James Packer’s PBL Media and Bruce Gordon’s WIN Corp are now locked in a battle for Channel Nine affiliates in three cities: Adelaide, Perth and Newcastle.

SP Telemedia – owner of the high-rating NBN Network, the Nine affiliate that covers Newcastle, the Gold Coast, Moree and Narrabri – was accepting final bids for its media assets yesterday and could announce its decision as early as this morning. PBL Media is tipped to emerge as the winning bidder.

Meanwhile, the Herald understands that WIN and PBL Media are also in talks to buy Channel Nine in Adelaide from Southern Cross Broadcasting, with an announcement likely in the next few weeks.

And PBL Media is still mulling whether to make another bid for Nine in Perth after its offer was trumped by a $163 million bid from WIN a few weeks ago.

SP Telemedia said in a statement that final binding offers were due by 5pm yesterday and chairman Rob Milner told the Herald the board would meet this morning to make its final decision.

Mr Milner said the company would seek approval from the regulators so that it didn’t have to put the deal to a vote.

He wouldn’t comment on whether there were bidders other than WIN and PBL Media.

Popularity: 1%

A strong rumour is circulating that NBN is about to be sold to PBL Media. An insider claims that SP Telemedia is shortly going to request a trading halt on its shares, pending a major announcement on the sale of NBN to PBL Media next week.

It is claimed that an announcement is due to the ASX Tuesday afternoon.

Furthermore the insider claims that the NBN brand will remain in place until 5.59pm on June 3. NBN News will fall into line with the network. 6pm Nine News, 6.30pm ACA.

Late this afternoon a source close to the network said a sale has yet to take place and an announcement will not be made on Tuesday.

Either way, it seems there is about to be some major announcements regarding the future of NBN Television.

Popularity: 5%

WIN Corp executive chairman Andrew Gordon tells The AFR today the company would walk away from NBN rather than enter a bidding war with PBL Media. “Our current view is we might have lost this one. PBL is in there and if they make a large offer, there’s every chance we’ll admit defeat,” said Gordon.

Popularity: 1%

Nick Tabakoff of The Australian reports:

BILLIONAIRE TV owner Bruce Gordon has endorsed Macquarie Bank as a likely business partner in expanding his WIN regional television empire as he fights takeover battles on two fronts for television stations.

Mr Gordon told The Australian: "With Macquarie, we like them, we’ve had talks with them over many years and they’ve done a great job."

The WIN owner said Macquarie could become more involved with WIN as it examines a float: "They’re the kind of people we’d work with, particularly if we’re doing an IPO initial public offering of shares."

Asked about working with an organisation such as Macquarie to examine purchasing larger media assets, Mr Gordon replied: "In a hypothetical situation, we’d have to look at something like that with Macquarie."

Macquarie Bank controls the Macquarie Media Group, owner of a mass of regional radio stations that would fit well with WIN’s TV assets.

Mr Gordon has expressed his wish to expand the company’s media empire through what he sees as a "one-in-20-year" chance: "We want to fill in the blanks."

His opportunity has been created by the recent proclamation of new media laws relaxing cross and foreign ownership requirements that have seen other media groups such as PBL and Seven take capital injections from private equity.

In his latest interview, Mr Gordon has made it clear he is interested in expansion through a similar injection of investment capital but expresses a clear preference for working with a local investor such as Macquarie rather than foreign private equity firms.

"I don’t look at Macquarie the same way I look at a Blackstone or a KKR or a CVC. Those people are tough private equity people." Last month, Mr Gordon said private equity firms only wanted to "roll the investment over".

Mr Gordon also said he favoured a partial stockmarket float of WIN’s TV assets as a basis for expansion.

The 78-year-old billionaire has turned the single NSW south coast station he purchased from Rupert Murdoch in 1979 into one of Australia’s most diversified media companies. WIN Corporation directly owns 24 Nine Network affiliate stations across the country. It also has stakes in Sunraysia Television (which owns Channel Nine Perth) and SP Telemedia (which owns central and northern NSW Nine Network affiliate NBN Television).

It is the last two investments that have provoked most discussion in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, WIN launched a $163.2million takeover bid for Channel Nine in Perth, topping a PBL Media bid for the station by $27 million.

PBL Media has moved quickly to counter the WIN bid on the west coast, this week making a "non-binding proposal" for NBN in a deal believed to be worth in excess of $170 million.

The Australian understands WIN, aided by advisers Goldman Sachs JBWere, completed its due diligence on NBN early last week. So far, there has been no indication WIN has made any offer on NBN but Mr Gordon has made it clear he wants to buy the regional operator.

The addition of NBN and Channel Nine in Perth would give WIN the basis of a lucrative stockmarket float. One media executive at another network said this week that NBN – the highest rating station in any network in Australia – was a "must-buy" in the context of WIN’s grander plans.

A senior media analyst at a broking firm agreed, suggesting with WIN now in the box seat for Channel Nine Perth, PBL Media may offer some form of "swap" with Mr Gordon.

