War at MCM as founder Tony McGinn seeks to fire chairman Julien Playoust
MCM founder McGinn: Says chairman lacks vision
The board of MCM Entertainment Group, one of Australia’s largest independent providers of radio shows, is in turmoil, with its founder and biggest shareholder pushing for the company’s chairman to be fired.
The management of MCM Entertainment Group – which supplies eight national radio programmes to networks Southern Cross Austereo, ARN and DMG – is split over the future strategy for the company’s video platform Movideo.
Papers lodged with the ASX reveal that Tony McGinn, who owns about a third of the company he founded in 1983, wants to fire the company’s chairman Julien Playoust.
When you underprice all your video platform sales to undercut your opposition, you’re going to wind up with an unsustainable business model. Movideo won Ten by grossly underestimating the costs involved.
A swing from $1.8m profit to $1.3m loss ($3.1m hit to shareholders) says it all! This company doesn’t need capital, it needs to return to sound strategic management. Which is obviously why its largest shareholder has stepped in. Any responsible chairman would resign and accept their strategy didn’t work and allow the company to return to the days of profit and preserve shareholder value. Not look for scape goats.
Any media business will only survive moving forward if they can reliably deliver online video and audio. Sounds like the board is short sighted.
Pushing into online video will be expensive up front – especially if done correctly, but the sooner you do it, the sooner your make back the investment.
If you dont push an online stream now, you will get left behind.
Sounds like the founder knows what he is about.
Movideo sounds like the future to me. Seriously how can a board get the future so wrong. Has this Chairman heard of the digital revolution?
What is the media pedigree of this Playoust Chairman? I have searched online and can find nothing. He’d only have to read Simon Canning’s article in the Media section of the Oz today to realise how wrong he is,( http://www.theaustralian.com.a.....6140314515).
MCM has been one of the most progressive digital media pioneers in Australia for a decade and they have built a good business and market share accordingly. Surely the point of listing on the ASX was to grow and take on new digital media frontiers. From what I can tell movideo seems to fit that brief well.
Good luck to them I say, a smart and gutsy Aussie company having a go internationally – a long way from top 40 radio shows, which I note are still going strong after allmost 3 decades. Finally, I am curious why McGinn would make this move in a business he founded and is the largest shareholder in? Must be more to it maybe?
Commenters 2, 3 and 4 all sound like the same person…
Hi Anon @11.45pm.
I can confirm that the message from “Andrew” and the message from “Joel” both came from the same IP address.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
I guess you can argue the case on both sides but for my money it goes like this…
One guy has build this brand with his own passion and sweat over 28 years, and has always taken a truly long term view of his business and it’s potential.
He has been behind every success at MCM since it was founded (by him).
He’s also made some mistakes (just like the rest of us) and one of them is biting him in the bum now.
The other guy has been there for 5 minutes, knows nothing about the media and entertainment business and seems to be out for a quick buck.
Let me think about it….
Go get him Tony.
Tim, it amazes me that people still multiple fake names from the same IP address despite you outing them consistently
Me too, Paul.
I talk a bit about astroturfing on Background Briefing on ABC Radio National at 7pm tonight: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backg.....316825.htm
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
some of the comments are hard to stomach
I concur with the boards current strategy and are thrilled that they are defending it. My vote is with Playoust. MCM Media works extremely hard in a declining market to maintain growth. There’s no doubt in my mind that MCM Media is currently in more need of support and cash-flow at the current time.
rein it in!
Movideo needs help either way, it’s rubbish to use.