Business of Media
Marketing challenge: Aldi ‘most trusted supermarket’ as Coles and Woolies suffer
Aldi is now Australia’s most trusted supermarket brand, following the rapid decline in consumer sentiment for supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths, reports The Australian’s Danielle Long.
The German-owned supermarket has topped the annual ranking by Roy Morgan for the first time, climbing from third just 12 months ago.
The ranking reveals the steep decline of Woolworths and Coles in consumers’ eyes, as the impact of price gouging allegations and legal action from the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission have seen the supermarket giants plummet from being the two most trusted brands in 2023 to the fourth and fifth most distrusted brands.
The Roy Morgan rankings echo research shared exclusively by The Australian last month, which found that nearly 40 per cent of consumers had changed their views of the two supermarket giants as a result of the ACCC legal action. It found 26.7 per cent of shoppers stated they would alter their shopping behaviours to avoid supporting Coles and Woolworths.
New age News Corp takes shape in Lachlan Murdoch’s mould
While New York may be the administrative home of News Corporation, its spiritual home remains Australia, where Keith Murdoch began the family’s association with news media, and where Rupert and Lachlan would have their first experiences inside newsrooms, reports Nine Publishing’s Calum Jaspan.
With Lachlan residing in Sydney, the centre of power has returned to Sydney’s Holt Street, where he has cultivated a generation of his own editorial lieutenants, in turn ousting the old guard.
Changes to news consumption means reach no longer equates to commercial returns. Instead, book publishing, digital real estate (REA Group), Fox News and the Dow Jones company, which houses The Wall Street Journal, have proven top profit drivers for the Murdochs since splitting News Corp into a news company and a film company in 2013.
The tabloids, which have struggled to establish comparable digital footprints are now housed in the Metro and Sport division (internally coined the “messy middle”), while the bottom “Free News and Lifestyle” tier, houses news.com.au, which faces the existential bottoming out of the digital advertising model, and News Corp’s e-commerce titles. Each division now has its own publisher, reporting lines and balance sheets.
In the three years ending June 30 this year, only the Herald Sun grew its subscriber base, while the number of those paying for The Courier-Mail, The Daily Telegraph and The Advertiser declined. The Australian (321,188) now has more paying subscribers than the Herald Sun (155,111) and Telegraph (144,246) combined.
The Telegraph’s weekend editor Mick Carroll, who rose through the ranks in the 1990s in News Corp’s Queensland division – then led by a young Lachlan Murdoch, has also emerged a big winner, named de facto editor-in-chief of news.com.au, leading the Free News and Lifestyle division.
While news.com.au is the most read news website, none of News’ paid titles rank near the top 10. In the latest August figures Herald Sun came 18th, The Telegraph 19th, The Courier-Mail 22nd, and The Australian 23rd, just one spot ahead of Seven’s new digital title The Nightly.
Can Google’s search dominance be broken by its break-up?
The US Department of Justice is considering asking a US Federal Court judge to break up Google after the judge earlier this year found the tech giant had breached antitrust laws, writes Nine Publishing’s Stephen Bartholomeusz.
On Tuesday, the Department of Justice made a 32-page filing with the court outlining its proposed remedies, saying it was considering “behavioural and structural remedies” that would prevent Google from using products such as its Chrome browser, the Google Play app store or the Android operating system to give it an advantage over competitors or potential new entrants to the search market.
“For more than a decade, Google has controlled the most popular distribution channels, leaving rivals with little to no incentive to compete for users,” the DoJ wrote.
“Fully remedying these harms requires not only ending Google’s control of distribution today, but also ensuring Google cannot control the distribution of tomorrow.”
Podcasting
Bronwyn Winfield podcast: Husband’s secret daughter says ‘question everything’
A secret daughter fathered by murder suspect Jon Winfield has called on his other children to question everything, as she came forward to try to help solve the disappearance of his estranged wife, Bronwyn, 31 years ago, reports The Australian’s David Murray.
The emergence of Winfield’s previously unknown firstborn child in a new episode of the Bronwyn podcast is another stunning and unexpected development in the series that has already led to renewed police investigations.
Sonia Lee bears a striking resemblance to Winfield and says his lies about not being her father had shattered her then-teenage mother, who was in love with him.
The Australian’s national chief correspondent, Hedley Thomas, was preparing a new episode focusing on Winfield’s one and only recorded police interview when he first found out about Sonia Lee on Sunday, September 1 – Father’s Day.
Television
Former TV host Andrew O’Keefe sentenced over drug, trespass charge
Disgraced former TV host Andrew O’Keefe has been told by a magistrate the “next step is jail” in a lashing over his use of drugs after being ordered to engage with rehab following an overdose, report News Corp’s Nathan Schmidt and Adelaide Lang.
