Publishing and Broadcasting Limited
Encyclopedia
Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL) was one of Australia's largest companies, with interests primarily in media and gaming. The company demerged
Demerger
Demerger is a form of corporate restructuring in which the an entity's business operations are segregated into one or more components. It is the converse of a merger or acquisition....

 in late 2007, spinning out
Spin out
A spin-out, also known as a spin-off or a starburst, refers to a type of corporate action where a company "splits off" sections of itself as a separate business....

 its gaming interests into Crown Limited
Crown Limited
Crown Limited is one of Australia's largest gaming and entertainment groups. At June 2010, Crown Limited had a market capitalisation of just over A$6 billion and accounted for 27.53% of the S&P/ASX 200 Hotels Restaurants & Leisure Industry Group....

. PBL, now a stub
Stub (stock)
A stub is the stock representing the remaining equity in a corporation left over after a major cash or security distribution from a buyout, a spin-out, a demerger or some other form of restructuring removes most of the company's operations from the parent corporation...

, renamed itself to Consolidated Media Holdings
Consolidated Media Holdings
Consolidated Media Holdings is an Australia investment company focused on subscription television.-About CMH:Consolidated Media Holdings is a publicly listed Australian company...

.

History

PBL originated with Australian Consolidated Press
Australian Consolidated Press
ACP Magazines , a subsidiary of the Nine Entertainment Co., is an Australian media company. It publishes the Australian Women's Weekly and the Australian edition of Woman's Day....

 (ACP), established by media magnate Frank Packer
Frank Packer
Sir Douglas Frank Hewson Packer, KBE , was an Australian media proprietor who controlled Australian Consolidated Press and the Nine Network.-Biography:...

, who inherited the media interests of his father Robert Packer
Robert Packer
Robert Packer was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons in two periods between 1646 and 1679, as well as being Usher of the Exchequer....

, who died in 1934. In 1936, Packer merged with E.G. Theodore's Sydney Newspapers and Associated Newspapers to form Australian Consolidated Press. Frank Packer was chairman of ACP from 1936 until his death in 1974, when control of the company passed to his younger son Kerry Packer
Kerry Packer
Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer, AC was an Australian media tycoon. The son of Sir Frank Packer and Gretel Bullmore, the Packer family company owned controlling interest in both the Nine television network and leading Australian publishing company Australian Consolidated Press, which were later...

.

ACP was granted a broadcasting license in Sydney when television began in Australia in the 1950s. Its television station, TCN-9
TCN-9
TCN is the Sydney flagship television station of the Nine Network in Australia and is located at Willoughby. The licence, issued to a company named Television Corporation Ltd headed by Frank Packer, was one of the first four licences to be issued for commercial television stations in...

 in Sydney was the first station in Australia to go to air, launched 1956, by an announcement from Bruce Gyngell
Bruce Gyngell
Bruce Gyngell was a hugely influential Australian television executive, prominent for 50 years in both Australian and U.K. television. Although Gyngell began his career in radio, in the 1950s he stepped into the arena of early television broadcasting, helping to set up Channel 9, the first...

 "Good evening, and welcome to television".

In 1960, it purchased GTV-9 Melbourne to form the first television network in Australia, the National Television Network, later to become the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...

.

In 1987, Kerry Packer sold the Nine Network to Alan Bond
Alan Bond (businessman)
Alan Bond is an Australian businessman noted for his criminal convictions and high-profile business dealings, including what was at the time the biggest corporate collapse in Australian history. Bond was born in the Hammersmith district of London, England, and emigrated to Australia with his...

, who then expanded the network to include QTQ-9 Brisbane and STW-9
STW-9
STW is an Australian television station owned by the WIN Corporation that is based in Perth, Australia.Based in Dianella, Western Australia, STW broadcasts with a transmitter mast located in Walliston...

 Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

. Packer later bought the network back for half of what he sold it for in 1990.

Publishing and Broadcasting Limited was formed in 1994, from the merger of The Nine Network Australia and Australian Consolidated Press.

In the late 1990s PBL lost millions on a venture called Nine India. Its most tangible form was a branded block on two of the channels operated by Doordarshan
DoorDarshan
Doordarshan is an Indian public service broadcaster, a division of Prasar Bharati. It is one of the largest broadcasting organizations in India in terms of the infrastructure of studios and transmitters. Recently, it has also started Digital Terrestrial Transmitters. On September 15, 2009,...

. It planned to become a major player in Indian television, but by early in the next decade, the concept was dropped.

In 1999, Crown Limited was merged into PBL, and the online division of PBL, ecorp was floated on the ASX. ecorp was later privatised and delisted from the Stock Exchange.

In 2002, PBL entered a deal with Prime Television, giving it an effective 50% stake in Prime NZ.

In 2004, PBL purchased the Burswood Casino in Perth, and a 50% stake in Hoyts Cinemas, along with West Australian Newspapers. Hoyts was previously owned by the Packer private company; Consolidated Press Holdings Ltd. It also sold Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

's only television network, EM-TV to Fiji Television
Fiji Television
Fiji Television Limited is Fiji's television network. It was founded on 15 June 1994 as the first permanent television broadcasting network in the country, although television had previously been introduced temporarily in October 1991 to broadcast the Rugby World Cup as well as Cricket World Cup....

.

On 18 October 2006, James Packer announced the sell-off of 50% of PBL's media interests for A$4.5 billion to focus on its gambling business. The sell-off includes Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...

 and its 50 per cent interest in NineMSN
NineMSN
ninemsn is an Australian 50/50 joint venture between Microsoft and Nine Entertainment Co.. It effectively acts as the website for both the Nine Network and MSN, and is one of Australia's most popular websites...

.

PBL is currently involved in two casino projects in Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...

: the $260 million Crown Macau, scheduled for completion in 2006-07, and the $1.4 billion City of Dreams. The projects are joint ventures with Melco, a Macau company. In March 2006, PBL announced that it had spent US$900 million (A$1.2 billion) to purchase a casino sub-concession from Wynn Resorts that would give the Melco-PBL joint venture the right to conduct casino operations. PBL's commitment to these ventures is the biggest investment by an Australian company in the PRC to date.

External links

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