WIN Corporation

Last updated

WIN Corporation Pty Ltd
Type Private
Industry Free To Air Television
Pay Television
Television Production
Radio broadcasting
Telecommunications
Founded18 March 1962
Headquarters Wollongong, Australia
Key people
 Bruce Gordon, Deputy Chairman/Owner
Andrew Gordon, Executive Chairman
Products WIN Television
Crawford Productions
OwnerBirketu Pty Ltd.
Website wintv.com.au

WIN Corporation is a private Australian media company, that owns assets including the WIN Television network, Crawford Productions and several local radio stations. The company is based in Wollongong, New South Wales.

Contents

History

Founding

The WIN brand began from a sole free-to-air terrestrial television station in Wollongong, WIN-4, owned by Television Wollongong Transmissions (TWT). In 1979, then-owner Rupert Murdoch sold his 76 per cent controlling interest in TWT to Oberon Broadcasters, [1] a private investment group which included Paramount Television programming executive Bruce Gordon. [2] This allowed Murdoch to purchase Sydney station TEN-10. In 1985, TWT was made public on the-then Sydney Stock Exchange as TWT Holdings Limited with Gordon retaining a 70 per cent stake. Gordon privatised the business in 1992 [3] to become WIN Corporation.

Expansion, aggregation and industry consolidation

In the late 1980s, the Federal Government's television equalisation program (known as aggregation) gave Gordon the opportunity to initiate a period of growth by acquiring television stations in regional Queensland, Victoria, and Tasmania. In the late 1990s, WIN acquired their South Australian station and developed a new Western Australian station from scratch. These stations were integrated into what is now known as the WIN Network. The WIN Network covers large areas of regional Australia and has a total audience reach of 4.842 million people.

Through Bruce Gordon's leadership, in the late 1990s and 2000s, WIN built stakes in PBL, Network Ten, and TPG Telecom. TPG Telecom was at the time known as SP Telemedia and owned fellow Nine affiliate NBN Television.

August 2005 saw WIN purchase a controlling 50.1 per cent stake in satellite subscription television carrier SelecTV, however failure in adequately growing the subscriber base along with high debts saw the business placed in voluntary administration in February 2011. [4]

On 21 April 2007, the board of Sunraysia Television endorsed WIN's revised offer of $163 million for Channel Nine Perth , [5] which went through on 8 June 2007. [6] On 30 May 2007, Southern Cross Broadcasting announced its sale of Channel Nine Adelaide to WIN for $105 million. [7] In June 2013, WIN offloaded the Nine-branded metropolitan Adelaide station to Nine Network's parent Nine Entertainment Co. for $140 million along with an option to purchase the Perth station, which was exercised in September 2013. [8] In October 2015 WIN Corporation purchased a 14 per cent stake in Nine Entertainment Co. from investment fund operator Apollo. [9]

In 2008, WIN invested in a 50 per cent share of the Australian Poker League, buying from its founder Martin Martinez. However this stake was sold in 2012. [10]

On 4 June 2009, signalling their continued interest in digital assets, WIN increased to 18.4 per cent their stake in publicly listed company Quickflix, an Australian provider of online DVD rental and subscription movie and television series downloads. [11] In the following years, WIN's share of the business dwindled down to 3.5 per cent as of 2014 as Quickflix continued to raise capital through issuing new shares. In April 2016, Quickflix entered voluntary administration. [12]

WIN held a long-term interest in a small cinema chain in Tasmania through a joint venture with Village Roadshow until 2013. The joint venture owned four cinemas which were branded as 'Village Cinemas'. This interest was originally acquired by ENT Ltd. in 1988.

Today

In early 2006, WIN Corporation bought a 25% stake in the St. George Illawarra Dragons from the Illawarra Steelers for $6.5 million. In August 2018 WIN Corporation purchased the Illawarra Steelers remaining 25% stake for a "commercially in confidence" sum, taking its stake to 50%.

It was announced on 23 May 2016 that WIN Television had signed an affiliation agreement with Network Ten for a five-year period starting on 1 July 2016. [13] WIN's former affiliation partner, Nine Network, signed with Southern Cross Austereo in April 2016 having secured a 50 per cent revenue share deal. [14] [15]

WIN plays a prominent role in the local Illawarra community through investment in long-term naming rights to the Dragons' Wollongong home ground, WIN Stadium. WIN also holds naming rights to the neighbouring WIN Entertainment Centre, home to basketball's Illawarra Hawks.

