Last night the group agreed to approve the $525 million from the sale of its Australian Consolidated Press magazines division to Germany's Bauer Media group. That's enough to buy some time - probably a month - before the next tranche of Nine's debt, estimated at $2.2 billion, is due in February.

''It's one box ticked on a very long list before this is all resolved,'' a source close to the negotiations said. ''This was a bit of a formality, but at least we are heading down the right path.''

The Bauer deal will see some of Australia's seminal magazines, including Australian Women's Weekly and TV Week, transferred to German ownership. But it may not be enough to save Nine.

Even after the ratings buzz from the London Olympics, Howzat! Kerry Packer's War and more recently the revival of downmarket Big Brother, the network that for years went by the catchphrase ''Still The One'' is in for the fight of its life.

James Packer severed his father's long-standing links to the broadcaster in 2007 when he sold most of Nine, and its related assets, to private equity fund CVC Asia Pacific which paid him $1.46 billion cash and took on $3.6 billion in debt.