Mumbrellacast: Speed bumps for Seven’s mergers and sales, more radio shake-ups and 28 agencies for Tassie
It was a big week for Seven, as its plans to sell off Pacific Magazines to Bauer Media and merge with Prime Media both experienced road blocks. The ACCC won’t oppose the Prime merger, but, as predicted, The Cat and Bruce Gordon (amongst several other shareholders) stood in the way of the merger and the vote failed. Meanwhile, the ACCC expressed concerns over the sale of Pacific to Bauer because of those pesky cousin mags Take 5, That’s Life, New Idea and Woman’s Day. The Mumbrellacast team talks about the likelihood of these deals going through and when we’re going to see it happen.
Plus, radio is refusing to end 2019 quietly, with more talent changes, executive movements and programming announcements. The team reflects on the tumultuous week and pitches a new breakfast show, which admittedly, is unlikely to get the green light.
And finally, the Tasmanian government has come out of its agency tender with a mammoth 28 agencies. The team discusses questions the logistics and logic of having such a broad roster of agencies for such a small state. And, do the costs of managing that many relationships outweigh the benefits?
In the news
- Bauer Media’s Pacific buyout faces a hurdle (0:40)
- Seven’s Prime merger is blocked (11:56)
- The Tasmanian government appoints 28 agencies (20:56)
- Radio ends the year with more changes (28:04)
Sponsored segment: Audio diaries
- Eardrum’s Ralph Van Dijk speaks to Kellogg’s senior marketing manager Dan Bitti (41:44)
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There is no way in hell that the ACCC is going to approve the mags merger now.
How ironic that Bauer has managed to destroy Pacific Mags without even successfully buying it – because all the very best staff are now choosing to leave. What a bloody disaster:
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What a way to destroy what’s left of a company. To think that they went us far down the track of telling staff that they have jobs/redundancies, and to will be finailised by January. Blind sided, or stupid? Productivitity has been at an all time low, and you are asking staff to go on for another 4 months? These are peoples lives that you are affecting. This is the beginning of the end. Should the merge not go through, the relationship between Pacific and Seven will be untenable. I don’t think that they will recover from this. The leadership team at Pacific, better be prepare a strategy to steer a sinking ship. The ACCC contention points, are somewhat unresolvable in a prospective merge with Bauer, and will leave the remnants of a company to be scattered like crumbs amongst pigeons. There will be nothing left to sell at this point. What a monumental balls up… Is there a WTF emoji?
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