In June 2019, WIN closed several newsrooms throughout New South Wales and Queensland, including Orange, Wagga, Albury and Queensland's Hervey Bay. [16]

Assets

Television

Radio

WIN Corporation owns two FM radio stations in New South Wales:

Other assets

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Network 10</span> Australian television network

Network 10 is an Australian commercial television network owned by Ten Network Holdings, a division of the Paramount Networks UK & Australia subsidiary of Paramount Global. One of five national free-to-air networks, 10's owned-and-operated stations can be found in the state capital cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth while affiliates extend the network to regional areas of the country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WIN Television</span> Australian TV network

WIN Television is an Australian television network owned by WIN Corporation that is based in Wollongong, New South Wales. WIN commenced transmissions on 18 March 1962 as a single television station covering the Wollongong region. The WIN Network has since grown to cover much of regional Australia. The network's name, WIN, originates from its first station, Wollongong's WIN-4. WIN has a program supply agreement with metropolitan broadcaster Nine Network, covering its stations in Regional Queensland, Southern and Western New South Wales, Griffith, Regional Victoria, Mildura, Tasmania, Eastern South Australia, and Regional Western Australia. WIN also has a program supply agreement with third-placed metropolitan broadcaster Network 10, for its Northern New South Wales station. WIN also produces and broadcasts weeknight half-hour local news bulletins across its Queensland, southern New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania markets, as WIN News.

Kerry Matthew Stokes is an Australian businessman. He holds business interests in industries including electronic and print media, property, mining and construction equipment. He is most widely known as the chairman of the Seven Network, one of the largest broadcasting corporations in Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Illawarra Steelers</span> Australian rugby league club, based in Wollongong, NSW

The Illawarra Steelers are an Australian rugby league football club based in the city of Wollongong, New South Wales. The club competed in Australia's top-level rugby league competition from 1982 until 1998. On 13 December 1980, they were the first non-Sydney based team to be admitted into the New South Wales Rugby League premiership, with the Canberra Raiders being admitted later ensuring an even number of teams in the competition for the start of their first season, 1982. Over their seventeen years in the top grade, the club received three wooden spoons, made the play-offs twice and had a total of three of its players selected to play for the Australia national rugby league team.

Sunraysia Television was a publicly listed company which owned Channel Nine Perth's parent company Swan Television and Radio Broadcasters from 1989 to 2007. Although listed on the ASX, Sunraysia had been majority owned by Eva Presser's Sabtel with WIN Corporation owning another 43.65% of the company.

Nine Radio is an Australian media company, owned by parent company Nine Entertainment Co. and headquartered in North Sydney, New South Wales. The company operates radio stations nationally in the capital cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, as well as regional Queensland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ten Network Holdings</span> Australian media company

Ten Network Holdings Ltd, commonly referred as Paramount Australia & New Zealand, is a major media company in Australia. Headquartered in Sydney, its major asset is Network 10, a free-to-air television network. Formerly a public company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, since December 2019, it has been a subsidiary of Paramount Networks UK & Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Publishing and Broadcasting Limited</span> Australian media and gaming company

Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL) was one of Australia's largest corporations. With interests primarily in media and gambling, for the entirety of its existence it was largely controlled by the Packer family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nine Entertainment</span> Australian media and entertainment company

Nine Entertainment is an Australian publicly listed media company with holdings in radio and television broadcasting, newspaper publications and digital media. It uses Nine as its corporate branding and also prefers this usage to be used for the parent company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fairfax Media</span> Australian media company

Fairfax Media was a media company in Australia and New Zealand, with investments in newspaper, magazines, radio and digital properties. The company was founded by John Fairfax as John Fairfax and Sons, who purchased The Sydney Morning Herald in 1841. The Fairfax family retained control of the business until late in the 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prime Media Group</span> Australian-based media corporation

Prime Media Group Limited was an Australian-based media corporation that formerly owned regional television network Prime7 in eastern Australia and GWN7 in regional Western Australia. It also owned ishop TV, a datacasting channel, co-owned by Brand Developers and two joint ventures with the WIN Corporation, Mildura Digital Television, and West Digital Television.

Bruce Gordon is an Australian businessman. He is the owner of the Australian television network, WIN Television through his ownership of WIN Corporation, the largest shareholder of Network 10 & the largest shareholder of the Nine Network, and holds a significant stake in Nine Entertainment Co.

WIN News is a local television news service in parts of regional Australia, produced by WIN Television. 12 regional bulletins and news update services are presented from WIN's headquarters in Wollongong, and until 2021 included production of a national compilation programme shared between the city and Maroochydore.

