Media: TVNZ interested in Alt TV after collapse

The collapse of the grungy party channel Alt TV has left creditors with a mighty big hangover.

In their first report released last week, liquidators Harris Neil have revealed a shortfall of assets over liabilities of "at least" $3 million on March 18. Directors for Alt TV are founders Thane Kirby and Ricky Newby.

Both men are also directors of a "sister company" (09) Holdings Limited (in liquidation) with $233,897 of liabilities and no assets.

Television New Zealand is understood to be interested in buying the Alt TV brand to start the channel anew on the Freeview digital platform.

A youth music channel would make sense for TVNZ, helping them to pick up younger people who are boosting viewership for MediaWorks' C4.

Creditors will be relieved the hip and groovy channel is facing the music and no longer losing money.

But it is doubtful there will be much dancing over Alt TV's grave.

Creditors - including Inland Revenue - are clearing away the financial dregs of the channel that was on air for four years and stopped trading on March 6.

A secured creditor - the channel's financier Easy Factors - is owed $1.8 million. Liquidator Anthony Harris said prospects for a dividend being paid to unsecured creditors owed $1.36 million were "remote".

The liquidators' report listed 19 known creditors. Among them are Sky TV, state-owned Kordia, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, AC Nielsen, and the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand, believed to be related to unpaid music royalties.

SUBSTANTIAL LOSSES

This column reported problems on January 23, when the four shareholders Thane Kirby, Ricky Newby, Oliver Driver and David Kennedy passed shares to a company controlled by Easy Factors.

Easy Factors approached staff to try and turn the company around in one month, but without success.

Kirby - who moved the channel from a weak free-to-air Auckland frequency on to the Sky digital platform - insisted in January the channel was sound and there were no financial issues relating to the owners' exit.

But the liquidators' report to March 18 said Alt TV had faced "substantial and consistent losses". In January, Driver explained his cutting his ties to the alternative Sky channel, saying: "We are proceeding down a certain path which we are quite confident will deliver a good outcome."

The fourth shareholder, David Kennedy, is a former senior executive with Sky City Entertainment.

BERMUDA TRIANGLE

Regional television campaigner and Triangle Television boss Jim Blackman is disappointed the non-profit trust had to stem losses and close the Wellington operation on Wednesday.

But Blackman is confident it made the right decision pulling out now - after three years on air - rather than waiting.

The wider downturn in the media economy was a deciding factor, he
said.

"We looked ahead to the next 12-18 months and decided it was best to pull out," he said.

At $20,000 a month for transmission, the regional Wellington channel was low-cost but Blackman was sceptical that it could be revived after previous unsuccessful attempts and Triangle problems.

He said that the digital channel TriangleStratos - which screens on Freeview satellite and Sky TV and TelstraClear cable in Wellington - would continue to provide popular Triangle shows such as PBS News Hour.

Blackman said that Triangle television in Auckland was being hurt but was fine in the new environment.

BRIAN'S KEY-STROKES

Media trainer and commentator Brian Edwards wants an end to a "media honeymoon" with John Key.

The Helen Clark biographer and friend who was media trainer to Labour Cabinet ministers this week started a new website - brianedwardsmedia.co.nz - which includes a commentary spot with review and personal "rants" in Edwards' trademark provocative style. The site also provides a link to Callingham Edwards, the media training company he owns with Judy Callingham, former deputy chairwoman of New Zealand On Air.

In the website launch this week, Edwards mentions TVNZ political editor Guyon Espiner's "perfectly workmanlike" interview with Key on Q&A two weeks ago. You can agree or disagree but Edwards does advance an educated opinion.

"Key is bland-stroke-nice and bland-stroke-nice is hard to attack,"

"I'm not sure how many other politicians would have gotten away with waffling around and not being specific for 15 minutes."

Edwards - who won't disclose Callingham Edwards' clients - was enthusiastic about the website.

"It gives me a voice as a broadcaster who has not really broadcast for a long time," he said. Another media commentator, Denis Welch, has almost finished a book on Clark.

NEW ORDER

Last year, MediaWorks and Television New Zealand railed about the dangers of Sky undermining the free-to-air television
sector.

Alongside the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, the networks egged on Labour politicians who were nervous about increasing dominance for the Rupert Murdoch-controlled pay TV company.

With New Zealand's laissez-faire broadcasting system we faced a frightening future, the networks said. Labour looked for the first time at regulating Sky.

That all changed after the election.

National listened to lobbying from Sky and advice from the Ministry for Economic Development and concluded that Sky deserved the same hands-off treatment Telecom had in the 1990s.

New Zealand television would remain the most unregulated in the television world. After dire warnings, TVNZ and MediaWorks are virtually silent.

At TVNZ, National will be a blessed relief.

There will be fewer debates with the culture vultures at MCH and while it is not easy to make money, the company prefers to talk about about margins and advertising dollars

Chief executive Rick Ellis appears focused on turning TVNZ round and adjusting to the media revolution.

Nobody baulked that public
television laid off 17 news staff and spent $10 million on TiVo technology that aims to move into Australian pay-per-view TV.

TVNZ will lose about $5 million of subsidies as a result of the charter being dropped, which will be contestable. But there will be less of the cursed talk about culture and what the PM thinks.

But what of MediaWorks, owned by Australian private equity company Ironbridge?

MediaWorks did well under Labour with chief executive Brent Impey, whose common-sense business solutions had cultural mavens drinking from his hand. MediaWorks found ways of making a buck out of an increasingly bureaucratic broadcasting system.

Now it's all business in Wellington and Impey has lost his point of difference.

With a new charter funding system TV3 and C4 will probably pick up $4 to $5 million in extra subsidised programming.

But where does it fit in a broadcasting world where Sky is dominant and the Government has signalled that it will never regulate?

One option surely will be for MediaWorks - or at least the TV arm - to become part of Sky.