MEDIAWEEK 100, 2024

Nicholas Gray

Managing Director & Publisher, The Australian & Prestige and Managing Director, Tech Platform Partnerships

News Corp’s The Australian and Prestige titles division recently announced a new leadership team to drive the next phase of audience and commercial growth.

The division is led by Gray and editor-in-chief Michelle Gunn. Gray said: “These new roles are key to building on our relationships with commercial clients, growing subscription and marketing capabilities, and deepening our global connections to deliver the greatest impact for Australia’s largest media portfolio reaching and engaging with affluent and invested Australians.”

Gray has been with News Corp for 13 years including time as CEO of The Australian and managing director of Vogue and GQ Australia. Previously he spent time with Macquarie Bank, Lion, iSelect and ninemsn.

Kate Watson (NEW)

Commercial Director, The Squiz

Watson is the co-host of Squiz podcasts in addition to looking after commercial partnerships. She spent the early part of her career working in federal politics in the Office of Prime Minister before moving into media.

She worked at Sky News Australia producing live television as well as delivering commercial partnership content for some of Australia’s largest brands.

Since its launch in 2017, the Squiz Today podcast has expanded to also include News Club, Squiz Sort Cuts and The Weekly Wrap. The Squiz Today regularly sits in the Top 20 podcasts as measured by Podcast Ranker.

Daniel Monaghan

Senior VP Content and Programming, Paramount ANZ

It has been another challenging year for TV executives. At Paramount ANZ, Monaghan and his colleagues have been managing how audiences engage with their content across live linear channels, on-demand at 10 Plus and via subscription to Paramount+. He has had to make some tough calls in dropping key franchises like The Bachelor and The Masked Singer.

Speaking to Mediaweek earlier in 2024, Monaghan revealed that after two seasons of trying new things, The Bachelor “frankly wasn’t rating anymore”. “There were elements of The Bachelor that we were trying to reinvent and reinvigorate for that format because it was such a success for us in the early years, but it wasn’t showing the right trajectory,” he said. “To be honest, we just need to walk away sometimes.

His schedule for 2025 will boast a new Sam Pang series, a local version of the global hit comedy Ghosts and the return of Big Brother to 10. The latter should fill many hours screening across six days a week.

Nikki Rooke (NEW)

Director of Sales – Total Television, Nine

Earlier this year Nine promoted Rooke to replace Richard Hunwick who announced his resignation in May. Rooke joined Nine two years ago from SCA to oversee Nine’s TV, streaming, audio, and publishing assets.

In the current role, Rooke leads Nine’s national total television sales team overseeing metro TV, regional TV, and BVOD. Speaking of her new role, Rooke said she was “thrilled to be leading Nine’s Total TV team and fill the very big shoes left behind by Richard Hunwick.”

Rebecca McCloy

Executive Director of Commercial Sport, Foxtel Group

McCloy has responsibility for the sports acquisition strategy and its content, channel and commercial partnerships across Kayo, Fox Sports and Foxtel.

She has over 20 years of expertise in sports broadcasting, media rights negotiations and strategy, having also worked previously for Network 10 and Stadium Australia in creative services. She has worked at the coal face on sports rights in free-to-air, broadcast and digital environments.

McCloy has led hundreds of domestic and international rights negotiations across all major sports codes and manages the largest portfolio of sports media partnerships in the country.

Currently sitting on the Foxtel Group sports platform are AFL, NRL, cricket and Supercars among many others.

Tom Malone

Managing Director, Nine Radio

The Nine Radio group has continued its strong grip on audiences 10+ under Malone’s guidance. The challenge at the broadcaster has always been bringing in a new audience as the older ones tune out.

The group successfully replaced Alan Jones with Ben Fordham several years ago. The latest challenge for Malone and his team – replacing Ray Hadley as the 2GB morning announcer decided to end his current contract early. The biggest contributor ratings-wise continues to be 3AW where the breakfast show with Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft doesn’t miss a beat and boasts a market share of around 20% every survey.

The Melbourne station has also done well placing Tom Elliott into Neil Mitchell’s old morning slot. Across the four markets it operates in, Nine Radio boasts a commercial radio share of 15.8% (1.8m listeners weekly) and a streaming share of 27.8 (with a cume audience of 405,000).

Cate Hefele

Executive Director, Kayo Sports

Earlier this year Hefele told Mediaweek: “Our growth profile has always been: grow in winter, hold in summer.” That strategy will be tweaked with summers featuring cricket tours from India and then England which will lure lapsed and new Kayo Sports subscribers.

The streaming platform will also make a big push for more customers as it unveils its plans under the new AFL rights agreement. Hefele also told us: “We are looking at how we leverage the sports that we have and tap into each of the audiences that are fans of those sports. And if we have someone who is an AFL fan, it’s about making sure that they know there’s NRL, BBL or F1 on Kayo that they can watch as well. The data works hard on that and we are continuing to focus on that for retention.”

Previously, Hefele worked for McKinsey & Company in New York and later Sydney before joining Foxtel Group as chief of staff under CEO Patrick Delany.

Max Eburne and David Watkins (NEW)

Co-Chief Executive Officers, JCDecaux

As Steve O’Connor prepares to step away as CEO of the Australian arm of the global outdoor giant after 20 years at the top, the company has appointed two chiefs to take the business forward. That duo is chief commercial officer Max Eburne and chief financial officer David Watkins who will now become co-CEOs.

Eburne has been with the company for close to two decades working in both the UK and Australia. Chartered accountant Watkins is currently in his 10th year with the business.

JCDecaux recently announced it was transforming media across Sydney, Adelaide and Perth airports with a relaunch of its advertising offering. The reinvented portfolio is promising brands unprecedented access to high-value travellers and greater strategic options through iconic, immersive and strategically connected touchpoints in what is labels one of the most emotionally charged environments available.

Nev Hasan

Chief Sales Officer, Foxtel Media

The Foxtel Group chief sales officer played a key role at the recent 2025 Upfront. Hasan detailed new partnerships with CommBank iQ plus tvbeat and Adgile. Of the former, he said: “Measurement is the key to proving media-planning effectiveness. By partnering with CommBank iQ we’re further equipped to help advertisers not just reach premium audiences, but understand how their investments lead to specific outcomes and provide them with the tools they need to optimise media planning.”

Hasan has been with the television business for over 15 years. His previous role was executive director of agency sales. Prior to his tenure with the Foxtel Group, Hasan held positions at SMG RED, Yahoo!7 and Ninemsn.

Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald (NEW)

Co-founders, Shameless Media

Zara McDonald

McDonald is a writer and podcaster based in Melbourne. In 2018, she launched Shameless, a pop culture podcast for smart people who love dumb stuff alongside friend and fellow writer, Michelle Andrews. That same year, she co-founded Shameless Media, now Australia’s biggest youth podcast network in Australia.

Michelle Andrews

Andrews is the other co-founder of Shameless Media, having started talking about the idea with McDonald on their bedroom floors in 2018. Now, she co-hosts Shameless and works on sporadic creative projects, like the odd non-fiction book or limited audio series. The business now boasts 1.4m social media followers and a newsletter database of over 100,000. The company portfolio has grown to include the original Shameless podcast with Zara and Michelle plus Eilish Gilligan and Annabelle Lee. The newer titles are Ruby Hall’s Inherited, Style-ish with Joanna Fleming, Anika Joshi-Smith and Maddison Sullivan-Thorpe, Everybody Has A Secret with Annabell, Ruby and Louis Hanson and The Shameless Book Club.

Duncan Campbell

Chief Content Officer, ARN

While negotiating a new contract for the broadcaster’s biggest stars Kyle and Jackie O was top of the agenda last year, launching their show in Melbourne took up much of this year. And probably 2025 too. ARN has stayed strong in Sydney, but also has some challenges elsewhere.

