CanWest to sell TV3 stake to Granada?

mike65

CanWest who own 45% of TV3 are in trouble and are divesting themselves of assets around the world, it looks like they are going to sell of thier stake to Granada as soon as possible. I guess this makes good sense for Granada dispite the fact the ITV companies are not in great shape themselves at the mo. The valutation of the stake is put at about €60million.

Mike.

Uncle Grueber

Where did you hear/read this information???

Elmo

I don't think it is a planned sell straight to granada.

Canwest is reducing its assets in a downsize. They were unable to off load TV3 NewZealand as there were no interested buyers. Thus it looks towards Ireland to off load its interest here.

Their stake in UTV is also to be sold.

This was reported in The Sunday Tribune.

But if granada was to buy both shares in both companies could it mean an eventual merger of the Two Stations and The setting up of ITV Ireland????????????????????????????????

I know its unlikely just a thought.

Elmo

With the trouble with ITV in the UK it might be a thought that Granada could also pull out.

But TV3 are in good shape and I am sure there are plenty of other interested buyers. Including Sky.

Uncle Grueber

I'd be surprised if CanWest do sell their stake in TV3, as it is one of the few television stations that are breaking even under the current financial climate within media.

Hmmm,
Assuming Canwests influence is responsible for the weight of US programmes and films on TV3...whats going to happen if they pull out??

With our Economy starting to go down hill, the days of TV3 surviving well on ROI advertising revenue are numbered.
Unless whoever replaces Canwest has a big wallet, I would expect a fall off in programme quality on TV3.

We might even see it relaying that guy on the Shopamerica channel:D
Having heard Ethain Doyle on Pat Kenny the other day, She might even think thats quality...indeed she might go as far as saying it's way ahead of whats available in Estonia, so we should count ourselves lucky:rolleyes:
mm

Elmo

I would expect a fall off in programme quality on TV3

When did this happen No Quality TV on TV3 oh no what ever will we do.

However I was thinking the same about the American Imports on TV3 since Fireworks (THIS MAY BE THE WRONG NAME FOR THIS COMPANY) one of Canwests companies is one of the biggest suppliers of TV on this side of the atlantic. However There is plenty of American TV to go around. Weather it be quality or not.

We might even see it relaying that guy on the Shopamerica channel

Or maybe the new owner (if solded) will think about Irish Home Produced Programming?

I think we've argued the pro's and cons of whats on TV3 before Elmo, and it all boils down to taste really and what the viewer is prepared to watch.
I think TV3 survived so far in that it was able to pull in enough advertising to justify it's existence to it's investors.
As times get tougher,that advertising pool is going to shrink further and inevitably TV3's programme content.

Again all down to taste but in terms of U.S programming TV3 provides a good quality alternative to RTÉ.
It is in effect the free alternative to Sky one.
Will and Grace is excelent:)

You can ask my mum what RTÉ was like 20 years ago before it had to deal with competition on the scale it has to today.
On Good Friday and Ash wenesday for instance the whole schedule consisted of documentaries and films on Padré Pio, Lourdes and the like, with prime-time best episodes of Laura Ingles little house:D
What the viewer wants, is what the viewer gets, thats one benefit of competition.
mm

Elmo

Again all down to taste but in terms of U.S programming TV3 provides a good quality alternative to RTÉ.
It is in effect the free alternative to Sky one.

True TV3 does provide some good American TV other but since Irish TV is so over crowed with British and American TV prehaps it would be better if we had some alternative Irish Programming. Sin E. Thats all I am saying.

I think TV3 survived so far in that it was able to pull in enough advertising to justify it's existence to it's investors.

This is the reason that Canwest look towards New Zealand to pull out of but since there are no willing buyers it has to sell UTV and TV3 which are very successful which is a major attraction to any would be Owners. But then TV3 has a monopoly of sorts anyway here in Ireland it being the only commercial TV channel.

John R

TV3 cannot afford to produce more than a tiny amount of home produced content, with all of the excellent US an UK programming shown most Irish programmes that do get made compare badly anyway. The simple fact is that Ireland is too small a market to produce content for that would be of the required standard.

As far as Global CanWest being the conduit for all of tv3's American programming, I cannot think of one tv3 show that is produced by them, there may be a few but most US content is from other producers. No matter who owns the channel it will depend heavily on US imports for the forseeable future.

Originally posted by John R

As far as Global CanWest being the conduit for all of tv3's American programming, I cannot think of one tv3 show that is produced by them, there may be a few but most US content is from other producers. No matter who owns the channel it will depend heavily on US imports for the forseeable future.

