Sunraysia Television was a publicly listed company which owned
Channel Nine Perth's parent company ''Swan Television and Radio Broadcasters'' from 1989 to 2007. Although listed on the
ASX, Sunraysia had been majority owned by Eva Presser's Sabtel (between 44 and 50 per cent) with
WIN Corporation owning another 43.65% of the company.
History
Sunraysia Television has its origins in the area around
Mildura
Mildura is a regional city in north-west Victoria, Australia. Located on the Victorian side of the Murray River, Mildura had a population of 34,565 in 2021. When nearby Wentworth, Irymple, Nichols Point and Merbein are included, the area h ...
, known as Sunraysia. It operated a single television licence,
STV-8. In 1985, the station was purchased by Eva Presser.
In 1989, Sunraysia acquired
Channel Nine Perth from Bond Media who were forced to sell it due to cross-media ownership laws restricting national audience reach. They paid
A$95 million for the station. As part of the deal, it also sold
STV-8 to Bond Media for $18 million, which was then onsold to
ENT Ltd. for the same price.
In 1994, following a failed takeover bid for Sunraysia,
Kerry Stokes
Kerry Matthew Stokes (born John Patrick Alford on 13 September 1940) is an Australian businessman. He holds business interests in a diverse range of industries including electronic and print media, property, mining, and construction equipment. ...
sold his 21.2 per cent stake to
Bruce Gordon's
WIN Corporation which already held 19.9 per cent. Mrs Presser was quoted as calling the Stokes bid "uninvited, unnecessary, unwanted, unspectacular" and that her rejection wof the bid was "unequivocal".
Selling of ''Nine Perth''
In February 2007,
PBL Media announced that it would acquire 100% of ''Swan Television and Radio Broadcasters'' from Sunraysia for $136.4 million. However, after protest from
WIN Corporation owner
Bruce Gordon, who was offering Sunraysia a revised $163.1 million, it was announced months later on 21 April that the board of Sunraysia would now endorse
WIN's revised offer.
The sale went through on 8 June 2007.
Sunraysia & the Pressers
Eva's husband Dan is executive chairman of family company, Sabrands. Sabrands runs the Sunraysia Natural Beverages company, which similarly has no ties to the
Sunraysia region, and since 2013 has owned the iconic
Rosella
Rosellas are in a genus that consists of six species and nineteen subspecies.
These colourful parrots from Australia are in the genus ''Platycercus''.
''Platycercus'' means "broad-tailed" or "flat-tailed", reflecting a feature common to the ...
business. The Pressers use ''Sunraysia'' as their personal brand name, which some may see as ironic given the name was also used in a 1920s dried fruit advertising campaign, for the Australian Dried Fruits Association - an entity with no connection to the Pressers.
References
{{reflist
Defunct broadcasting companies of Australia
Mildura