Earlier this week, MediaWorks announced it was being acquired by Australian media platform Sports Entertainment Group for an enterprise value of $ 130 million.
This sale follows MediaWorks’ acquisition by stakeholder QMS last year, who now run the out of home side of the business. In February, QMS Media was bought by Australia’s Nine Entertainment.
The latest deal with SEG finds a new home for MediaWorks’ audio arm, creating a trans-Tasman media brand that includes sport, music, and entertainment hosted across radio, digital, podcast, TV and live experiences.
MediaWorks is Aotearoa’s largest radio business and third largest advertising platform across all media, so naturally the local media industry here had some thoughts on this latest news. You can read their comments below.
Aotearoa Independent Media Agencies CEO – Simon Teagle
Not that AIMA can speak for all of our independent agency members, but in general, the acquisition is a positive outcome for both MediaWorks and the local media industry. It also has the potential to reshape the trans-Tasman audio landscape.
It will no doubt be a relief for our friends at MediaWorks to have an owner with genuine audio pedigree and a clear strategy, after spending the past year in limbo awaiting a sale. SEG is a specialist in sports audio and understands how to build content and platforms that serve the needs of a specific, like-minded audience. MediaWorks does much the same in music and entertainment, making the two businesses complementary rather than overlapping. That’s a much stronger foundation than a straightforward consolidation play.
Where it gets interesting is talk. SEG understands talk formats far better than MediaWorks’ previous owners did, so we’d expect it to develop products that recapture the audience segment MediaWorks walked away from not long ago. Before anyone starts imagining Today FM 2.0, however, SEG first needs to rebuild the sports rights position it relinquished when it sold SENZ to the TAB (now Entain) in 2023. Reacquiring those rights will be its first real test, and it won’t be either quick or inexpensive.
The more speculative opportunity is rova. We can only speculate, but it seems plausible that SEG will use the platform to establish a foothold in Australia, pursuing the trans-Tasman opportunity outlined in the acquisition announcement. Radio is heavily regulated across the Tasman, meaning a brand like The Rock would struggle to exist on traditional Australian airwaves. Through a version of rova tailored to Australian audiences and advertisers, however, it potentially could.
If SEG can rebuild a credible sports offering in New Zealand while using rova to extend MediaWorks’ brands into Australia, this acquisition starts to look like the first genuinely trans-Tasman audio platform either market has seen.
EightyOne Media founder – Grant Maxwell
Firstly, it always feels good to hear of a media company being owned by another media company.
With respect to this specific takeover, the obvious question is why, after exiting New Zealand through the divestment of SENZ to focus on the Australian market, SEG has decided to return.
The assumption is that owning the market leader in radio is a very different proposition to owning a minnow. The scale of the MediaWorks business should give SEG a much stronger platform to secure sports broadcasting rights and generate a return on that investment more quickly.
MediaWorks has little presence in sports coverage and has largely stepped away from talk radio in recent years to focus on music formats, which makes it a natural complement to SEG’s strengths in those areas.
Add to that the prevalence of trans-Tasman sporting competitions – think NRL, men’s and women’s football, basketball, rugby and more – and SEG could have a compelling proposition when those rights next come up. That should also strengthen its offering to advertisers and sponsors on both sides of the Tasman.
MediaWorks’ AM/FM broadcast footprint will also be highly attractive to SEG. New Zealand’s topography makes broadcast frequencies both scarce and expensive to secure. That’s part of the reason SENZ struggled – it’s difficult to build a national network relying on digital distribution and the occasional AM signal.
On the face of it, this may appear to be a U-turn for SEG, but looking beneath the surface, it feels more like a classic case of lessons learned: if you can’t build the network, buy it.
Overall, this appears to be good news for advertisers and MediaWorks staff alike. The only group that may have reason to be concerned is the current owner of Sport Nation (formerly SENZ), the TAB. Time will tell whether those concerns are justified, or whether SEG chooses not to re-enter the sports talk market. The latter seems unlikely.
– Grant Maxwell, EightyOne Media
King St chief operating officer Kwan Ng
This shift could bring commercial benefits across the board. Advertisers get access to content sponsorships built on sporting rights and talent, while agencies may gain better negotiating power and easier cross-Tasman campaign support. At the same time, local publishers face tougher competition, which gives the broader radio market a solid boost of confidence.
However, there is a real risk of losing listeners if popular local Kiwi hosts get replaced by syndicated Australian sports shows. In other words, please don’t Aussie my Kiwi radio! If SEG tries to replace local Kiwi banter with sports syndication, listeners might hit the tuning dial faster than a flying pavlova!
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