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This
profile considers Australian radio network Macquarie Media,
its predecessor RG Capital and the Grundy production house.
It covers -
the network
Macquarie Media, established (and, as of November 2006,
20% owned) by the Macquarie Bank private
equity group, operates 85 radio stations in Australia.
It results from takeover of the RG Capital chain, which
as of August 2004 operated 35 radio stations, located
along Australia's eastern seaboard and in Tasmania. In
2004 the UK Daily Mail & General Trust group (DMG)
announced that it had sold its 57 Australian regional
radio stations to the Australian group Regional Media.
The group competes with Austereo,
APN and DMG's Australian broadcast
arm.
As of May 2004 it was 56% owned by former game show czar
Reg Grundy. At the beginning of June 2004 the Grundy stake
was sold to Macquarie Bank, known for property and infrastructure
that included Australian and overseas airports and tollways.
RG Capital's radio operations were rebadged as Regional
Media - and subsequently as Macquarie Media - forming
the centrepiece of the bank's new media fund.
The RG acquisition meant that Regional Media exceeded
the maximum number of broadcast licenses per licence area.
It accordingly sold 2CM Coffs Harbour (639 AM), 2PM Kempsey
(521 AM) and 2EL Orange (1089 AM) to Bill Caralis' 2SM
Supernetwork.
In November 2006 Macquarie Media took a 13.8% stake in
rival radio operator, Southern
Cross Broadcasting, for $165 million. In July 2007
Macquarie and Fairfax Media
announced a joint $1.35 billion acquisition of Southern
Cross . The expectation was that Macquarie Media would
buy Southern Cross for its Channel Ten
affiliate stations (in regional Queensland, NSW and Victoria)
and Seven Network affiliates in
Darwin and Tasmania. Macquarie would on-sell to Fairfax
the Southern Cross metropolitan radio operations (including
the 2UE and 3AW talkback stations plus talkback and music
stations in Brisbane and Perth).
Reg Grundy and the production house
Grundy was born in 1923. After service in the
Army from 1941-46 (mostly as a pay clerk in a Sydney-based
signals unit) his media career began as a freelance sports
commentator for Sydney radio station 2SM in 1947. He hosted
the Wheel of Fortune game show on radio in 1957,
moving with that show to television in 1959.
He founded the Grundy Enterprises production house in
1960, initially producing game shows under licence from
US owners and subsequently engaging in independent development.
During the 1960s and 70s the organisation was responsible
for some 35 shows. In 1974 it explored drama production
with the evanescent Class of 74, moving from games to
soap operas such as Young Doctors, The Restless
Years, Case for the Defence and Prisoner
in 1977. In the following year Grundy Enterprises became
the Grundy Organisation, with its owner moving to tax-friendly
Bermuda in 1982.
Grundy had opened an office in Los Angeles during 1979
and by 1982 was producing dramas and game shows in the
US (eg Sale of the Century for NBC,
followed by Scrabble), Brunei and Hong Kong.
The 1980s saw such cultural treats as Sale of the
Century and Neighbours. Grundy had dabbled
in feature film production - notably as co-producer in
1977 of ABBA: The Movie - and merchandise licensing.
Global ambitions were reflected in renaming of the organisation
as Grundy World Wide and production for a range of overseas
broadcasters that included the BBC
(eg Going for Gold, 1988), Portugal's SIC, Spain's
Tele5, Germany's Tele 5, the Netherlands' RTL
4 (Goede Tijden, a Dutch Neighbours
amid the polders), Scandinavia's TV3 and Italy's RAI.
Grundy World Wide was sold to Pearson
in 1995 for an estimated $384, later passing to RTL
(under the control of Bertelsmann)
when Pearson offloaded its Fremantle production arm.
Grundy expanded into regional radio through the $66 million
acquisition of the SEA FM radio group in 1995. SEA centred
on stations onsold by Wesgo after its absorption of the
Albert family's Australian Radio Network and takeover
by APN.
RG Capital Radio was floated in 2000. RG Capital also
took stakes, apparently on an opportunistic basis, in
companies such as AWA (the moribund Australian counterpart
of GE) and Photon.
Macquarie
A note on Macquarie Bank and its private equity
funds is here.
Interests include -
- Macquarie
Communications Infrastructure - stake in Arqiva (owns
and operates over 3,000 UK television transmission towers
sold by NTL in 2004 for £1.27bn)
and in Broadcast Australia (600 transmitter sites across
Australia used by public broadcasters including ABC
and SBS)
-
10% of Macquarie Capital Alliance - has 65% of Creative
Broadcast Services Ltd, channel management and creative
services arm formerly owned by BBC
and known as BBC Broadcast Services. Macquarie Bank
directly owns 35% of the business.
studies
There has been no major biography of Grundy or the production
house. Much of the media coverage has centred on his lifestyle,
eg with a concentration on his very large yacht, rather
than analysis of how the group worked.
Insights are offered by works such as Australian Television
& International Mediascapes (Cambridge: Cambridge
Uni Press 1996) by Stuart Cunningham & Elizabeth Jacka.
 next
page (Macquarie Media holdings)
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