By Kruti Joshi

This meant many late nights in the office. Therefore, it was a big lifestyle change in 2015 when he took up a job as a breakfast presenter on Adelaide’s only talkback station FIVEaa.

“Going to bed early sucks and I am not a morning person. With newspapers, particularly in Sydney, I was rarely home before 11pm. Now, I am barely awake after 11pm,” Penberthy told Mediaweek. “That has been a hard and weird transition.”

However, after four years in breakfast radio, one would think he is used to it.

“I can’t lie, I am bloody hopeless. I have gotten to the studio at two minutes to six on a number of occasions,” he said. “Then there was also that one infamous day where my phone died overnight and I didn’t get in until 6:40am. Will has never let me live that down.”

Will Goodings is Penberthy’s on-air partner, who comes from a political background. Prior to becoming a radio presenter, Goodings was the senior advisor for some of South Australia’s top politicians.

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To celebrate the return of night racing to Australian soil for the first time in over 20 years, Mostert and Winterbottom upgraded their usual race suits for a glow-in-the-dark version, squaring off in a friendly Supercars racing challenge.

Russell Ingall commentates at the Supercars SuperNight 300 launch

It was a close race, but Winterbottom took home the crown on the night.

The inaugural Red Rooster Sydney SuperNight 300 cranks into gear tomorrow, with every practice, qualifying session and race live, ad break-free and exclusive on Fox Sports, on Foxtel.

The new race format will feature a single 300km race run in a three-hour window from 7.20pm EST on Saturday.

On the return of night racing, Winterbottom said: “It’s great to re-live history 20 years on and do it again. I can’t wait. I think under lights it showcases our sport to the next level and Saturday night in Sydney, under lights, it doesn’t get much better than that.

“Plus 300 points, one race in the evening, it’s a completely different feel. I’m really excited and I can’t wait to get out there.”

Before the action starts there will be a special 90-minute edition of Supercars Trackside, live from Sydney Motorsport Park at 4.30pm tomorrow.

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Top Photo: Chaz Mostert, Russell Ingall and Mark Winterbottom

The landmark deal, which gives Fox Sports and MCN exclusive commercial rights to the app through advertising and sponsorship space, is set to solidify the network’s already strong relationship with surfing.

Under the relaunched app, which is now available on both iOS and android smartphones, Foxtel will be able to market directly to a large body of prospective subscribers, with the popular surfing app having amassed over 500,000 downloads since its creation.

Fox Sports’ head of digital Brad Schultz said: “Surfing has always been a part of Fox Sports’ DNA and we’re delighted to partner with Australia’s most popular surfing platform.

“Coastalwatch already has over 3.6 million unique visitors logging in every year, and Fox Sports will now provide access to more surfers, with the app now free to download.

“Surfing and sport go hand-in-hand in Australian culture. The focus of this partnership is to grow the sport, and to explore ways to tap into Coastalwatch’s engaged audience to grow Foxtel.”

Both partners will market the newly launched app through their owned and syndicated properties to help grow surfing in Australia.

Coastalwatch will continue to operate the app, with Fox Sports providing user experience and product support. Fox Sports will also look to supplement the existing news section within the app, with additional content produced by Fox Sports News.

The new app will compliment Fox Sports’ suite of single sport apps including Fox League and Fox Footy.

Fox Sports has enjoyed a long partnership with surfing, having been the first broadcaster in the world to show a World Surf League Championship Tour event live from start-to-finish.

Fox Sports continues to deliver every World Surf League event on both the men’s and women’s Championship Tours, along with the Big Wave World Tour events and the groundbreaking new wave pool events.

Fox Sports also partners with Surfing Australia to support its world-first club-based national competition, The Australian Boardriders Battle, the grassroots Surf Groms program, and its quest to bring home gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics.

By Andrew Mercado

Amidst a string of returning reality shows (Australian Survivor, The Block, The Bachelor), Seven is always trying something new. Launching a new format is always a worry but sometime it captures the public’s imagination and scores big, like Australian Ninja Warrior and Little Big Shots did last year (although all eyes will be on LBS this weekend to see if it returns with more than half its audience like ANW did). Others, like The Single Wives, struggle from night one, although catch-up viewing online may well prove to be enough for Seven to renew (given it is bringing back the universally panned Yummy Mummies under similar circumstances).

