Stanton puts his stamp on Nine with QMS move
Nine's Matt Stanton has delivered a twin deal: the sale of radio, and the purchase of QMS (Mumbrella)
After being appointed Nine Entertainment chief executive officer in March 2025, Matt Stanton has put his stamp on the business with the major transformation announced today.
Conjecture about Stanton revealing a sale of Nine Radio reached fever pitch on Thursday as a Nine board meeting was held in Melbourne, coinciding with board members visiting the city to also attend one of the key pillars of the TV business, the Australian Open.
But the board had more on its agenda than just the sale of the radio business. The members also greenlit the purchase of QMS Media from its private equity owner Quadrant.
The third part of what Nine has labelled a “strategic transformation” has been the sale of its northern NSW regional TV licence NBN Television to Bruce Gordon’s Win Television.
After many months of speculation about the future of Nine’s collection of AM radio stations, Australia’s biggest media group has revealed billionaire “pub baron” Arthur Laundy as the successful bidder.
The money changing hands for the transactions is as follows:
- QMS acquired for $850m
- Nine Radio sold for $56m
- NBN Television sold for $15m
Nine enters the digital billboard business
Nine has acquired QMS from private equity investor Quadrant, which itself paid $420m for the business in late 2019, a few months before Covid-19 began causing havoc in the sector. The sale to Nine gives Quadrant a solid return on that investment in just over six years.
While Nine hasn’t revealed if the existing management team will stay on, it has called the incumbents “highly experienced” and promised QMS customers “continuity and [an] efficient integration” into Nine.
The QMS Australia leadership team includes CEO John O’Neill, chief operating officer Sara Lappage, and chief strategy officer Christian Zavecz. Longtime out-of-home executive Barclay Nettlefold is the chair.
Nine will be hoping that any cross selling across the TV and outdoor business will work better than the initial plans Nine had to sell radio and TV together.
Business as usual for Nine Radio
The Nine Radio sale is not just for the radio stations – 2GB, 3AW, 4BC and 6PR – but it also covers the AM music stations Magic, 2UE and 4BH. Those music stations are leased to Ace Radio.
The sale price of $56m is much more than recent market speculation about how music the licences could realise. It had been thought by some that the highest bids had come from the likes of Australian Digital Holdings and the John Singleton consortium, with the bidders putting a value on the assets close to $40m.
Ownership under the Laundy family is expected to see current management retained and a continued close relationship with the former owner.
Nine said today that Laundy is expected to remain a long-term partner. There are plans to use Nine News journalists on radio, showcase Stan Sport through Laundy venues, and provide promotion and advertising sales collaboration. There was also mention of an increased advertising spend by Laundy on Nine properties.
It is expected that Laundy will continue the leasing arrangement for the AM music stations to Ace Radio, perhaps even entering a negotiation to sell the stations to Ace Radio, which has previously confirmed to Mumbrella its interest in acquiring Magic, 2UE and 4BH.
After the 2025 disposal of Nine’s shareholding in the Domain real estate listing business for $1.4 billion, the sale of Nine Radio for $56m looks like petty cash on the balance sheet.
There was never much chance of Nine recouping the cost of entering the radio business.
Mumbrella reported recently the declining value of the audio investment. In 2019, as Fairfax Media merged with Nine, the remaining shares in the radio group not owned by Fairfax were acquired from Macquarie Media for $114m, valuing the radio group at $275m.
While Nine won’t hold an AM radio licence after the Laundy sale closes later this financial year, the company has noted it won’t be exiting the audio business entirely, with podcasting and text-to-audio from its publishing assets and vodcasts continuing.
Nine shareholder Bruce Gordon completes east coast regional network
With the acquisition of NBN Television, Nine’s biggest shareholder Bruce Gordon has finally completed an east coast network as part of his Australia-wide regional TV holdings.
By adding the Northern NSW TV licence NBN Television to its network, Win secures all of NSW and the ACT. Win has been the longtime owner of the regional TV licences in Southern NSW, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania plus parts of South Australia and Western Australia.
The sale of NBN to Win now secures its control of the Nine broadcast output around most of Australia. This comes after a number of recent transactions sees Southern Cross Media controlling the Seven signal in metro and regional markets and Paramount controlling the Network 10 signal in metro and regional.
