CBS Buys Australia's NETWORK TEN

Just Breaking Now

#BREAKING: CBS has entered into an agreement to acquire the Network Ten business and its assets. #9News pic.twitter.com/8hXVpCY0xE

— 9Finance (@9Finance) August 27, 2017

This was certainly unexpected!

Here is the offical press release from CBS Corporation
https://www.cbscorporation.com/2017/08/cbs-corporation-to-acquire-network-ten-in-australia/


http://deadline.com/2017/08/cbs-corporation-network-ten-australia-1202157126/


Had no idea about that;.

As I have posted on Mediaspy, this is certainly preferable to Murdoch and Bruce Gordon getting their hands on Ten.

Plot twist, indeed! From what I've heard on MediaSpy seems it's good news, compared to Ten being bought by Bruce Gordon (WIN)

I suspect this might be a relatively short-term arrangement, with CBS later spinning Ten off. It's hard to see what the strategic interest is for CBS - buying an underperforming network in a small, concentrated market without any clear links to other assets. (It does have a stake in Ten's digital multi-channel Eleven, but I view that as more of a novel model of programming deal.)

My guess is that the CBS-Ten tie up is driven by the money that Ten owes CBS in its programming deal. CBS is Ten's largest creditor (around A$800m is the claim I've seen reported), and CBS may see the acquisition as a relatively cheap way to recover what it's owed over time through revenue.

Alternatively, this might be part of a bigger plan for CBS to expand its online platform - that it's not the TV channel that CBS is so much interested in, but that Ten provides a ready-made platform to launch and promote CBS All Access in the Australian market. But they need the content to make that an attractive offering - and I'm not sure it's there (yet, anyway).

Not really - they have a long term working relationship and already have a share in one of their digital channels - and then as Mr Q says CBS is the largest creditor of Ten so possibly taking ownershp themselves gives them the best chance of getting the money they're owed.

Free to air TV is still relatively healthy in Australia - pay TV and on demand services haven't penetrated the market to anywhere near the effect it has in the UK or US. Ten going bust is just one of those things that happens every decade or two - not really a sign of a failing market.

[quote="Mr Q" pid="1076572"My guess is that the CBS-Ten tie up is driven by the money that Ten owes CBS in its programming deal. CBS is Ten's largest creditor (around A$800m is the claim I've seen reported), and CBS may see the acquisition as a relatively cheap way to recover what it's owed .[/quote]

Whilst it does have the whiff on "needs must", the spin is quite emphatic.

The opportunity to expand in the English speaking world is a big thing. The US TV market is heavily saturated. Growth opportunity there for a classic network must be very limited. As terrestrial networks command significant slices of the audience, when one comes within your grasp: you'd be foolish to walk by. Especially, as in this case, the very real possibility of liquidation would have cost you 800 million Australian bucks!

All countries are squeamish over somebody from elsewhere owning something significant in their broadcast estate. (We're (the UK) rather more confident, and hence less defensive). However, the Australian Government and Regulator wouldn't have relished the prospect of commercial television morphing from three networks to two. Potentially they may be very generous to CBS over how it regulates the off-shore nature of its offering. The fact that Labor isn't in power must help this.

CBS may even have the chance to shed a few costs. Having the TEN news operation under their control lessens the need for a bureau in Sydney; not a big cost item but a fair aggregator of content from all over south Asia. Perhaps even some programme making may move to Australia; they speak the same language (almost) and have lots of nice subsidies for film-making, with way lower costs than California. Also, wouldn't CBS's US sales operation be able to sell TEN into global corporates more sharply that TEN ever did itself?

This could also work out for Ten in terms of newsgathering: 1)the CBS News / BBC News agreement can apply to Ten News thus lessening the cost for international stories 2) possible extra staff for CBS News and CBSN, give CBSN extra hours to cover the overnight 3)CBS News has seen a resurgence and that may help Ten in the long run

That's a very interesting point.

The BBC's natural cousins (they really are cousins!) in Australia are the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission). I wonder how this would impact with CBS/TEN? Possibly CBS's shared BBC content may be marked NOT Australia , or ABC Preference ?

It's actually Australian Broadcasting Corporation

This is how Ten covered the announcement on its news: