Business of Media
The NT News V Queensland: Raising the Northern Territory’s profile
The NT News this week triggered a war of words with key Queensland rivals after taking out mega-wraps in The Courier-Mail, Cairns Post, Townsville Bulletin and Toowoomba’s The Chronicle.
The campaign, on behalf of the NT Government, is designed to raise the Northern Territory’s profile in Queensland and boost its economic and population growth in an acceleration of the NT News’s strong advocacy for its region.
The three-page wrap included an ambush of the NT News’s rivals’ front pages, dominating them with a copy of the NT News superimposed on top and the headline “Special Report: NT Calling” to spark the battle for northern Australia.
Another two pages are dedicated to the “boundless opportunities” the NT offers to those Queenslanders willing to be swayed by the offer, and includes details of the major infrastructure work underway to enhance the NT’s liveability as well as a note from NT News editor, Matt Williams.
Renee Sycamore, general manager at News Corp Australia’s newsamp business, said the campaign reflected the specialised skills of the team and how harnessing News Corp. Australia’s news brands and tapping into their natural competitiveness leads to strong client outcomes.
“This campaign leverages the long-held rivalry between Territorians and Queenslanders, especially in Queensland’s far north. Our mastheads are equally competitive and are superb advocates for their regions. The campaign really revels in this rivalry and is designed to get people talking.
“Our Queensland editorial teams are already hitting back on morning television with the NT defending its position.
“This campaign is also a clear demonstration of the type of seamless solutions newsamp provides clients by combining News Corp Australia’s highly engaged audience network with our content expertise and data intelligence.”
Sycamore said the campaign was centred on transforming people’s misconceptions about the Northern Territory, highlighting the abundance of career opportunities and lifestyle options on offer.
NT News editor Matt Williams said: “The Northern Territory is poised to capitalise on its huge potential. As the most influential media organisation in the NT, it is our duty to promote the Territory as a wonderful place to live, work and play. Home to some of the world’s most iconic tourism destinations, the Territory is also a place that offers incredible career opportunities.
“This why today we are using our well-known masthead and saying to Queenslanders looking for a career and lifestyle change, we want you.”
Publishing
Byron Bay vibes power WILD Universal Media magazine launch
Universal Media Group has this week launched a new title that comes to readers via Byron Bay – WellBeing WILD.
He publisher has said the title is targeted to millennial women, claiming WellBeing WILD is something new on the publishing landscape. “The younger sister of WellBeing magazine, WILD is a journal for positive living.”
A branding statement from Universal said: The WellBeing WILD Mindset – Pragmatic Positivity.
The publisher added: “WellBeing WILD is a new publication for the curious – the thought leaders, belief shakers, paradigm shifters and paradise creators.”
Editor Kate Duncan explained, “WellBeing WILD is for those going against the grain, swimming upstream, standing boldly in the arena, asking the hard questions and doing the prickly work – on themselves and the way they create their lives.”
Duncan added the new title gives a voice to a generation that, “works hard to create a life filled with purpose, passion and freedom. This is a WILD life.”
She noted that while news media obsesses over smashed avocado stereotypes, the spending power of millennials grows each year.
“WILD readers are forming households, developing careers, having babies and building lives that integrate lessons from the past with how they visualise their future,” said Duncan.
“They want to find paradise – within themselves and in their day-to-day lives – and will work hard until it happens. WellBeing WILD is for those who resist the status quo and believe wholeheartedly in change, doing everything they can to create it. It’s for those who embrace the murky unknown, despite how uncomfortable it might make them feel. Ultimately, WILD exists to awaken the energy inside of you that inspires you to take action.”
WellBeing WILD is the creation of Kate Duncan, an entrepreneurial media professional who lives and works from a home studio in Byron Bay. She has worked as a photographer and writer and has spent seven years at WellBeing.
WellBeing WILD is available in Australia and New Zealand for RRP $12 in newsagencies, airport retail, Coles stores and online.
News Brands
Swedish newspaper stops taking adverts from fossil fuel firms
A Swedish newspaper has announced it will stop taking advertising that promotes fossil fuel-based goods and services with immediate effect, reports The Guardian.
The editor of the daily Dagens ETC said the decision was “crucial for our credibility”. He urged other media outlets to consider doing the same.
The ETC, which launched in 2014, is a daily paper and online newspaper. Its editor-in-chief, Andreas Gustavsson, said the decision was taken by the owner, the board, the marketing department and the 25 editors and reporters on its staff.
He said the decision would hit the paper’s finances. “But I am also convinced that this will prove to be a wise decision in the long term,” said Gustavsson.
Dagens ETC, based in Stockholm, has about 10,000 daily subscribers and more than 60,000 unique readers a week, according to Gustavsson. Its funding comes from a mixture of reader subscriptions, advertising and the government support offered to papers across Sweden.
Sports Media
US-based fan club: Pimco bond titans buy into GWS Giants
Meet the mystery American bond traders who are in charge of hundreds of billions of investor dollars globally, but have quietly been putting their own millions into the GWS Giants, reports The Australian’s John Stensholt.
Market gurus and Pimco executives Dan Ivascyn, the Boston-born “bond prince”, and New York-based Marc Seidner will both be in Australia by Saturday morning in time to see the Giants clash with Richmond in the AFL grand final at the MCG.
The sports-loving pair maintain an extremely low profile when it comes to their passion for Australian rules football, but are understood to have also backed the Giants financially and become an integral part of the club’s off-field operations.
That has extended to having close relationships with Giants president Tony Shepherd and chief executive Dave Matthews, and coach Leon Cameron. They are also, accordingly to one AFL insider, a “significant” part of the group of anonymous corporate supporters who have stumped up $2.5m annually to buy naming rights for the club’s home ground, known as Giants Stadium since the beginning of the year.
“It is important to say what they are doing is sports philanthropy and is on their own and not with their company’s brand attached to it,” GWS president Tony Shepherd told The Australian.
“They have fallen in the love with the game, and with the team, and we are blessed to have these sort of people involved with the Giants.”
Radio
The ‘ogre’ behind the microphone: in the studio with Alan Jones
Alan Jones is known more for his sharp-tongued rants on radio than his sense of humour. Nevertheless, when he emerges after the first hour on-air at Macquarie Media’s studio in the Sydney suburb of Pyrmont the first thing he says is a joke, reports Jennifer Duke.
“Here comes the ogre,” he says. “Are you surprised I don’t have horns?”
It’s just after 6am and The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have been invited into Jones’ inner sanctum ahead of an extensive interview. It comes as the 78-year-old 2GB presenter endures the most turbulent year in his career to date.
One change in the weeks since his comments about Ardern is the introduction of extra “dump” buttons in the studio by the radio network’s management.
These bright red icons on several computer monitors allow producers to take advantage of a seven-second delay and stop damaging material from going to air. A review of 2GB is still underway, which the producers say so far involves reminding everyone in the team of their responsibilities when it comes to inappropriate content.
[As to his relationship with Nine management, Jones said:]
“I would have had two conversations with [chairman] Peter Costello this year because I think both of us regarded that was proper. I’ve had one conversation with [Nine chief executive] Hugh Marks.
“I’m under contract and everything here but if I left tomorrow it wouldn’t affect me,” he says. “I’m well off. I can manage … But I do feel a high sense of responsibility to the people around here [who have mortgages and children].
“That’s the one thing I never think about … I’ll be as bored as all hell.”
Triple M Network to celebrate Aussie Music this October
The Triple M Network is to deliver another month celebrating Aussie music with the return of Oztober across all stations including Triple M Aussie on DAB+.
Each day of October, Triple M will celebrate the greatest hits from Aussie artists.
Australian music icon Dave “Gleeso” Gleeson from The Screaming Jets will be hosting a daily show, divulging in the untold stories from the Australian music world and rehashing legendary gigs on the Oztober Lunch across the national Triple M Network.
Triple M’s head of music Mickey Maher said: “For almost 40 years Triple M has proudly supported Australian artists and their music. From the icon heritage names like Jimmy Barnes, Paul Kelly and AC/DC to more recent and newer Australian acts like Amy Shark, Dean Lewis, Kingswood and Tori Forsyth.
“Oztober amplifies all that is great about Australian music; the stories, the songs and the artists behind them.”
The month-long celebration will conclude with an epic Oztober Garage Session hosted by Triple M in Melbourne. Australia wide, the Triple M Network will be giving its audience the chance to win tickets to the ultimate Aussie experience with exclusive live performances.
The Aussie greats who will be joining the 2019 Garage Session will be The Angels, Baby Animals, Diesel and Boom Crash Opera.
For a chance to win an exclusive invitation to the Oztober Garage Session, listen to Triple M throughout the month of October. Winners will be announced daily on national drive show, Kennedy Molloy.
Gold’s Christian O’Connell tests the passion of Tigers and Giants fans
Melbourne’s biggest Tigers fan, Stratos Antinou from Meadow Heights, and biggest Giants fan, Kieran Grey from Hallam, are about as bold as they come, with the two men agreeing to a proposal from Gold’s Christian O’Connell to wrap every single panel of their cars in their teams colours, with a message declaring them as the Premiers, and driving around Melbourne… before the Grand Final was decided!
The catch is – the owner of the losing team’s car is stuck with his car wrapped for at least a week after the Grand Final – opening him up to all kinds of bizarre reactions as he goes about his daily life in Melbourne post-finals.
The two men proved their dedication when they called into Gold 104.3’s Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show earlier this week, as it reached out to listeners to find the Tigers and Giants fan willing to Put Your Colours Where Your Car Is and go where no one else would go for their team. Stratos and Kieran were the clear winners.
Stratos’ and Kieran’s vehicles were taken away for 24 hours to be wrapped by Wrap Studio and Metamark, and returned to them last night.
Stratos and Kieran had the opportunity to drive their newly wrapped cars down to Nine’s Live Grand Final Footy Show broadcast from Rod Laver Arena, doing a few laps to the amazement of onlookers, and giving the Gold breakfast show some wonderful exposure.