Duncan Grieve: Spinoff founder and media commentator on Sky TV acquiring TV3

It's expected the Sky TV and TV3 deal will be mutually beneficial.  

Sky TV's bought the channel for a dollar from Warner Brothers Discovery.  

Spinoff founder and media commentator Duncan Grieve says Sky will have more options to roll out its content on TV3's free to air platforms.  

He told Ryan Bridge it will be a relief for TV3, as they’ve had a reluctant owner for a while now. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The news for New Zealand Media. Sky TV is buying
three for a buck from Warner Brothers Discovery and it
will take on none of its debt. Investors were loving
it yesterday's shares and Sky ended up up five percent
more than three bucks. Dunk and Greeves spinoff founder and
media commentator with me this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey Duncan, Good morning, Ryan.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Good to have you on the show. So what is
this a good smart business decision from Sky?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
I think anytime you can buy a business that's got
one hundred million dollars in revenue for a dollar, if
you want to take a hard look at it, it
obviously says something about the nature of the sector that
it goes for that price. But you know that there's
a reason why analysts were very hot on this. It
uster have been quite cool on the Media Works acquisition

(00:46):
a few years ago for Sky. So yeah, great deal
for Sky.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
I think it leads them with and you point this
out in your column. With a lot of things, a
lot of fingers and a lot of pies, a lot
of apps to run, you know, a lot of linear
TV channels to run. Do they need them or will
they need them all? Or will they rationalize.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah. I think that's been a persistent issue for skuy
dating back to probably the John Phillett era CEO when
they tried to merge. If you remember with Vodaphone, that
they've got a lot of different pieces of technology, and
if you look at the pre eminent modern sort of
TV media company at Netflix, which is just a single

(01:26):
property so that you can get on any device anywhere
in the world, Sky much smaller company, a much moreer
market and has a lot of different things going on.
So I think they're at a great scale now that
certainly they can rationalize that. Not necessarily the brands, I
think that you can live with that, but certainly a

(01:46):
number of different technology platforms and how they talk to
each other that will be a sorder of business to me.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
At the back end. What about their projections, their growth projections.
I mean, given what you know about the state of
running media companies in New Zealand right now, especially ones
that are relying on advertising, that projection of earnings growth
of at least ten million a year by twenty eight
I think it was you know, these things realistic.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
I think so, I mean, Sky ultimately buys a lot
of content on one side, from sports to entertainment to some
international news and then try to sell it a bunch
of different ways. Some of it they had supported. Some
of it, you know, a lot of it are subscription revenue.
But what they've done now is really build that that

(02:35):
had supported side of the business, but a stake and
over time just you know, take the content that they
already have and put it in a bunch of different places.
And that's what three and three now offer them far
bigger scale of free to health, really accessible content they've
had for They've actually done well in advertising Sky in

(02:57):
a market that's been pretty terrible for a lot of
local media. So you know, it really does look like
a very there's a basket and here which which a
great discus and also great for three, which has had,
as you will know, reluctant owners for a long period
of time.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Now, Yeah, reluctance the nice word. I think duncan thank you,
Dank and Grieve spin off founder and media commentator on
the Sky three deal. For more from Early edition with
Ryan Bridge, Listen live to news talks it'd be from
five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.