Afaik Canwest buy the rights for TV3's U.S programmes for the Irish market. Those that they get would otherwise have been available to RTÉ cheaper, but only some would be shown as theres only 24hrs in the day and two already packed channels there.
Unless another investor in TV3 has the same financial clout, TV3's U.S output will decline.
mm

Elmo

TV3 have deals with distributers from america which Canwest own. Just as RTE have deals with Dreamworks and Disney at the moment.

icdg

Haven't heard anything since the Tribune article, but here's some points to remember:

1) Granada would have to be the favourites to take over TV3 (I doubt the BCI would object), given their already existing stake. This would make TV3 an almost wholy owned subsidary of the Granada Media Group, and possibly after the merger with Carlton (if the merger with Carlton happens, that is) be incorporated into the ITV structure. This would depend on Granada/Carlton taking a decision to buy ITV1 rights for UK & ROI together. Not inconcivable, since Carlton and Granada own most of the rights to the ITV1 archive, all they would have to do is change the direct access commissioning T & C s and it would leave only films and the very little imported programming on ITV1 to cause trouble.

2) UTV is a different kettle of fish. It is a publically quoted company and as such, any taking of a stake of more than 29.9% (as CanWest-Global currently own) would trigger a takeover bid under Dublin and London Stock Exchange rules. In addition, currently Granada cannot take over UTV under the Broadcasting Acts 1990-1996), although these will be amended under forthcoming Communications legislation to allow this. A Granada takeover of UTV would lead to the disposal of the radio stations (which Granada would probably not want anyway). The options: Granada take the 29.9% stake and no more, waiting their time until the law changes to allow a full takeover, or Carlton take over UTV in the knowledge that they themselves will be taken over by Granada in two years time, or so the pundits would have us believe!

3) As for a combination of UTV and TV3 - they are two seperate licences with different public service requirements. However, in the event of them falling under common ownership there could be a good deal of integration between them while keeping them legally seperate - particularly in the event of TV3 becoming a full member of the ITV1 Network. At the very least, UTV Live and TV3 News would have to remain seperate, though I would expect that TV3 News would adjust itself to ITN's timing (this we have already begun to see some of with the move to TV3 News at 6:30).

mike65

Originally posted by icdg
(this we have already begun to see some of with the move to TV3 News at 6:30).

I think that move was simply to avoid going head to head
with RTE any more, they got thumped when the news was 60 mins at 6pm.

Mike.

DMC

No, they moved the news to 5:30pm and 7:00pm initally, but when Emmerdale moved over, the news was moved to 6:30pm

Uncle Grueber

I believe that it was a combination of both the ratings war with RTÉ news and the need to syncronise the schedule with Granada programmes i.e. Emmerdale & Corrie, but can't say for definite.

Elmo

I don't think that UTV would have been to please if TV3 had Emmerdale 30mins before them.

It was whole due to the Emmerdale at 7, as before Emmerdale started on TV3 it was advertise in most news papers and the RTE Guide as going out at 6:30 just before tv3 NEWS at 7.

I don't think it was either due to a ratings war with RTE or for TV3 News to coinside with ITV News.

Charles Slane

Taken from a Digital Spy story http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/displayarticle.php?id=9340

"Granada is looking to double its 45% stake in independent Irish TV company TV3, according to the Sunday Times today."

I wasn't sure where to post this thread, but I reckon that the most significant thing about this story may be it's effect on UTV's appearance on Irish Sky Digital.

If Granada has a 90% stake in TV3, it will become (for all intents and purposes) ITV Ireland. UTV is already a very small fish in comparison to Granada and with a possible Granada/Carlton merger on the cards, it's sure to become swamped.

So would the much-anticipated UTV-Lite have to replace Granada's programmes and Carlton's as well ?

If TV3 does become an ITV Ireland controlled by Granada/Carlton, it's only a matter of time before they turn their attention on reducing UTV's presence and availability in the republic.

What do you think ?

mike65

Paul O'Kane in the Sunday Tribune has an interesting piece which speculates that UTV and TV3 may end up merging to protect UTVs "semi-detached" position in the ITV network.

Mike.

byte

That is very speculative! Wonder if it would ever happen. What if Granada ups its TV3 stake to 90%? Would UTV like to merge with a Granada channel?

What would they call it? ITV1 Ireland? ITV1 36 Counties ? TV3 Ireland?

DaveH

I thought the contract between the state and TV3, stated that the biggest share in TV3 was about 49%. That was the problem with UTV buying into TV3 in 1995?

JTMan

My understanding was that a non EU media group could not buy more than 49%. That is why Canwest never got full control.

DMC

There is a thread on this on the Terrestrial board, and so its merged with it.

Elmo

What would they call it? ITV1 Ireland? ITV1 36 Counties ? TV3 Ireland?

