying too many shares of Ten.
A new News Corp / Telstra / FOXTEL / Fox Sports / TEN super-company floated could be quite a compelling proposition.
The Australian claiming that Bruce Gordon and Lachlan Murdoch have put in a bid for Ten that would enable them to have an economic interest via convertible notes but not have control, similar to how Canwest didn’t own the network for many years despite having majority ownership.
Hopefully that is knocked on the head.
Article from The Australian is subscriber-only, so was unable to access.
This is looming as a disaster if those two fuckwits get control of ten
Nine is reporting that analyst Steve Allen expects the ACCC to reject the proposal by Gordon and Murdoch as such an acquisition is not currently legal. (Though The Australian speculated yesterday it would be approved by the ACCC).
I can see a special episode of Shark Tank coming up! Who wants to invest in the Ten Network? This one could really be event TV and spread across two big nights!
Precedent shows that reason doesn’t stand up. An acquisition Murdoch and Gordon will be legal if they sell other media assets.
For example, how is this different to what’s Fairfax Radio and Macquarie Radio merged? Technically it wasn’t allowed and it put them over the allowed stations in Sydney and broke the 4 voices rule in parts of Queensland, however the sale was still allowed by everyone (including the ACCC) and MML were given time to sell of assets to bring them back within regulations.
I would also argue that it’s beyond the ACCC’s jurisdiction to make a ruling based on media ownership laws. They are a regulator of competition, not media ownership. They could only rule if they thought the acquisition would reduce competition to an anti-competitive level - which again Is argue wouldn’t be the case given that there are several other large media operators in the same market.
I agree that ACCC can’t rule based on media laws but I don’t think the report is suggesting that. The inquiry was set up because a reform bill was due in parliament 8 August and ACCC said at the time “The potential transaction is contemplated on the assumption that the Bill is passed into law,”. So they might come out and say as “it can’t presently go ahead” we have no opinion.
I’m just going to put this earlier post here…
ACCC can only rule in the event of competition. As an acquisition of TEN by the Murdoch/Gordon camp is not going to affect competition (with exception to the Gold Coast area) I cannot see the ACCC being much help. ACMA on the other hand, possibly could, but like I’ve posted above and webguy…I’m sure they will have 12 months to work out any issues with a breach. And within that time it is expected that the government will pass some sort of media reform. If not, they will then need to do something in order to keep TEN or on sell some of their assets to make it happen at the end of the 12 month period.
There are a number of things ACCC can look at such as lessening competition in acquisition of sports rights and advertising in general. They investigated and eventually had to approve Foxtel taking just a 15% share of Ten.
“The ACCC has not found sufficient evidence to establish a link between these minority acquisitions and the competition concerns raised by market participants. We will, however, closely examine any future increases in these shareholdings, including where this is made possible through changes to the existing media diversity and control rules.”
In reaching its decision, the ACCC investigated whether the acquisitions would substantially reduce competition in the acquisition of sports rights and other types of content, with related effects in the free-to-air and broader television viewing markets.
In 2012 ACCC effectively said that Seven could not purchase any extra share of Foxtel
ACCC to oppose Seven Group Holding’s proposed acquisition of Consolidated Media Holdings