New Brands
Nine apologises after using Alan Joyce’s name when referring to Alan Jones trial
Nine has been forced to apologise to former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce after wrongly using his name in a graphic that went to air during a segment about Alan Jones’ trial, reports news.com.au.
Broadcaster Alan Jones is accused of kissing a man and touching his penis with his own, police have alleged after laying fresh charges, with the veteran broadcaster vowing to fight “baseless” historical abuse allegations.
The 83-year-old former 2GB host fronted court for the first time on Wednesday, appearing before Judge Michael Allen at Downing Centre Local Court as his lawyer Bryan Wrench entered pleas of not guilty on his behalf.
During Nine News Sydney’s coverage of the trail, a caption with the name Alan Joyce was used.
LA Times owner asks editorial board to ‘take a break’ from writing about Trump – report
Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of the Los Angeles Times, reportedly asked the newspaper’s editorial board to “take a break” from writing about Donald Trump, in the latest report of the billionaire owner’s growing influence over the newspaper’s coverage, The Guardian’s Dani Anguiano reports.
The newspaper and its owner were embroiled in controversy for weeks this fall after Soon-Shiong blocked the board from endorsing Kamala Harris for president. The decision led to a wave of resignations on the editorial board and the loss of thousands of subscriptions.
Explaining his decision, Soon-Shiong said he feared endorsing a candidate would fuel divisions across the US. Later, he said that the newspaper had become an “echo chamber”, moving too far left, and that he wanted to see the Los Angeles Times become more “fair and balanced”.
Business of Media
Top Nine executive resigns amid operational review
Nine Entertainment’s head of sales, one of the media group’s most experienced executives, is leaving the company ahead of a likely restructure of its operations.
Michael Stephenson has been with Nine for 18 years, led its commercial strategy through the $4 billion merger with Fairfax, and has been the chief sales officer since 2016.
He was Nine’s second highest-paid executive in financial year 2024, with a full remuneration of $1.25 million, behind only former chief executive Mike Sneesby.
The veteran executive’s departure also comes as Nine, the owner of this masthead, is looking for a permanent replacement for Sneesby, who stepped down in September. Stephenson, who was in the running to lead Nine following the exit of Hugh Marks in 2021, had flagged his interest in the top job after Sneesby’s exit.
Producer Paul Clarke joins Beyond
Music doco and entertainment producer Paul Clarke will join Beyond exclusively in 2025, TV Tonight’s David Knox reports.
Having worked in co-production with Beyond for over a decade, on acclaimed titles including Whitlam: The Power and The Passion, Blood and Thunder, John Farnham: Finding The Voice and Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line he joins the company as Writer, Director, Executive Producer – reporting to Mikael Borglund.
Clarke,’s credits include Recovery, Spicks and Specks, Long Way To The Top, the Mardi Gras and Blink TV’s ongoing production of Eurovision for SBS.
His first project for Beyond will be managing the 20 camera event coverage of Cold Chisel : The Big 5-0: 50th Anniversary Concert for the Seven Network.
$50m pause welcomed by commercial networks
Ahead of an election year the federal government’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook has announced a one-year suspension of the Commercial Broadcasting Tax from June 2025, estimated to cost the local commercial television industry $50.3 million, TV Tonight’s David Knox reports.
“The temporary suspension of the Commercial Broadcasting Tax is an important step towards supporting the long-term sustainability of Free TV broadcasters, and we are grateful for the Government’s recognition of the important role of local commercial television services to a healthy media sector,” said Bridget Fair, CEO of Free TV.
In 2016 / 2017 the Morrison government abolished licence fees of about $130m but replaced them with a $40m spectrum fee as an interim measure for up to five years. They were also suspended at the beginning of the pandemic in April 2020 but due to expire from 2028 to 2032.
Inside Disney’s Decision to Settle a Trump Defamation Suit
When Disney reached a settlement last week with President-elect Donald J. Trump in his defamation case against ABC News, it led to accusations that the company had caved to him. Media law experts predicted the move would embolden Mr. Trump to file other lawsuits that could test the limits of the First Amendment, The New York Times Brooks Barnes reports.
Disney executives had anticipated the blowback. But they also determined that they had a flawed case — and that the company could risk damaging press protections for everyone by continuing to fight, as well as hurt the Disney brand.
Concern among Disney lawyers had been rising for months. In July, a federal judge in Florida, Cecilia M. Altonaga, denied the media giant’s motion to dismiss the suit, which Mr. Trump had filed in the spring. But more worrisome for Disney, ABC’s parent company, was her commentary.
Streaming
After five seasons, Claudia Karvan maps out her dream ending in Bump
The odds that a television show will conclude in a way that satisfies its creators are getting ever longer, the SMH’s Craig Mathieson reports.
Good shows get cancelled after a single season all too often now, two seasons is considered a plus, while three seasons is mostly the limit that the algorithm will vouch for. As for the idea that those behind a show can actually have the time in advance to map out and enact their desired ending, that just sounds like a dream, right?
“Dreams do come true,” declares Claudia Karvan, and she has the episodes to prove it.
Back in 2019, when Karvan and her fellow creator, Kelsey Munro, were first mapping out Bump, their heartfelt comic-drama set in Sydney that’s about to debut its fifth and final season on Stan, the pair had a moment of inspiration. While trying to figure out how to successfully start the series, the ideal ending came to them.
“We didn’t know it would be five seasons, but one day when we were in the story room, developing the series before it had even been commissioned, we said, ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could end this series at this particular moment? Imagine if we could do that? It would complete the circle and feel so right and yet surprising’,” Karvan says. “Lo and behold, we’ve been privileged enough to do that. We’ve brought that scene to life as we imagined it five years ago.”
Back for Christmas, the Doctor celebrates everything, including danger
Back in 1965, Doctor Who was just two years old, and when its final episode of the year was transmitted, actor William Hartnell turned to the camera at the end and wished the audience a Merry Christmas. A mistake? No chance. The episode was titled The Feast of Steven, a reference to St Stephen’s Day, held on December 26.
Since then, various seasons of the world’s longest-running science fiction series have concluded – or begun – with Christmas episodes, the SMH’s Michael Idato reports. This year’s episode, Joy to the World, written by Steven Moffat and directed by Alex Sanjiv Pillai, continues that tradition: putting the time-travelling Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) in peril during the holiday season.
The exact recipe for a Doctor Who Christmas-themed episode is difficult to pin down, aside from the obvious fact that – for the most part – they are set at Christmas, or they involve Christmas somehow in their story.
“Doctor Who is always a family show and with a tremendous focus on children, that it’s already got all that,” Moffat says. “In terms of British television, it’s the most cinematic it gets, really. It’s a big colourful spectacle. It’s funny, it’s [producer] Russell T. Davies, it’s the multiplex end of television.”
TV
Disney Pulls Transgender Story Line From New Series
Pixar, a division of Walt Disney Studios, removed a transgender story line from its animated series “Win or Lose,” which is set to start streaming in February, Disney said on Tuesday, The New York Times’ Nicole Sperling reports.
The series follows a middle school coed softball team in the week leading up to the championship game, and each episode is told from the perspective of a different character. The character will remain in the show, Disney said, but a few lines of dialogue focused on her gender, a plot point that appeared near the end of the eight-episode series, have been edited out.
“When it comes to animated content for a younger audience,” Disney said in a statement, “we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline.”
The decision to remove the story arc was made over the summer, Disney said. The change was reported earlier by The Hollywood Reporter.