Nine Radio's biggest stars have headed off on holidays during the non-ratings season with little idea who they will be working for when they return next year - or, in some cases, whether they will have a job to come back to. The talkback radio network's parent company, Nine Entertainment Co. Holdings Limited (ASX:NEC), on December 12, 2025 (the last day of the radio ratings year) accepted final submissions from purchasers interested in taking over the business and will begin sifting through the offers this week.
The deadline for expressions of interest in the media giant's audio division, which includes its powerhouses 2GB and 3AW in Sydney and Melbourne as well as ratings minnows 4BC in Brisbane and Perth's 6PR, had initially been set for the end of November. The window was held open for an additional fortnight amid a flurry of last-minute activity, when a number of belated offers arrived for the business even as existing suitors revised their final bids. As Nine was acknowledging the receipt of the last bids, 2GB breakfast show host Ben Fordham and his team were celebrating the end of the ratings season, possibly the end of an era as part of the Nine family, over lunch at Luke Mangan's Glass Brasserie in Sydney's Hilton Hotel on Friday.
They were joined by the station's morning show host, Mark Levy, and his producers after their program wrapped up. Also present were Nine Radio boss Tom Malone and the network's content chief, Greg Byrnes, who had spent the week at 4BC working through the station's plan for the new year following a series of late axings at the ailing outlet. Nine boss Matt Stanton publicly confirmed the media organisation would undertake a strategic review of its national talkback radio division in September and that it could sell the division entirely.
By then, though, Nine's long-held plan to offload the radio network had been playing out in the pages of The Australian's media section for months, along with revelations former Macquarie Media owner John Singleton and Maurice Newman's Australian Digital Holdings were already vying to purchase the entity. ADH, which has previously received funding from one-time media heavyweight James Packer, has submitted what is thought to be the highest offer for the company, at $42 million, while Mr. Singleton, who sold his final 32% stake in MM to Nine for $80 million in 2019, is understood to have offered about half of that to buy back the whole lot. All interested parties have since signed strict nondisclosure agreements with Nine Entertainment as part of the ongoing negotiations, although not before Mr. Singleton's plan to overhaul the network was leaked into the public domain.
