Beyond the madness of launching a ‘balanced’ Talkback Radio station because Mediaworks Management were spooked by a woke lynch mob attacking MagicTalk instigated by David Farrier and The Spinoff, put aside that those pushing for the ‘balanced’ Talkback Radio had no research backing this stupid decision up and ignore the fact the Station plunged to the lowest Talkback ratings in NZ broadcasting history.
Put all that aside, and what Today FMs collapse really tells us is that the global economic recession is about to hit us.
MediaWorks are owned by Oaktree, a US Private Equity firm.
Oaktree bought MediaWorks distressed debt, then bought the remaining stakes off the other investors.
Private Equity firms take on debt themselves to finance their deals.
The investment only works of the thing they buy, e.g. MediaWorks, can generate enough cash to pay the debt repayments.
Interest rates on debt have now gone up so the repayments are higher.
Therefore the asset (MediaWorks) has to generate more cash.
The business model does not allow for Today FM to spend $9 million on reformatting then lose $1 million per year.
Money on the table, not one person from Oaktree ever listened to Today FM, they simply looked at how much money they were haemorrhaging from increased interest costs and slit Today FMs throat without any mercy.
What we are seeing with the demise of Today FM is the impact of those global interest rates increasing and that is not going to stop.
Inflation is increasing, Reserve Banks will continue to lift interest rates and Today Fm is merely the first canary in the global recession mine to die.
Expect far more of this.
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GFC MKII is here. Watch for the USD to collapse too as more and more nations sign up to the BRIICS+ and most of the OPEC countries, like the Saudis move to trading oil in Yuan as well as banking services to Chinese banks and other denominations other than USD.
Without oil traded in USD, the US is dead and their only option is war. They’ll lose at that too.
and what is NZ doing? lining up with the fading empire…HUZZAH
Sounds like a case of: “A fool and his money are soon parted.”
Duncan Garner and Tova O’Brien were touted as ‘BIG Names’ able to pull an audience, turns out (unsurprisingly) the NUMBER “3” on television user’s remote controls was actually the ‘BIG Name’.
As The Daily Blog rightly pointed out, Today FM had some of the lowest ratings in NZ radio history.
I believe Today FM had a whopping 30 stuff to boot and was still out-rated by The Platform which doesn’t even have a radio frequency!
I mean, you can’t make this stuff up. As for Duncan Garner claiming ‘betrayal’.. sounds to me like Today FM’s foolish investors were the ones betrayed and the Media Works board righty pulled the plug.
It will be interesting to see who sinks their money into these two next.
Go Woke, Become a Broke Joke.
It’s not about Garner and O’Brian pulling an audience. It’s about the lack of quality user generated content.
The people voted with their ears.
Hardly anyone wants to hear the usual talk-back suspects banging on and trying to find umpteen million ways to say the same boring ass shit every other day.
Cis white male circle jerks and their enablers having to resort to ever more controversial opinions to maintain any sort of relevancy are fast becoming a laughing stock.
Thank fuck they have wokesters to rally against or they’d turn on each other.
Now that’s something I’d tune into…
Can Stuff be next please.
Oh, I like you! Yes please to that
Who the fuck wants to listen to a bunch of grumpy old fucks airing their whiny ass grievances on radio for their 15 minutes of fame paid for by advertisers who are getting no bang for their buck cos the people who would purchase their goods and services don’t listen to radio in the first place ?
Not me, not anyone I know and certainly not anyone I give 2 fucks about.
I’m not listening to radio regardless. I did check out what text they posted online, which was either superfical or whinging about how no-one appreciates them personally for who they are.
If they actually whinged about topics then I’d be interested. I read TDB after all.
Funeral homes, stairway lift seats, retirement villages that allow goldfish and herbal Viagra substitutes are probably right adverts for the target demographic.
UBR Humorous and probably close to the truth. Herbal Viagra, now that’s a thing – the Greens should promote it and get a new following as they seem to have used up their old one.
Black with a Vengeance – Agree…Economics have nothing to do with Today FM collapse
All caused by a combination of external inflation and reckless spending by the worst government in NZ history.
Really? Martyn I think your analysis of the whole enterprise being rather unlikely to succeed was more on point than this being a canary. It’s a turkey as you well observed. Their revenue from advertising must have been fairly lean.
This canary was dead before it was taken down the mineshaft.
Wasting $9mil on a cage for a dead canary was pretty dumb.
Looking for the bright side.
The prospects for our economy after the recession does not look promising.
The Western economies are going to see inflation plus recession
Not a global recession – but ‘We the People’ walking away from endlessly lying media.
So why is 1ZBollocks doing well?
Because it’s not, silly.
You might not like what they say, but they represent the views of a large majority of NZ citizens.
Financed by hard right backers Wheel, just look at its contents and supporters.
sounds like it has nothing to do with changing interest rates and private equity, rather that is was an unsustainable business. It’s had a year to find it’s feet and didn’t, instead bled money so no wonder it’s been canned.
Read Duncan’s piece in the paper this morning. Can’t recall if it was Newshub or the Herald, but it was clearly the precursor to his PG claim against media works.
A lot of talk of humiliation, hurt feelings and so on, all the good stuff to ratchet up the claim..
It’s going to be expensive.
Duncan will be more experienced and aggrieved as a result of the experience.
Mediaworks is a business and businesses understand the flow of money. Shareholders need the business to make money and manage the risk of their investments.
This is where the protection associated with a social unemployment insurance system will provide protection for business continuity and provide value for shareholders. And there we were thinking the initiative was about those who will become unemployed.
Hello Duncan, Tova and the rest of the TodayFM crew who seem to think they are owed a job.
Did you know a radio station is actually a business whose sole purpose is to make money by ‘selling’ potential customers to businesses who buy advertising spots on the station?
No listeners, no product to sell.
No product to sell, no sales.
No sales, no money.
No money, no business.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
Here’s what we should do.
Stop the four foreign owned banks from trading. Arrest the CEO’s then slap ankle bracelets on them and house -arrest the fuckers pending public investigations.
In the process, revoke all mortgage agreements and foreclose on foreign owned bank premises.
House-arrest all AO/NZ multi billionaires pending IRD investigations and revoke their pass ports.
Review all agricultural trading spanning the last 140 years and make the findings public.
Send trade emissaries to Europe, the UK, the USA, Central and South East Asia to negotiate the sale and supply of food and wool fibre.
Sound wacky? Well, remember. The precise opposite of the above is what’s dragged us down to this level.
Allowing foreign owned banks unfettered access to our money and our minds. @ $180.00 a second.
Having a corrupt MSM spout on about the wondrous multi -billionaires as if they were of some actual use in our day to day running costs. They wouldn’t be multi billionaires if it were not for us building the stuff and things they stole then sold
We’ve been dropped by our traditional trading partners because our fat useless middle men got greedy and fucked our trading partners over and now all we’re left with is made in China.