Chuck in Newshub including The AM show while they are at it. It would give them at least 4 hours more news content on weekdays than what they have now.
With news late this arvo that Gordon and Murdoch have merged their shares - forming a 22% majority and most likely forcing a takeover bid⌠I expect one of the following scenarios to develop by the years end for the newsroomsâŚ
- WIN News production moves to the capital cities (like they did with WIN WA and 9 Perth those years ago)
or - A full one hour state based bulletin with WIN reporters filing for the Ten service and scraping local news bulletins.
Either scenario would only occur if WIN took over Ten, it would not happen while they remain separate companies.
I also highly doubt that WIN would ditch its local 30 minute bulletins, that would just alienate regional viewers whose local news would be diluted into a statewide bulletin.
as I said, if a takeover bid were successful. but you are right, most likely production of local bulletins could move to the capital cities.
A takeover bid may not happen for some months (regardless of passing media laws) as
- The shares âmergeâ agreement between Murdoch and Gordon stipulates that they will not âsolicit or encourage any takeover offers for Tenâ
- Anyone looking to takeover would want to wait until Ten is reasonably financially viable, they wouldnât want to take on a money pit
that growth and transformation project Ten was bandying around could be a clear sign to Murdoch and Gordon that the company is viable and ripe right now for the picking.
If you can manage something better - why wait for the company to recover in value before purchasing?
The poor people at ten. The network will go down further if they tie up with sky.
Just to make a comment in one place on this,
Tenâs problems with News isnât that it tried and failed with a revolution - it is that it has totally missed the boat on a multi platform news offering, yet still has all the costs of staffing newsrooms across the country.
Obviously itâs repetitious in this thread, but itâs a basic fact that Ten have done the expensive bit - but only get an hourâs news out of it.
NewsHub in NZ probably shows the future here - a shared newsroom across platforms. That doesnât need to come with common ownership, it could take the form of spinning off Ten News and going into a joint venture with other media outlets all struggling with the same issues of viability.
Fairfax are struggling, radio news bulletins are decreasing in standard as Macquarie becomes seemingly the only provider to many radio operators, and the competition from Nine and Seven puts the viability of WINâs regional news operations in question.
Nine and Seven both have strong and successful multiplatform news offerings - for Ten to keep providing a news service of their current quality and ideally to reverse some of the latest cuts - they need to find the path to relevance online.
Personally, I rarely see Tenâs news - 5pm as a timeslot means itâs already over by the time I get home from work. Likewise, their poor video player on their site and lack of up to date coverage means Iâm not going to go to their website for news.
Agreed, having one (which is increasingly losing viewers) bulletin at 5pm is no help. Nobody can watch that early as a main service. They should have had local news at a later time, away from competition as a point of different years ago. Totally agree re: sharing resources, they could have joined up with News Corp or Fairfax some way, but unfortunately their management just slashed and burned trying to find a way out of their issues.
Thereâs little doubt in my mind that Ten will be under Murdoch control in the months ahead. This is all about the Murdochs consolidating and expanding their influence through the control of as many media outlets as they can get their grubby hands on. They already have an unhealthy level of power because they set the news agenda through their daily newspapers and use them to pressure politicians and shift public debate. Murdochâs âblue horizonâ is the influence of Sky News in every household in the country. This has the potential to be a disaster considering we already severely lack media diversity in this country.
Once they have their foot in the door, it wonât stop at editorial control of Tenâs evening news. You can guarantee Murdochâs conservative commentators will start to fill slots in other areas of Tenâs schedule. What else are they going to schedule once those expensive US output deals are culled? I can already see them repackaging Paul Murrayâs nightly rantings into a late night program for Ten.
You have to wonder if these billionaires have any concern for the collateral damage they incur in their quest for domination.
Really? Seriously? LEAVE SKY NEWS ALONE! SHE DID NOTHING WRONG TO YOU 
In all fairness, I have to respectively disagree with what you percieve to what the Murdochs plans are for Ten and itâs news service. Itâs speculative. If what I heard about Gordon/Murdoch putting their shares together, we donât know what theyâll do.
Personally i think the join share is just wishful thinking on the vultures circulating on Ten, to kick them while they are down.
I still make the assumption that regardless of the media laws, the ACCC would block a deal that sees News Corp owning Ten on competition grounds, and thus see WIN the far more likely company to be able to achieve a takeover.
The ACCC would only assess whether a potential buyer would have too much control over TV. Newscorp owning Ten would be fine as Nine and Seven would still be competition in TV.
If Nine or Seven tried to buy Ten that would be an ACCC issue.
Not true. They would also cast a wider eye over the broader industry. While it would be the ACMA that regulate the number of media outlets in the market, the ACCC would assess whether a merger would create an anti-competitive environment in other areas such as media sales. (for the record I think the answers would be that a merger isnât anti-competitive, but it would depend on exact details and would still be looked into).
I canât see how itâs anticompetitive- there is still enough diversity.
News is the cheapest genre to produce. Shows how ten got it so wrong in terms of economies of scale.
Exactly.