Business of Media
‘Five minutes with god’: Rupert holds court at Murdoch Christmas bash
Murdoch sat in a separate room, away from the DJ and partygoers holding pink cocktails, and met with the cream of Australia’s media, entertainment and sporting crop for a few minutes each to talk politics.
Rupert Murdoch, the 93-year-old media baron, flew into Sydney this week for the first time in six years. On Thursday night, he held court at his eldest son Lachlan and wife Sarah’s annual Christmas party at their Bellevue Hill mansion, Le Manoir, the AFR’s Sam Buckingham Jones reports.
It is one of the biggest social events of the Murdoch calendar (which was cancelled last year), and Rupert being there made this year arguably the biggest in years. Invites featured a piece from cartoonist Johannes Leak and the promise of “Christmas cocktails” while wearing smart casual.
D-day on the horizon for Meta: Stephen Jones set to make a call on news media bargaining code
The federal government is set to decide, in the coming fortnight, whether to force Meta to negotiate payment-for-content deals with Australian news media companies, The Australian’s James Madden reports.
In 2021, the Morrison government introduced the news media bargaining code – legislation that required tech giants such as Meta and Google to pay for the right to display Australian news content on their platforms.
In February this year, Meta – owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads – announced that it wouldn’t be renewing its commercial deals with Australian news publishers, which were worth an estimated $70 million a year to the industry.
Under the terms of the bargaining code, the Australian government could “designate” Meta, which would force the Mark Zuckerberg-controlled company back to the bargaining table to reach commercial terms with Australian media companies.
Nine TV newsroom running light on Christmas cheer
Newsroom unrest within Nine’s TV news bunker is likely to continue over the Christmas-New Year period, as management battles to allay deep concerns among rank-and-file staff that the company’s handling of internal workplace issues – in the wake of the devastating Intersection report – has fallen short of expectations, The Australian’s James Madden reports.
Diary is aware that Fiona Dear, Nine’s director of news and current affairs, has been the subject of multiple complaints from newsroom staff to management in the seven weeks since the publication of the Intersection review, which uncovered a culture of entrenched bullying and power imbalances within the company.
The claims against Dear are separate to allegations raised as part of the Intersection review, and do not necessarily relate to allegations of misconduct since the report was handed down in late October. Rather, it’s understood that the general findings of the Intersection review prompted some staff to make separate, and as yet untested, claims against Dear.
TV
The makers of Bluey set their sights on bestselling Anh Do books
Growing up in Marrickville in the 1980s, Anh Do’s friends nicknamed him “Weirdo” – a playful twist on his surname (“Weir Do”).
Little did Do know that the books he would go on to write, inspired by his childhood, would dominate Australia’s bestseller lists for five consecutive years. Now, they’re set to hit television screens, The Age’s Kerrie O’Brien reports.
The Weirdo series is being turned into a television series by Ludo studio – creator of the beloved children’s show Bluey – in partnership with Warner Bros. A release date has not yet been announced. Do’s Wolf Girl series is being adapted into a film by Rose Byrne’s production company Dollhouse Pictures, alongside Foundation Media Partners, with casting expected to begin in coming months.
Along with the team at Ludo, Do worked on the pilot episode of Weirdo with Johnny Lowry, now at Warner Bros, who produced the ABC TV show Anh’s Brush with Fame.
Radio
Exits, cuts and Smooth FM: Nine mulls future of 2GB, 3AW, 4BC and 6PR
In mid-October, Nine Radio director Tom Malone pulled the trigger on a plan to slash costs at Perth’s talkback radio station, 6PR, the AFR’s Sam Buckingham Jones reports.
This, he argued in internal messages, was necessary to “reset” 6PR, which was running at a loss and could no longer be propped up by the broader business. Station manager Emily White ended her 14-year tenure by resigning a short time later – while popular presenter Gary Adshead, who hosted the morning show, quit within days to join the ABC.
The Perth cuts are part of a broader significant change across Nine Radio, which dominates the nation’s talkback radio market. It owns 3AW in Melbourne, 2GB in Sydney and 4BC in Brisbane, all of which prioritise local news, sport, some music and opinion with a broadly conservative slant. Nine Radio also leases 2UE, 4BH and Magic1278 to ACE Radio.
The business reported $131.8 million in revenue in 2019. Last year it wrote $103 million. The entire industry is struggling with these consumer changes.
Publishing
Guardian owner pushes through sale of The Observer despite strike
The owner of Britain’s The Guardian newspaper has pressed on with a £25 million ($49 million) deal to sell off the group’s Sunday title, The Observer, defying a 48-hour walkout by journalists, The Guardian’s Europe correspondent Hans van Leeuwen reports.
The board of the Scott Trust, the £1.3 billion fund that owns the two titles, gave its in-principle backing late on Thursday (Friday AEDT) to sell the 233-year-old the Observer – the world’s oldest Sunday paper – to online news start-up Tortoise Media.
The move comes amid a slew of deals in the British media industry: The Spectator magazine, The Daily Telegraph broadsheet newspaper and regional newspaper group National World have all either changed hands or are sitting on the sales block.
Entertainment
US singer Harry Connick Jr’s daughter Kate Connick is joining Neighbours: ‘My family is going to be doing viewing parties’
It’s not the “neighbours” on Ramsay Street that Kate Connick is dressing to impress: it’s the trendy Melburnians.
The rising US actor – also known as “Skate” (from her birth name, Sara Kate) – has settled in the inner-city suburb of Collingwood while filming a guest role on Neighbours, The Herald Sun’s Siobhan Duck reports.
“I feel like I’m definitely living in the ‘cool’ area, so I got a second piercing just to try to fit in,” Connick, 27, tells Stellar with a laugh.
“Collingwood reminds me of Brooklyn a bit.”
While Australia feels very distant from Connecticut – the US state where she grew up – family is never far away. Connick’s younger sister Charlotte, 22, is training at Melbourne’s 16th Street Actors Studio, while her elder sibling Georgia, 28, is studying cinematography at the Australian Film Television and Radio School in Sydney.