Sometimes, even we get it wrong here at radioinfo. Six weeks ago we predicted that the Fairfax Radio sale was only days away. Now it looks like it’s off the market altogether. Usa culpa 🙂 But there is one sale that we can confidently predict will go through soon. It’s the one taking place on the Sunshine Coast for the Southern Cross Media owned combo, Sea FM and Mix FM.
As you may recall, when they purchased Austereo, SCM had to make an undertaking to ACMA that they would sell off their Sunshine Coast stations within a year because the signals from their newly acquired Brisbane holdings, Triple M and B105, overlapped. This put them in breach of the Broadcast Services Act which specifies that an owner can have no more than two stations in any one service area.
Although SCM are being forced to sell, the number of buyers smelling a bargain are instead creating enough buyer tension to help drive bidding up which is likely to achieve a decent price.
Whether it will come anywhere near that achieved by Rob Gamble’s AMI Group when it fetched $33.5 million for Zinc 96 FM and HOT 91 on the Sunshine Coast in 2007 is another question.
According to Neil Shoebridge writing in the Australian Financial Review at least eight groups have put in preliminary offers with three of them making opening bids in excess of $20 million.
Rumoured to be among the bidders is the aforementioned AMI Group, Grant Broadcasters which just last week acquired Fairfax Radio’s regional stations and the Prime Network.
Perhaps the most interesting of the rumours, although he has denied it, is Glenn Wheatley in partnership with Michael Gudinski.
Please..for the love of radio...don't let Grant Broadcasters get these stations
I have to say I can't agree with MC's posting; The Grant Broadcasters Network is what it is - an independently run business with a high degree of local involvement, with a solid trading position and until now, an accent on local programming in preference to networking. The Camerons' stations have always done well with local business and community. There are lots of other competitors that the likes of SCA and lesser behemoths would prefer to have in their markets than Grant. And from obersvation, Grant's staff have always been confident of having their wages in their bank accounts every fortnight, unlike the less fortunate in other networks. I think the text book on how to survive in a tough regional market may well have a few chapters written by the Cameron Family...