This week 10 years ago - Stokes offloads GWN

SEVEN chairman Kerry Stokes sold his Golden West Network this week 10 years ago for $71 million to Prime Television Ltd. The acquisition of the regional network followed a failed deal earlier in the year in which Mr Stoke’s Australian Prime Capital Equity tried to sell the operation to the Seven Network. The $73 million deal was blocked by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission following concerns raised over an exclusive programming agreement between Seven GWN and the Nine Network. Prime managing director George Brown said it had negotiated warranties against the ensuing legal battle and the possibility of a change to the programming agreement. Court caught in ad dispute PREMIER Richard Court sparked a political row this week, 10 years ago, after launching an advertising campaign for an urban bushland park at Wangara. Funded by the Department of Conservation and Land Management, the advertising took the form of a colour wraparound for free newspapers circulating in the government’s most marginal seats north of the river. Opposition leader Geoff Gallop estimated the cost of government advertising had reached $100 million in four years, particularly spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in the lead up to the state election.