Southern Cross Media Group is one of Australia's major media companies, as the parent company of Southern Cross Austereo. Its headquarters are in South Melbourne.

CTC is a television station in Canberra, Australia. The station was the tenth to begin transmission in regional Australia, and the 26th station in Australia as a whole. CTC has an affiliation agreement to show content from Network 10. Just as it has had a number of owners, CTC has also had many different identities on-air – including CTC-TV, Super 7, Capital 7, 10 TV Australia, Capital Television, Ten Capital, Southern Cross Ten, Channel 9 and Channel 10. The station is owned and operated by Southern Cross Austereo through Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd, as one of SCA's 10 stations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vocus Group</span> Australian telecommunications company

Vocus Group Limited, formerly known as Vocus Communications, is an international telecommunications company headquartered in North Sydney, Australia. Founded by James Spenceley as a wholesale, business, government and consumer telecommunications provider, Vocus owns and manages Australia's second largest intercapital fibre network. Vocus provides retail, wholesale and corporate telecommunications services across Australia and New Zealand. Vocus offers data network services such as Internet, dark fibre, IP WAN, unified communications and telephony and cloud services to mid, large and corporate businesses direct and also acts as a wholesaler. The company owns and operates 18 data centres across Australia and New Zealand and has an onshore network operations centre run by the engineers who built the network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WIN (TV station)</span> Television station in Southern New South Wales & ACT

WIN is a television station serving southern New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. It is the flagship station of the WIN Television network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seven West Media</span> Australian media company

Seven West Media Limited is an ASX-listed media company and is Australia's largest diversified media business, with an extensive presence in broadcast television, print and online publishing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quickflix</span>

Quickflix was an Australian company that provided online DVD and Blu-ray Disc rental by mail as well as internet streaming of movies and television shows via online pay-per-view or subscription.

Vodafone Australia is an Australian telecommunications brand providing mobile and fixed broadband services. Vodafone’s mobile network covers more than 23 million Australians, and Vodafone has commenced the rollout of its 5G mobile network. Vodafone NBN fixed broadband services are available in capital cities and selected regional centres. Vodafone is the third-largest wireless carrier in Australia, with 5.8 million subscribers as of 2020.

References

  1. ↑ "Approval for Sydney deal - Murdoch wins TV station battle", The Canberra Times, 11 August 1979
  2. ↑ "Murdoch group sells stake in TV station", The Canberra Times, 12 June 1979
  3. ↑ "Privatise WIN, shareholder proposes", The Canberra Times, 3 May 1991
  4. ↑ "SelecTV offline, leaving a trail of debt". Nicole Hasham. illawarramercury.com.au. 2 February 2011. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
  5. ↑ Sharples, Ben (21 April 2007). "WIN wins Perth station". Herald Sun .
  6. ↑ "Sunraysia favours Ch 9 Perth sale to WIN". AAP. theage.com.au. 8 June 2007. Retrieved 8 June 2007.
  7. ↑ "WIN buys Channel 9 Adelaide". AAP. theage.com.au. 30 May 2007. Retrieved 30 May 2007.
  8. ↑ "Nine buys back Perth station". AAP. smh.com.au. 24 September 2013. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
  9. ↑ "Nine buys back Perth station". Daily Telegraph. dailytelegraph.com.au. 20 October 2015. Retrieved 20 October 2015.
  10. ↑ "After the exit: How Martin Martinez grew a $50 million-a-year poker empire and then gave it all up". Myriam Robin. smartcompany.com.au. 15 October 2013. Retrieved 1 June 2016.
  11. ↑ "ASX Announcement" (PDF). AAP. asx.com.au. 4 June 2009. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
  12. ↑ "Quickflix appoints Ferrier Hodgson as voluntary administrator". Hannah Francis. Sydney Morning Herald. 26 April 2016. Retrieved 1 June 2016.
  13. ↑ "Ten and WIN confirm new affiliate deal". Max Mason. Sydney Morning Herald. 23 May 2016. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
  14. ↑ Knox, David (29 April 2016). "Nine signs affiliation agreement with Southern Cross". TV Tonight . Retrieved 29 April 2016.
  15. ↑ Janda, Michael (29 April 2016). "Nine and Southern Cross ink new regional TV deal". ABC News. Retrieved 29 April 2016.
  16. ↑ "WIN News closes four regional newsrooms". Nadine Morton. Canberra Times. 20 June 2019. Retrieved 8 November 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.