Dance Boss is a big shiny dancefloor format and when they say new, they mean it. This is an original in-house production from Seven, which means host Dannii Minogue talks up its World Premiere status and how the winning group will be the first one ever. Dannii gets pretty excited about it all and why not? Judges Sharni Vinson, Adam Garcia and Timomatic are all up for a bit of fun and have been perfectly cast as her offsiders. They all know their stuff and, without a desk to sit behind, they are free to jump up and bust a move themselves.

Seven wants you to believe this all takes place on the top floor of some circular city skyscraper, hence its round and bizarrely futuristic-looking set. But the real bum note is an uncomfortable focus on the bottom-ranked team. It is forced to stand around in an “On Notice” section while nervously watching each new act, hoping it will score worse than they did.

Luckily, none of this matters much because, once the dancing starts, this show is beautiful to watch. Familiar workplace groups like “ambos” and “public servants” are represented, although the “marketing guys” may not be as recognisable to those with actual marketing degrees, given marketing now seems to consist of handing out free samples and flyers. What is more authentic is that these “everyday Australians” are multicultural and with some disabilities, none of which is obvious once the routine begins.

Dance Boss isn’t quite a Dancing With The Stars yet, but it’s no Everybody Dance Now either. Instead, this could be the new So You Think You Can Dance and it deserves to be a big hit with the family audience it is aimed at.

Meanwhile on Doctor Doctor, the Aussie drama returns to Nine with the death of its boss. Rural property patriarch Jim Knight (Steve Bisley) is no more, leaving his family with plenty of new drama to deal with this season. Although it is sad for any series to lose the legendary Biso, he played a country bloke who never had much to say. So in a way, he won’t be missed and he leaves behind a much more talkative widow, Meryl (Tina Bursill). One also assumes his two sons (Rodger Corser and Ryan Johnson) are going to be butting heads over his assets. Whoever ends up boss, let’s hope they can dance to so they can enter Dance Boss next year as “the farmers”.

• Russell misreads the Aussie game
• Elimination #2: Russell, 45, USA

Aussies don’t like a big star, and for the second time in two nights a would-be tall poppy was eliminated.

When Survivor USA villain Russell realised he was on the outside of his tribe, he decided to make a massive power move by showing the rest of his team his idol. Shocked, his fellow Champions were forced to contemplate another option for their vote.

Confident in his plans, Russell said: “I am the master manipulator. It’s amazing how good I am at this game.” Oh dear…

At the immunity challenge, the two tribes faced a massive relay that involved a sprint through water, a massive climb, dive and shooting hoops. The Contenders streaked ahead early and despite a valiant effort from Steve Willis to catch up for the Champions, the Contenders held on to their lead, giving them their first Immunity win.

Drama bubbled away at the first Tribal Council for the Champions, as rugby league legend Mat and criminal barrister Sharn came forward as natural leaders for the tribe. Wearing his idol proudly around his neck, Russell felt confident in his position in the tribe, despite the taunts from Moana.

After their votes were cast, host Jonathan LaPaglia asked the tribe if anyone had an idol they would like to play. When Russell refused to play the one around his neck, he became vulnerable to the result.

A tied-vote between Russell and poker player Jackie sent the tribe back to the voting urn where an overwhelming number decided to send the Texan home.

By Peter Olszewski

Discovery appoints new Southeast Asia general manager

Anna Pak Burdin

Following the merger of Discovery with Scripps Networks Interactive in early March, Discovery has now appointed Anna Pak Burdin as its Southeast Asian general manager. Pak Burdin will be based in Singapore, reporting to JB Perrette, president and CEO of Discovery Networks International. Her job will be to increase Discovery’s presence in the region and to expand the company products, with a particular focus on digital properties to capitalise on Southeast Asia’s ever growing numbers of digitally savvy consumers. Pak Burdin is a Discovery veteran, having held several senior roles including running the company in Eastern Europe, taking in Russia, the Baltics, Ukraine, and Central Asia. Most recently she was with the National Media Group, the largest media company in Russia and a partner of Discovery, where she was managed pay-TV distribution. Previously, she had executive roles at Eurosport, KidsCo TV, and EuroNews. At Discovery, she replaces Shavkat Berdiev, who held the role since 2016.