About the KIIS FM Melbourne launch, Campbell told Mediaweek: “The tall poppy syndrome is coming into play there. When we brought Christian O’Connell to Melbourne a lot of people asked, ‘Does ARN know what it is doing?’ Eighteen months later the show was a huge success. We were all very enthusiastic about Kyle and Jackie O, maybe too much to start with.” He admitted they had got the content mix wrong with the overtly racy content. “Kyle has now pulled back on that quite considerably. They have stopped the graphic sexual content. The show is about relationships, so it is not going to be a sanitised show. The audiences do hang around to hear what Kyle is going to say next. We don’t want to lose that. If we start to take out the DNA of the show it’s going to collapse completely. I’m still convinced it can be a successful breakfast show in Melbourne.” He did add, “It hasn’t been a perfect launch.”

Karen Halligan (NEW)

Chief Executive Officer, OzTAM

After Doug Peiffer stepped down from 12 years in this role earlier in the year, Halligan was appointed to take over. She has more than 25 years’ experience in senior client, media owner and agency roles.

Halligan joined OzTAM from KPMG where she spent almost six years and was Partner – KPMG Customer, specialising in marketing, martech and media advisory. Halligan’s experience includes working client side at Coca-Cola as media manager and several years working with leading media agencies, including managing director of Zenith, and senior management roles with Mediacom, Slingshot Media, and Bohemia Group.

She was also national commercial and operations director at SCA. Halligan said: “I am incredibly excited to join the OzTAM team at this pivotal moment in time. The opportunity to join a team that is transforming to deliver a globally leading and evolving measurement solution, underpinned by new technology, was just too good to pass up.”

Gai Le Roy

Chief Executive Officer, IAB Australia

The IAB Australia Internet Advertising Revenue Report (IARR), prepared by PwC Australia and covering FY24, found strong growth in formats that are considered short-term performance drivers and mixed market growth across other formats and environments.

The Australian internet advertising market grew 9.7% year-on-year to reach $15.6bn in spend for the financial year ending 30 June 2024.

Le Roy, who oversees the 170+ members of IAB Australia, commented: “The results for financial year 2024 show that marketers continue to increase their investment in reaching audiences across a range of digital advertising environments. While video and audio formats continue to grow the overall market, there is still a strong skew towards driving short term sales results with strong investments in search and social. In the June quarter results we saw a solid growth uptick in the classified listings revenue category, which was up 21% versus the previous June quarter, led by automotive and real estate activity.”

IAB Australia just this week hosted an impressive line-up of speakers for its invitation only inaugural Leadership Summit.

Bridget Fair (NEW)

Chief Executive Officer, Free TV

Fair joined the commercial FTA TV lobby group in February 2018, having previously held a number of senior roles with Seven West Media responsible for corporate affairs, government relations and business strategy.

She has also worked with the ABC and SBS, and in private legal practice. Fair is currently a board director for Women in Media, and has served as the former chairman of Screenrights. She has also held positions as a non-executive director of iSelect and a director of OzTAM, Freeview and the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism & Ideas.

Lizzie Young (NEW)

Chief Executive Officer, Commercial Radio & Audio

Young was appointed CEO of audio industry body CRA to take over from Ford Ennals when he returned to the UK mid-year.

CRA chairman and ARN CEO Ciaran Davis confirmed the decision made by the CRA board. Young has 25 years’ experience across multiple global markets and has worked on all media platforms in roles spanning commercial, content, and operations.

Prior to her previous role at WeAre8, Young held the position of managing director – local markets, group marketing and commercial partnerships at Nine, spending 12 years in the role. She has also spent over a decade in the audio industry, including seven years at GWR Radio/GCap (now Global Radio) in the UK, in roles including commercial programming controller and head of agency sales.

Young was the third CEO for CRA in almost exactly two years, replacing Ennals who resigned in April 2024, having informed the board of his decision to step down immediately. Young stepped down from her previous role as APAC CEO and global growth officer at WeAre8 in March. After helping the business launch into the US market last year, she cited time zones as her reason for leaving, with her global role seeing her work across Australia, UK, and USA.

Eric Beecher

Chairman, Private Media

Last year saw Beecher taking on Fox Corp in the courts which saw the Private Media founder receiving more publicity than perhaps at any stage of his career. Fox Corp CEO and chairman Lachlan Murdoch sued Private Media’s Crikey in August 2022 for comments made in an article published in June that covered the role of Fox News in the January 6 insurrection in Washington DC. This year Beecher released a book that contained much detail about the David vs Goliath media battle. The Crikey owner and ex-News Corp and Fairfax editor, according to his publicity, lifted the lid on the abuse of power by media moguls – from William Randolph Hearst to Elon Musk – and on his own unique experience of working for (and being sued by) the Murdochs. The book asked: What’s gone wrong with our media? The answer: Its owners. From US-based entrepreneurs, to British press barons to colonial upstarts like Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch, Beecher claimed media proprietors have manipulated the news to accumulate wealth and influence as they meddled with democracy.

Seb Rennie

Chief Commercial Officer, SCA

Rennie has over 20 years’ experience in media, having worked in and with significant media agencies, media owners, advertisers and tech vendors in Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

Most recently before joining SCA, Rennie was GroupM’s chief investment officer for Australia. He joined SCA in early 2023 to lead commercial strategy for its LiSTNR digital audio division.

He became chief commercial officer in May 2023 with responsibility for driving commercial performance and value for clients across SCA’s suite of broadcast and digital media channels and brands.

SCA recently revealed Rennie is overseeing growing ad dollars. Total audio revenue for Q1 FY25 of $100.4 million was up 4.8% compared to Q1 FY24, driven by growth of 48.2% in digital and 1.1% in broadcast radio. Both metro radio and digital audio have delivered three consecutive quarters of share growth (including Q1 FY25). Total revenue for Q1 FY25 of $122.3 million was up 1.5% compared to Q1 FY24.

This comes of the back of continued ratings leadership across metro markets with listeners 25-54.

Jo Clasby (NEW)

Director of Sales, Total Publishing, Nine

Clasby’s career so far has been bookended by roles at Nine. She worked there for 14 years until 2012, rising to the role of group business manager. She then headed to Bauer Media and Foxtel Media before returning to Nine in 2020.

One of her roles at the recent Nine Upfront was to highlight the new Good Food app. “Nine aims to continually evolve the app, adding new features and deeper integration with commercial partners,” said Clasby. “These include exclusive sponsorship opportunities, giving brands the chance to connect with users in meaningful ways while being associated with the most premium food brand in the country.”

Fiona Dear (NEW)

Director of News and Current Affairs, Nine

Formerly executive producer of A Current Affair, Dear succeeded Darren Wick in the role in mid-2024. Dear began her career as a work experience hire at WIN Wollongong and since those days has worked across the WIN Network from Wagga Wagga as a reporter to Canberra for WIN as a reporter and chief of staff.

Moving to Nine, Dear led the team at ACA for five and a half years including the handover from long time host Tracy Grimshaw to Ally Langdon who today presents the most-watched current affairs program in Australia. Dear now oversees the roster of Channel 9 programs from the 6pm News bulletins, breaking news teams, Today, A Current Affair and 60 Minutes.

Julian Delany

Chief Technology Officer, Data and Digital, News Corp Australia

News Corp Australia’s CTO was a guest speaker in August at ABC’s media innovation conference Futurecast 2024. The one-day conference, run by the ABC Innovation Lab, also featured ABC chair Kim Williams.

Delany spoke on a panel about power, technology, and media which was unsurprisingly about AI. Delany and his team are navigating the best path in AI for News Corp in Australia. The publisher continues to lead the market when it comes to news online.

In addition to having Australia’s biggest commercial news site, news.com.au, News Corp Australia is well represented in the top 20 news websites with the digital homes for The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun. Delany has overseen the design and implementation of the sites, keeping the look fresh and offering solutions to monetise the offerings.

Describing the key parts of his role, Delany previously told Mediaweek: “I’ve got three areas of work to focus on – technology, digital product, and data.” While he is no longer working at the “coalface” of news.com.au or the big Food Corp brands (including Taste.com.au), Delany noted, “The team and I are still accountable for how the digital product looks and feels.

“But it also about the plumbing on these sites and the data they generate. A stream of data that is essential for the content and sales teams to perform at their best.”