MCM Entertainment files for liquidation [report]

MCM Entertainment, the music media company behind popular radio shows and a concert series has filed for liquidation.

The Herald-Sun reports that filing took place on July 16, with insolvency firm Hamilton Murphy handling the liquidation.

MCM Entertainment produced the concert series Live At The Chapel, shot at South Yarra’s Chapel off Chapel.

It had the lucrative Australian and New Zealand rights to the New York-based online video platform VEVO – the first territories outside of  the US and UK.

Its radio and online shows included Take 40 Australia, Cover To Cover My Gen and Planet Vevo.

MCM’s liquidator Richard Rohrt of  Hamilton Murphy emphasised that MCM Entertainment had no debts in the form of creditor and employee entitlements, and had stopped trading because it had “simply outlived its purpose”.

“There’s nothing wrong with the company, it’s just come to the end of its life and is no longer trading," he told Herald-Sun.

“It is in short, a perfectly profitable company that is no longer trading, and has no creditors or employee entitlements. We are currently looking for buyers, but we are somewhat hamstrung by COVID-19."

At this point, its sole employee is Tony McGinn who founded the business in 1983 as MCM Syndication.

It expanded its branded content after Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) bought a 50% stake in 1995, an involvement which ended in 2005 when it sold its shares.

Two years later, MCM Entertainment listed on the ASX, only to delist five years later, citing a lack of liquidity and no proposals to raise further capital.

MCM Entertainment Group rebranded to MCM Media in 2008, and went through two CEOS, Simon Joyce and one time Coca-Cola marketing chief, John Wardley, before McGinn took the helm in May 2015 as the company reported losses of $2.8 million for the 2014 financial year.

In mid-2016 SCA bought out the company, then known as Authentic Entertainment.