"Either Bruce Gordon aggressively outbids PBL Media for NBN or he can engineer a swap, assuming NBN is more important than Channel Nine Perth."

But one senior media executive believes NBN is also a good purchase for the Nine Network, given it has rugby league rights and the Newcastle/northern NSW region is passionate rugby league territory.

"PBL Media would be smart buying NBN, it’s in an adjoining zone and they can run it from Sydney," he said.

Popularity: 1%

The Sydney Morning Herald 26.4.07 reports:

BRUCE GORDON’S WIN Corporation is expected to make a counter-bid for the high-rating regional broadcaster NBN Television once James Packer’s PBL Media has finished inspecting its books within the next week.

WIN is also understood to be interested in acquiring Channel Nine in Adelaide, which could be put on the block should Macquarie Media Group take over the TV station’s parent company, Southern Cross Broadcasting.

Mr Gordon’s race to secure regional Nine affiliates on the west and east coasts intensified this week when PBL Media made an undisclosed offer for NBN, which serves Newcastle, the Gold Coast, Moree and Narrabri. Analysts say the media assets could fetch more than $200 million.

PBL Media’s offer for NBN follows a $160 million bid from WIN, and media executives expect WIN to will lodge a counter bid.

"Gordon showed his intentions with Western Australia, and Newcastle finished off the jigsaw puzzle for him – he will not let it go," an executive said.

WIN faces its own battle for Channel Nine in Perth after last week trumping PBL Media’s bid of $130 million.

The station’s owner, Sunraysia, has recommended shareholders accept WIN’s bid of $163 million, but PBL Media has been left ample time to consider making an improved offer.

Shareholders will not vote on the WIN bid until at least late May.

The latest stoush comes as PBL and WIN are expected to meet tomorrow to discuss an agreement for Nine affiliation.

Mr Gordon stands to gain greater leverage in negotiations over broadcasting feeds from PBL if he succeeds in expanding his TV empire.

The meeting comes just days after the owner of NBN, Newcastle-based SP Telemedia, confirmed it had given PBL Media exclusive rights to conduct due diligence on its media assets. This will take less than two weeks.

Macquarie Equities estimates the assets could fetch between $187 million and $204 million, although the broker emphasised that this could rise "if a competitive bidding environment is created".

BBY analyst Mark McDonnell said NBN was a "very logical fit" with WIN’s television operations in southern NSW.

"WIN clearly appears to be very interested in acquiring NBN … it’s a more logical option than the Perth [station] for them," Mr McDonnell said.

"If it gets Adelaide as well, suddenly it gets to a point where its population reach is larger than any other affiliate – it’s an interesting exercise in positioning."

WIN, whose head office is in Wollongong, gained a stake of almost 13 per cent in SP Telemedia last year, making it the company’s second-largest shareholder.

But just four weeks ago, Bruce Gordon’s son Andrew – who runs WIN with chief executive George Papadopoulos – resigned from SP Telemedia’s board.

Popularity: 4%

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Paul McIntyre reports:

AUSTRALIA’s biggest buyer of TV airtime, GroupM, has told the commercial TV networks it will hire its own TV programming producers and wants more advertiser content in network shows as part of its $800 million annual TV rate negotiations, which are about to start.

GroupM controls nearly a third of all metropolitan TV advertising in Australia and confirmed this week it planned to restructure its global business whereby it will become a major stand-alone investor in original TV programming and digital content.

Although much of GroupM’s new content investments will not rely on advertiser funding, the global media buying giant plans to use its local and worldwide advertising buying power to negotiate programming distribution rights with broadcasters for its own shows as well as push for broader integration of client brands into local and international TV formats.

The initial focus in Australia will be on the $80 million that GroupM negotiates each year in TV program sponsorships. GroupM’s national trading director, James Parkinson, said the company was taking TV producers in-house to improve the flow of information between advertisers, TV networks and production companies to ensure better integration of "brands and brand messages" in and around local and international programming.

Mr Parkinson cited Hyundai’s editorial and sponsorship involvement in Seven’s new primetime show, Last Chance Learners, and Huggies’ production funding of the new daytime format, Mums and Bubs, also on Seven, as examples of what GroupM would be doing more of through its agency brands such as Mediacom, Mindshare and Mediaedge:cia.

But non-advertiser-backed content was also high on GroupM’s agenda, Mr Parkinson said. He pointed to the success of GroupM’s $US20 million ($24 million) investment in a top rating show for the US TV season this year on ABC, October Road. The six-part series debuted on March 13 with 13.9 million viewers and ranked as the ninth most watched show in the US, although its audience nearly halved in subsequent episodes before recovering in the final two shows.

Group M’s parent company, WPP, also paid $US25 million for a founding stake in a film studio started by the founders of Miramax, Bob and Harvey Weinstein. And the media buyer has 20 TV productions under way now around the globe; half are pure Group M content investments rather than advertiser-funded initiatives.