Ulster Television Ireland: Not For the 26 But for all of the 32. 32 It's a magic Number.

But seriously did no one else see this happening. I mean we have had Vodafone, 02 and Tesco.

DMC

This is also raised in the London Independent...

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp?story=342695

icdg

Up till I heard about CanWest wanting to sell out, I would have said Granada had little chance of taking out UTV. Now the chips seem to have swung in the other direction. Without CanWest, UTV looks extremely vurnable, particualarly if Granada are talking to CanWest about TV3, they could take the CanWest slice of UTV with it.

John McGuicken and co will have to look for another White Knight to save UTV from Granada. Perhaps the defence document is being drawn up even as we speak.

On TV3...those ownership rules are gone, there is nothing to stop a single group owning the TV3 licence now. Although the BCI may have objections to a single group owning both the TV3 and UTV licences (it would be the only two national commercial TV stations in Ireland under the same ownership, and would probably break their 15% of the market rule), if TV3 is bought before UTV (as seems likely) then there is possibly not much that can be done about it, particularly if Granada makes an effort to then incorporate TV3 into the single ITV1.

Elmo

TV3 have point out their wish to have a second station. I.e TV5 (Not the french station).

And they are the only company looking or willing to think about such a licence.

Could this change any ideas that TV3 have about this and also would BCI be then unwilling to have Granda own so much of TV3 Television Network Ireland Ltd.

watty

BCI have didly all to do with UTV. It (Like BBC, Sky One etc) is not technically an ROI TV station. While is is in N.I., it is nevertheless a UK station.

Granada could buy out Canwest and call TV3 more or less whatever it wants.

I think even if they bought the Canwest bit of UTV it would still be a minority of UTV. I'd have thought untll the Carlton / Granada dust has settled (about 7 months?), Granada won't attempt to increase shareholding of any of the 4 left semi-independent UK ITVs (Ulster, Scottish, Channel and the other one! - is it Grampian?)

sceptre

Originally posted by mike65
Paul O'Kane in the Sunday Tribune has an interesting piece which speculates that UTV and TV3 may end up merging to protect UTVs "semi-detached" position in the ITV network.

Granada still have first call on CanWest's shareholding in TV3 though - they'd have to decide not to buy it before UTV and TV3 could even consider the idea

rlogue

The way I see things mapping out is that Granada will buy out the CanWest stake in TV3, giving Granada 90% control of TV3. After that it can't be too long before Granada/Carlton buy out James Morris, Paul McGuinness, Ossie Kilkenny and the other smaller investors.

CanWest will almost certainly sell their stake in UTV to Granada/Carlton.

At this stage UTV may approach SMG as a "White Knight" to protect them from a complete Granada/Carlton takeover.

The net result would be that UTV becomes jointly owned by SMG and Granada/Carlton.

Not long after that, SMG and Granada/Carlton announce a merger. The SMG and UTV radio stations are sold; and we now have ITV 1 Northern Ireland and ITV Ireland as a result.

I give it three years and this will have happened.


Vote Yes to Nice - Don't let Justin Barrett and Gerry Adams win!

Cork

At least RTE will have some decent competition.

icdg

Originally posted by rlogue
The way I see things mapping out is that Granada will buy out the CanWest stake in TV3, giving Granada 90% control of TV3. After that it can't be too long before Granada/Carlton buy out James Morris, Paul McGuinness, Ossie Kilkenny and the other smaller investors.

CanWest will almost certainly sell their stake in UTV to Granada/Carlton.

At this stage UTV may approach SMG as a "White Knight" to protect them from a complete Granada/Carlton takeover.

The net result would be that UTV becomes jointly owned by SMG and Granada/Carlton.

Not long after that, SMG and Granada/Carlton announce a merger. The SMG and UTV radio stations are sold; and we now have ITV 1 Northern Ireland and ITV Ireland as a result.

I give it three years and this will have happened.

Hmm... would be rather ironic if this happened Richard, remember how CanWest got involved in UTV in the first place! But it is all incredibly plausable. Certainly the first bit is almost certain to happen, Granada will now or sometime in the future buy out 100% control of TV3. At the moment Morris & co can swing any disagreement between CanWest and Granada, however if Granada got 90% Morris would almost certainly be ousted as chairperson (and replaced by Charles Allen probably) pretty quickly, the original TV3 consortium would be left as minority players with little power in their own company. They would probably welcome a Granada bid for their shares, it would make them a nice quick buck.

(For those with short memories...UTV approached CanWest as a White Knight to protect them from an anticpated SMG (then Scottish Television plc) takeover bid. STV had taken out a "dawn raid" on UTV shares and a full hostile bid was expected at any time. They backed off after CanWest got involved though).

