Although Bruce Gordon has been doing a lot of talking lately about his bid for Channel 9 Perth and his “once in 20 year” ambitions for expansion, he has been strangely silent on the company’s radio assets, i98 fm in Wollongong and C91.3 Campbelltown. Gordon would not comment to radioinfo about the fate of the stations, despite going on the record several times about his other media assets.

There is speculation this week that Bruce Gordon’s WIN Television may team up with Macquarie Bank for its expansion plans. If that is the case, i98 and C91.3 might provide a nice sweetener to any deal with Macquarie, which owns over 80 regional radio stations around the country.

Bruce Gordon told The Australian newspaper: “We like [Macquarie], we’ve had talks with them over many years and they’ve done a great job… They’re the kind of people we’d work with, particularly if we’re doing an IPO initial public offering of shares.”

WIN Television was one of the few media businesses allowed to retain radio and tv assets in the one market after the media laws changed last time around, during the Hawke/Keating years. It has been operating a converged business model under a ‘grandfather clause’ in the years since then, and more recently expanded into Campbelltown by bidding for that new licence.

Staff at i98 have long seen themselves as a poor cousin of television in the WIN operation, having mixed feelings about the situation. They say the advantages of being part of a larger media group include increased selling power for the sales department, and more options for news coverage. Disadvantages, they say, are that management are not aware of what they do in running a radio business, and that they are small players when it comes to getting money and resources. C91.3 is a little further away from the group’s television operation, but still works to the Woolongong head office.