WIN Television viewers won’t see their screens go black tomorrow following Network 10 going into voluntary administration.
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But there is speculation WIN owner Bruce Gordon may be eyeing off the troubled broadcaster.
Earlier this week, Network Ten announced Mr Gordon, Lachlan Murdoch and James Packer declined to guarantee a new $250 million loan to keep the broadcaster afloat.
On Wednesday, the Network Ten directors appointed administrators Korda Mentha.
“The directors of Ten regret very much that these circumstances have come to pass,” a statement to the stock exchange read.
The WIN Network is linked to Ten through a program supply deal, which sees it broadcast shows like MasterChef and The Project.
A WIN statement said the network was “closely following developments” at Ten.
“While we will continue to monitor the situation in order to determine any future impact on our business, our customers and our viewers, it is business as usual across the entire WIN Network,” the statement read.
“TEN’s release described an intention by the Administrators to continue operations as much as possible on a business-as-usual basis and it is expected that TEN will continue broadcasting substantially as it had previously.
“Accordingly WIN expects to do so as well and there are also no changes to our programming line-up.”
Media analyst and managing director of Essence Media Steve Allen said viewers would not see any difference with WIN when they turned on their TVs.
“What you see will continue,” Mr Allen said.
“It will only change if Network 10 is put into liquidation, which is a fair way away from this point.”
Mr Allen and several other analysts have already speculated that Mr Gordon declined to guarantee the new loan with a view to acquiring Channel 10.
“Bruce Gordon is a potential bidder for the assets should they go into receivership, administration or liquidation,” Mr Allen said.
“Maybe that’s one of the reasons why Bruce Gordon has not been prepared to continue guaranteeing their facility with the bank. It’s pure speculation – the two things might be related, they could be completely unrelated.”