The former Deal Or No Deal host appeared in Waverley Court via audiovisual link on Thursday and pleaded guilty to entering enclosed lands, breaching an AVO and possessing a prohibited drug.
The 52-year-old confronted a man at a property in Point Piper – where he was not lawfully allowed to be – on July 28, before he was arrested by police after a traffic stop.
O’Keefe was again placed under arrest at Rose Bay Police Station on September 16, one day after he overdosed on heroin.
In sentencing, magistrate Jacqueline Milledge “assured” the former TV personality he faced possible prison time if he reoffended after ordering him to engage with rehabilitation as a condition of his sentence.
“You have been given lots of opportunities to do something about your use of drugs,” she told O’Keefe. “I can assure you the next step is jail. I’m not just saying that, I absolutely mean it.”
Meet Yerin Ha: The Aussie actor taking on the ‘surreal’ world of Bridgerton
Australian actor Yerin Ha was grocery shopping with her mum in the South Korean countryside when she got the first of two phone calls that would catapult her to worldwide stardom. Bridgerton was looking for a new leading lady, and they’d need her audition tape back within 24 hours, reports Nine Publishing’s Meg Watson
Ha was excited. She had watched the show like everyone else during lockdowns, but she didn’t think much of her chances. Bridgerton was one of the most popular shows on the planet, with each season viewed about 100 million times. And though the Regency-era series is known for its racially diverse casting, almost every actor is British. Would they really go for a Korean-Australian NIDA grad from Turramurra with just five screen credits to her name?
Two weeks later she had the part, plus a flight to London to start production. “My mum was with me again when we got the call,” Ha says. “We’re just like peas in a pod, so if I’m crying, she’s crying. It was so nice to share.”
Netflix confirms launch of a late night live variety show in 2025
John Mulaney is returning to Netflix for a new live variety talk show, reports The Hollywood Reporter.
Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria announced the pickup at the Bloomberg Screentime conference Thursday, saying that the streaming service is hoping to build off John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in LA, the talk show concept Mulaney hosted for the service earlier this year.
The weekly show will launch in early 2025, with Mulaney also working as executive producer and co-showrunner. Specific details are still under wraps.
The new show will be the biggest push yet by Netflix into what has been a traditionally difficult nut to crack in streaming: The late night variety show. Bajaria framed the new show as a “bold” bet on the space, and that the company did not want to “play it safe” because previous formats haven’t clicked.
Sports Media
Andrew Webster quits The Herald: ‘Super Bowl’s over, baby. My final column’
My time as the Herald’s chief sports writer is over, writes The Sydney Morning Herald’s Andrew Webster.
I’m taking the redundancy loot and heading for the hills, unsure where or when I’ll stop, probably when I run out of petrol although most likely money.
Here are my highlights from the past 11-and-a-half years of fooling you that I know what I’m talking about.
Best footballer: The nicest part of this job is having a front-row seat to greatness. I covered the career of Andrew Johns and never thought I’d see better. Then Johnathan Thurston came along and entered the same stratosphere. Around the same time, Cameron Smith, the ultimate pro, was staking his claim for future Immortality. I suspect I’ll be telling my imaginary grandchildren I also covered the career of Penrith halfback Nathan Cleary, who has pretty much done it all, including four consecutive premierships and counting, and at the age of 26 has so much more to achieve even though he’s already achieved it all.
Biggest clusterf— #1: Let’s start with rugby union, whose players, coaches, officials, and volunteers have deserved so much more from the people at the top. How did the smartest, best-educated men in the country get it so wrong?
Best reader feedback: Property tycoon Lloyd Williams sent a bottle of Dom Pérignon after I couldn’t get excited about him winning another Melbourne Cup with one of his expensive European stayers few had heard about. I sent the fancy bubbles back and said I’d prefer an interview, to which he agreed but never delivered.
I love the Herald. I’ve wanted to write for this masthead since I was 12. It breaks my heart to leave.
Thanks for indulging me and my silly columns over the years, as well as your kind messages, especially the last month.
It’s meant the world.
Women’s Super League viewing figures soar after streaming switch to YouTube
Viewing figures for Women’s Super League games streamed online have more than trebled this season following the switch to YouTube as the division’s streaming platform, reports The Guardian.
Until this summer, WSL matches not selected for live broadcast by domestic rights holders, the BBC and Sky Sports, were shown on the FA Player, a free online service that enabled fans to watch if they registered an account. On the FA Player, the record-highest viewership for a WSL game had been Arsenal’s home game against Bristol City in 2023-24, attracting 78,050 views. In contrast, more than a quarter of a million people watched the WSL game between Leicester and Arsenal live on YouTube last month, setting a new record for a non-television WSL fixture streamed online.