The new German owners of Australian television's night of nights - the TV Week Logie Awards - have refused to guarantee the future of the industry gala, putting its survival in doubt.
Less than 24 hours after the sale of TV Week's publisher ACP magazines to the Bauer Media Group, a spokeswoman for the Hamburg-based empire confirmed any existing deal to produce and promote the prize night was now under the scrutiny of its new management.
While the heritage event, first held in 1959, has most recently been a joint production of the Nine Entertainment Co. stablemates ACP and the Nine Network, the sell-off of the magazine arm would now turn the spotlight on the profitability of TV Week's exclusive sponsorship.
A Bauer spokeswoman told The Daily Telegraph last night, the company "could not guarantee the future of anything in our business''.
A senior executive at Nine said while no provisions had been put into its contract with Bauer, he conceded Bauer "could scrap it'' once the sale has been approved by the Foreign Investment Review Board.
The Nine insider said the awards could be scrapped.``You never know, but I think it's fair to say I won't be the only one hoping that won't happen.''
Despite being considered an iconic part of the local TV landscape, the telecast has consistently struggled to secure solid ratings or lucrative advertising support given the naming rights were locked away by TV Week in 2002.
At that time, Channel 7 and 9 went to court over ownership of the awards, soon after the Nine-affiliated ACP bought the masthead (founded by all the networks to promote local programs and their stars).The magazine has been under intense market pressure since the introduction of free TV listings in newspapers and the rise of online guides.
Its core customer base of teenage girls continue to drift away from the print title to other digital entertainment sites, with TV Week's last circulation audit showing a drop of 10.2 per cent (year-on-year).
If it were open to other sponsors or networks, the rights to the event could be sold off in a similar way to the broadcast deals struck by sporting codes like the AFL and NRL.
Fat Prophets media analyst Greg Fraser said: "If Bauer, quite sensibly, decided it didn't want to sponsor the Logies going forward, they would most certainly either scrap it or see if they could put it up for the highest bidder.''
"The real net beneficiary from this could be Seven, who lost the rights to the Logies and would love the opportunity to rub it in Nine's face.''
The Logies were once rotated between commercial networks, last airing on Seven in 1995 and TEN in 1993. They have been broadcast on Nine for the last 16 years, with 15 of them at Melbourne's Crown complex.
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