Has the BCI any influence on the schedule of TV3 if say it becomes 100% or almost 100% owned by Carlton/Granada.

In other words if it were to mirror the GB schedule virtually in total would there be enough scope for the BCI to say, hey this is not what you are licenced for?

For instance if it started doing something like showing the ITV News shows with a TV3 bulletin in the part where they say "now for your local news..." What would the BCI have to say on that??

Theyt would of course have to be carefull in that there mightn't be a big queue of people waiting in the wings to apply for a licence, if say TV3 were to lose theirs.
mm

Mossy Monk

Originally posted by Man
For instance if it started doing something like showing the ITV News shows with a TV3 bulletin in the part where they say "now for your local news..." What would the BCI have to say on that??

a lot i'd imagine. this is the main reason why i don't want Granada to virtually take over the whole ship. ITV is shockingly bad at the moment while TV3 is watchable

Gonzo

If Carlton/Granada do end up owning all of TV3 alot can happen. (could this be the delay in giving us UTV here?) They would want to turn it into ITV1-Ireland as posted above, that way no need for UTV here plus if it were to become ITV1-Ireland we stand a better chance of also gaining ITV2 and keeping ITV News Channel in our sky package perhaps. (Other regions would of course remain blocked) However our ITV1 may well continue to show Ireland AM in mornings instead of GMTV and switch back to regular ITV1 output at 9.30am.. TV3 news getting some sort of a rename would still be there as much as it is now inside the regional news timeslots. Some other regional timeslots in the evening would continue to house a tv3 home produced programe on sports or current TV3 american drama series that ITV1 UK cant show. Plus also adverts would remain Irish. The station really can continue to show the same level of homeproduced stuff under the ITV1 banner as it can under our current TV3 banner and show the full ITV1 output minus the GMTV. I think that would work well.

icdg

Originally posted by Man
Has the BCI any influence on the schedule of TV3 if say it becomes 100% or almost 100% owned by Carlton/Granada.

In other words if it were to mirror the GB schedule virtually in total would there be enough scope for the BCI to say, hey this is not what you are licenced for?

For instance if it started doing something like showing the ITV News shows with a TV3 bulletin in the part where they say "now for your local news..." What would the BCI have to say on that??

Theyt would of course have to be carefull in that there mightn't be a big queue of people waiting in the wings to apply for a licence, if say TV3 were to lose theirs.
mm

Hmm... if TV3 were to adopt the ITV1 schedule...it would probably mean an increase in peak time local programming (lets face it, on TV3's its just the news and little else). Whether it would replace Ireland AM with GMTV is another kettle of fish - remember GMTV and ITV1 are technically completly seperate organisations sharing the same frequencies. (In practice, Carlton and Granada own a good chunk of GMTV).

If UTV also becomes part of the group, then I would envisage programmes like "Lesser Spotted Ulster", "Kelly", and "RPM" appearing on TV3 as "home produced programming". We could even have "A UTV/TV3 Co-Production for Ireland" captions, like the way SMG have "A ScottishTV/GrampianTV Co-Production for Scotland" captions.

As long as TV3 maintains its licence committments, the BCI probably won't be worried...TV3 would probably be able to claim to them an increase in Irish and European content!

James Morris currently says TV3 would not take the entire ITV1 schedule as its not what the channel is aimed at (18-44, as opposed to ITV1's older audience). In practice, he would probably be ousted quickly in the event of a Granada takeover, although at least some local management would have to remain to placate the BCI. (Even today, local ITV companies in England still have local boards and chairpersons, though of course if Granada and Carlton say "jump", they say "how high?").

Remember that there will for the next few years remain the question of movies, imports, and sports rights, which will continue to be sold sepeartely. In practice, ITV1 in the event of a TV3 takeover may move to address these, even then it would take 3 years or more to sort all them out.

Elmo

James Morris currently says TV3 would not take the entire ITV1 schedule as its not what the channel is aimed at (18-44, as opposed to ITV1's older audience).

I never got this once granada took a stake in the company TV3 show Emmerdale, Corronation Street and Heartbeat all of which i would consider for an older audience.

However I do realise that TV3 show alot of american shows which generally are aimed more towards a younger audience.

Are James Morris et all (the irish owners) happy with TV3's irish output?

Do you think Eamonn Dunphy's Late show will ever see the light of Day?

Is RPM shown on TG4 now? it used to be on RTE then it moved to TV3.

byte

Originally posted by Elmo
Is RPM shown on TG4 now? it used to be on RTE then it moved to TV3.

I was wondering that too. The only channel that gets a mention other than UTV on their site is Network 2 for Mondello Racing.

http://www.rpm-motorsport.com/rpm/comingup.asp