NZME appeals for ‘urgent government action’ to acquire Stuff for $1, but Nine has ‘terminated discussions’
New Zealand publisher NZME has announced plans to acquire Nine’s Stuff for $1, pushing for ‘urgent government action’ to allow the deal.
But Nine has said that while it was in negotiations with NZME up until last week, those conversations had been ‘terminated’. The media business was blindsided by NZME’s comments this morning, with Stuff CEO Sinead Boucher calling it ‘surprising’.
If Bauer NZ closing wasn’t bad enough, this deal would massively increase NZ media consolidation. It would mean nearly 100% of NZ newspapers, magazines and commercial news radio would be owned by the one company, along with one of two substantial private TV companies.
Outside the NZME/Stuff operation would be TVNZ, Sky and that’s about it.
Perhaps the best alternative suitor for Stuff is ACM, which is experienced at getting value out of newspapers Nine considers too low yield.
Sky could buy it, but it hasn’t yet shown much interest in generating Kiwi content (outside of filming sport), which is what Stuff is all about.
Seven could make it work at least as well as Nine does, but is of course massively hampered by it’s financial woes.
It could be nationalised via TVNZ, but that seems unlikely.