Bye Bye Bye Bye Bye Bye Eddie Goodbye – WIN Television set to cancel affiliation with Nine

Fresh from pulling the plug on Channel Nine’s day time chat show “The Catch Up” and overnight gameshow “Quizmania”, owner of WIN Television Bruce Gordon says he would like to pull the plug on Nine completely, and could do so as soon as June.

According to The Australian ^[1], Bruce Gordon spent 35 years at Paramount Pictures, mostly as head of international television sales, and in doing so built up a more than impressive list of contacts, enabling him to easily source enough quality programming to run an independent network.

Just the other day Sunraysia Television, owners of the Nine affiliate in Perth, recommended that their shareholders accept a buyout by WIN Television instead of a PBL buyout. WIN, apparently, also have their eye on another Nine affiliate, NBN Television.

The Australian reports that part of the reason for the push towards independent programming is stalled negotiations with Nine over the renewal of the affiliation deal. WIN are not happy with Nine asking for fifty percent of WIN’s gross revenue which is a large increase on the current deal of 34.25%, and an awful lot more than the 29% that affiliates of other networks are paying.

An anonymous WIN source told The Australian that they were happy to pay the higher rate when Nine were consistently winning the ratings.

One thing is for sure, an independent, near-national WIN Television would change the television landscape considerably.

Samuel