SCA gets one foot out of the door on TV; and Unmade is coming to Auckland
Welcome to a midweek update from Unmade. Today: We have news of the next edition of Compass, and Australia’s listed media companies work though a week of pre-Christmas housekeeping.
If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. If you sign up for an annual membership before tomorrow you’ll get a $50 gift voucher.
Your membership includes:
A complimentary ticket to all of Unmade’s events, including HumAIn, REmade, Unlock, and Compass, all returning in 2025.
Member-only content and our paywalled archives;
Your own copy of Media Unmade.
Compass comes to Auckland
Unmade’s Compass roadshow will roll into Auckland on February 18.
The event will follow the same formula as the Australian edition of Compass, featuring networking and an expert panel discussing the key media and marketing issues facing the market in 2025. The discussion, moderated by Unmade’s Tim Burrowes and recorded for a podcast, will also include questions from the live audience.
The speakers are Matt Martel from the NZ Herald, Jo Mitchell from The Warehouse Group, Nikki Grafton from PHD and Angela Watson from Colenso BBDO.
Matt Martel is managing editor for audience and platform curation on the NZ Herald. He previously ran news publication Business Desk which was sold to NZME in 2019, and before that he worked for Fairfax Media in Australia as part of the team leading The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review.
Jo Mitchell is GM of marketing for The Warehouse Group which she joined in March this year. Her previous marketing roles have included McDonald’s, Kraft Foods and Fonterra Brands.
Nikki Grafton is CEO of media agency PHD. She’s been with the agency for a remarkable 22 years. She is also on the board of the Commercial Communications Council.
And Angela Watson is CEO of Colenso BBDO which has enjoyed a reputation over more than a decade as one of the world’s great creative agencies. Watson’s big agency experience also extends to Saatchi & Saatchi and DDB. Like Grafton, she’s a Commercial Communications Council board member.
Compass Auckland takes place on Tuesday February 18 at NZME’s iHeart Lounge on Graham Street. It runs from 5pm. Tickets are on sale now.
How Unmade’s 2024 Compass tour has unfolded:
Tomorrow’s audio-led edition of Unmade will feature highlights from Compass Melbourne
SCA does its Network 10 deal, Nine gets a bigger debt facility, and Vinyl asks the market to bankroll its buy-ups
It’s been a week of admin on for Australia’s listed media and marketing companies as they raced through their end of year to-do list.
Yesterday saw Vinyl Group - owner of Brag Media and mediaweek - announce a $7.6m fundraising round by issuing new shares. The money will be used for the $3.5m cash component of its plan to buy Concrete Playground along with topping up its cash reserves. Major shareholder Realwise Group, controlled by Richard White will participate in the offer.
Nine also announced yesterday that it had refinanced its $750m debt facilities, extending them to a total of $900m across five years. When Nine last updated the market, it had a total net debt of $489m.
Earlier in the week, Southern Cross Austereo said that it had refinanced its debt facilities for a further three years to $160m. At the end of the last financial year it had drawn down $116m.
Meanwhile, SCA finally announced yesterday that it had managed to navigate the complexities of offloading its Network 10-affiliated TV licences in Queensland, southern NSW and Victoria for a headline price of $15m to $20m.
The deal will see SCA receive a profit share from Ten’s owner Paramount for the next five years. It also guarantees SCA a slice of the action if the government offers a “digital dividend” payout to incentivise TV networks to trim their use of broadcast spectrum that can then be auctioned to telcos.
However, SCA will not yet be able to claim it is an audio-only company. For the next five years, its sales teams will go on representing Paramount for ad sales in those regions.
SCA said it was still in talks over its other regional TV licences including its Seven-affiliated Tasmanian operation.
The housekeeping announcements barely caused a ripple on the ASX.
SCA improved by 1.8%, and the Unmade Index barely moved, dipping 0.12% to land on 433.8 points.
Time to leave you to your Wednesday.
We’ll be back with an audio-led edition tomorrow, taking in a lively Melbourne chapter of Compass.
Have a great day.
Toodleip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade
tim@unmade.media