The company also has three global "reality show formats" it is pitching to broadcasters.

"If you think about all the technology changes that are happening around us, a piece of content is going to have a longer life span than ever before," Mr Parkinson said.

"It might move from the theatre to pay TV to broadcast and ultimately it could end up as user-generated content. In the digital space it could be there for a long time. We want to be part of a group that takes revenues from that content for as long as that content lasts. If we only buy advertising in the middle of that content, we’re probably missing an opportunity on a global scale."

He said that, as original content producers, GroupM wanted to use its access and relationships with media owners to ensure distribution rights.

"If you think about content distribution, we are a huge consumer of any major media outlet," he told the Herald. "If one of the initiatives we want to bring to the table makes sense for a broadcaster, it might advantage them in future [advertising rate and volume] negotiations.

"If we had 200 hours of programming in the future and one media supplier found a way of using that, it’s an opportunity for them. We as a business are trying to create a different model."

Popularity: 1%

The PBL Media vs. WIN Corporation stoush has moved to northern New South Wales with PBL Media making a “non-binding proposal” to purchase Nine Network affiliate NBN Television believed to be worth $170 million dollars last night, according to the The Australian.

A successful bid would raise new obstacles in WIN owner Bruce Gordon’s bid to build Australia’s first independent television network, which could bypass PBL to source its own programming.

Last week PBL executives held discussions at NBN’s Newcastle offices, leading to a statement released by parent company SP Telemedia, stating that “a non-binding proposal from PBL Media Pty Limited to purchase the company’s media assets”. PBL Media has not made a comment or a statement about the move.

SP Telemedia has granted them exclusive due diligence to assess the company, following a similar period of due diligence conducted in the last two weeks or so by WIN, which has now ended. Investment bank Goldman Sachs has been advising WIN on a takeover of NBN.

The move sets the stage for another bidding war between PBL Media and WIN, after WIN appeared to emerge victorious in a battle for Perth’s STW-9 last Friday. PBL Media had launched a $136 million bid for the station, but WIN ultimately topped the bid by $27 million. It is not yet known if PBL Media intends to continue that contest.

Popularity: 5%

Newcastle and the Hunter Valley has 5 free-to-air television stations.

Two of them are non-commercial national broadcasters, SBS and ABC, while the other three are commercial stations with a larger local presence; NBN, Southern Cross TEN and Prime.

NBN

NBN Television commenced broadcasting to the Newcastle and Hunter Valley region on Sunday, 4th March 1962.

NBN Television is an independent affiliate of the Nine Network, and the combination of its own locally produced programs, including the region’s number one news service, with the Nine Network’s strong line-up of Australian and international programs, has seen the NBN Group consistently achieve the highest ratings for any station in a major television market across Australia.

NBN produces more local programming than any other regional station with its weeknight hour of news; weekend 30 minute news bulletins and weekday morning program Today Extra.

NBN is a fully owned subsidiary of the ASX listed public company, SP Telemedia Limited, and the SPT Group is Australia’s first fully converged telecommunications / media company.

Southern Cross TEN

Southern Cross Broadcasting’s Network Ten affiliate stations operate in Victoria, southern and northern New South Wales and Queensland.

The company has agreed on affiliation rates with Network Ten, involving a stepped rise in fees, linked to revenue, over the next ten years

The network’s ratings grew substantially during the year across all demographics but especially with younger viewers. Coverage of AFL football and motorsport as well as several locally produced and overseas programs, including Big Brother III, Rove Live, All Aussie Adventures, Secret Life of Us, Law and Order and Everybody Loves Raymond, were big winners with viewers.

The growth in the core 16-39 demographic was particularly attractive to advertisers and resulted in revenue growth above the industry growth rate of 6.5%. 

Southern Cross Ten has centralised play out and presentation facilities to the Canberra studio complex in respect of 24 markets. Centralisation has allowed the company to convert analogue play out facilities to digital in an extremely cost effective way.

Enhancements in technology and the availability of broadband communications will now provide more efficient and effective play out and distribution operations.

Prime

Prime Television Limited is an Australian public listed company. It operates as a "free-to-air" television broadcaster in Australia and New Zealand.

The Prime Network was formed in Australia as a result of Australian Government legislation (beginning in 1989) designed to give all Australians equal access to "free-to-air" television. 

The major part of the programming on Prime Australia is supplied through an affiliation agreement with the Seven Network. This source furnishes entertainment programs such as the top rating Australian drama Blue Heelers, Better Homes & Gardens, The Great Outdoors and The Weakest Link. Nationally renowned Seven Nightly News plus local, national and international sporting programs complement the varied, wide-appeal programming mix.

The Prime Group produces a total of seven separate major local news bulletins each weekday. These are supplemented with News Updates and shorter bulletins throughout the day and night. All are entitled Prime News and deal with local stories.

Popularity: 1%