In last week’s high power open narrowcasting auction the Perth licence was won by the Chinese, Griffith was won by the Italians, Kalgoorlie and Kambalda were won by narrowcaster RWWA and Launceston was won by TasRadio. A total of $777,000 was paid for the licences.

Philip Smith follows up on his earlier report for radioinfo with these details from the auction room:

Perth 90.5 MHz HPON – won by the Chinese applicant FM 104.9 Network Pty Ltd at a price of $320,000. Rete Italia was defeated in this contest. The Chinese will continue to use their 50W HPON until their new one is fully installed. Perhaps Firebird Park “Hype FM” will then lease this 104.9 MHz frequency.

Griffith 90.3 MHz – won by Rete Italia for $165,000.  The Chinese came second, ahead of 2KY and 2RG, who shall have to remain content to use their LPONs, unless they want to apply to ACMA for another HPON in the town.

Launceston 1008 AM –  Tasradio have been successful in their desire to reclaim the 1008 AM frequency they used to have, so that they can now use their FM frequency for a more mainstream commercial format – country music perhaps?  They may venture to sell their 87.6 LPON, which has been used for racing radio narrowcasting for about four years. Note: Now that ACMA has released the official results we have amended the story from yesterday in which we had wrongly claimed that Great Southern Land Broadcasters had won that auction. Our apologies for any inconvenience we may have caused.

Kalgoorlie – Won by RWWA for $30,000.  They also took Kambalda which in the end was uncontested for $2000.  RWWA was saving their money to secure a victory in Kalgoorlie, so that they can abandon their LPON which would not afford them adequate coverage in that area.

Genuine narrowcasters won the day, outbidding Commercial broadcasters in Perth, Griffith, Kalgoorlie and Kambalda.  

Only in Launceston did a commercial broadcaster register the winning bid.  Tasradio (racing radio),  a commercial broadcaster as well as a bonafide narrowcaster, did not prevail in this case, despite lobbying ACMA for this frequency to be released for HPON purposes.

The Perth HPON did not break the long standing $400,000 record set in 2002 for an 531 kHz AM HPON in Adelaide, which was won by Radio Televisione Italiana (SA) inc.  Nevertheless, $320,000 puts the Perth HPON as the third most expensive HPON ever sold in Australia.  An HPON purchased by 2KY in Nowra NSW went for $380,000 in the year 2000. Perhaps the price did not go higher in Perth because there are challenges in finding a viable transmitter site for a new HPON service in the Perth Hills.

Philip Smith says:

“I did not believe the Griffith HPON would sell for such a high price.  I said it might climb above $50,000 but I never imagined it could be worth more than three times that amount for a town with a population of just 25,000 people.  This is a bit surprising although not unprecedented, since an HPON in Nowra, which has a population of around 28,000, went under the hammer for $380,000.

“I did imagine that Launceston might climb to $200,000 and in the end it went even higher than that.  $260,000 is a lot of money to pay for a licence in Launceston, but an HPON was sold at auction for $280,000 in Hobart in 1998, making the Launceston bid the fifth highest in the history of HPON auctions.

“I correctly predicted the winner and the winning price in Kalgoorlie, although I did not forsee that Radio West would pull out of the race in Kambalda, thereby allowing RWWA to pick that HPON up for the reserve price.  Perhaps Radio West is saving their money for an up coming HPON allocation in Bunbury WA, which is another contest involving RWWA that will potentially see the price climb above $100,000, if the current round is anything to go by.”

Thanks to Bob Manners for additional reporting from inside the auction room.