More chatter is filtering into the market about who could be part of shaping the future of Nine Entertainment in the boardroom, and the talk is that the Bruce Gordon-backed executive Andrew Lancaster will have an increasingly influential role.
Lancaster sits on Nine’s board as a director, representing the interests of Gordon, the billionaire who owns WIN Television, which is run by Lancaster.
WIN is Nine’s largest shareholder listed in the annual report with 14.9 per cent.
Meanwhile, acting chief executive Matt Stanton is now shaping up well for the role and has impressed directors.
Stanton was Nine’s former chief financial and strategy officer, joining in 2022, and should he be named as the next CEO he would have a clear idea of where he would want to take the company.
Working as Nine’s adviser is Jefferies Australia.
It comes amid talk that pressure is mounting on chair Catherine West to step down from her role on the back of damning findings from its recently released report into company culture.
She has been a director since 2016.
Allegations have been raised of inappropriate conduct in the news and current affairs division of Nine by its department head Darren Wick, as outlined by an independent review into company culture. Wick resigned this year.
Elsewhere in the media space, attention will be on the moves by radio broadcaster ARN next week as a standstill agreement comes to an end that prevented the group from buying further shares in its takeover target Southern Cross Media.
While ARN has made concerted efforts in the past to buy its radio rival, the deal never moved forward after its bidding partner walked away.
Expectations are low that it will return for another attempt to buy the business, with the understanding that it has walked away for good.
One of the challenges for ARN when it comes to a deal is that it needs another party to take the assets it is not allowed to own due to media ownership concentration laws.
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