Civil Media and Splice to launch Asian media startup fund

New York-headquartered Civil Media, a blockchain-based journalism organisation soon to launch its own CTV crypto-tokens, will jointly launch a US$1 million dollar fund for 100 Asian media startups over the next three years with Singapore-based The Splice Newsroom. Splice will manage the fund and Splice co-founder and CEO Alan Soon told TechCrunch that it is still to be figured out if financing will be by grants or equity-based investments. He told TechCrunch that deals will be “pre-seed, micro-investments to help entrepreneurs take their ideas to prototype stage.”

New series of Celebrity Car Wars to be launched in Asia in September

A+E Networks Asia will launch the new season of HISTORY Asia’s original production and award-winning automotive reality series Celebrity Car Wars in September, sponsored by Caltex. This will be the show’s third series and production and filming were recently completed in the Philippines. Among the six regional celebrities who will compete in the new series are Australian actor, singer, and model Matthew Deane and his wife and competitor Lydia Sarunrat, a Thai R&B idol and actress. US actor Bobby Tonelli hosts the new series, and guest mentors, professional race drivers Gaby dela Merced and Michele Bumgarner, are back in the new series.

Leading Thailand healthcare group signs new ad deal with CNN

Thailand’s largest private healthcare group, Bangkok Dusit Medical Services (BDMS), has partnered with CNN International Commercial for the fourth consecutive year. The healthcare group has extended the partnership for 2018/19 to include sponsorship of a new show, Live Longer, hosted by CNN’s Emmy award-winning chief medical correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta. Live Longer launched on July 28 with a 30-minute episode, which will be followed by eight monthly segments. The show will conclude with a final 30-minute episode in February 2019. The healthcare group’s partnership with CNN also continues its sponsorship of flagship news program Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN International’s Asia feed.

Streaming service HOOQ’s new appointments to boost local content

South-East Asian OTT video streaming service HOOQ has appointed Bryan Seah as its head of original productions, and Tina Arwin as its head of content, Indonesia. Seah will be based at HOOQ headquarters in Singapore, and Arwin will work in the Jakarta office. Before HOOQ, Seah was head of original content at Discovery Network, overseeing original branded content for companies including Nestlé, Audi and Samsung. He has also produced programs for Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, NHK and TLC. Tina Arwin was previously head of content and programming at Viu Indonesia and has also worked for MTV Indonesia, Fremantlemedia, Astro Indonesia and Vivasky. HOOQ chief content officer Jennifer Batty said the hirings were part of HOOQ’s local content expansion, including original productions with the inaugural run of HOOQ Filmmakers Guild.

SPH and Times Publishing to launch digital magazine redemption cards

Singapore Press Holdings Magazines and Times Publishing have launched the sale of digital magazine redemption cards at all Times bookstores. The cards allow users to redeem digital magazines of either a single issue or a three-month subscription with 15 SPH magazine titles, including Men’s Health, The Singapore Women’s Weekly, and Home & Décor. To redeem, readers go online and activate the account using a code found on the card. This initiative follows the announcement in early March of the partnership between Times Publishing Ltd and SPH Magazines to digitise and distribute titles electronically. Times Publishing Group is a premier Asian media group, owned by Fraser and Neave. The group integrates several leading brands including Marshall Cavendish, Times Printers, Pansing, Times bookstores and GoGuru.

Beijing elevator ad company with 80% market share raises more funding

Beijing-based elevator advertising company Tikin Media, which is now operating outside China, has raised a RMB120 million (A$17.6 million) Series A+ round led by Sequoia Capital China, and joined by IDG Capital and Baidu Ventures. Tikin Media started up in 2017 and provides ad services in elevators in office buildings. The advertising displays are placed on elevators, and play automatically when elevator doors open. Tikin Media founder and CEO Ren Bin says the company has gained an 80% market share in the Chinese elevator advertising industry by providing a less costly alternative to advertising firms. Tikin has placed advertisements in more than 25,000 elevators in cities in China as well as major cities outside China – the company began marketing outside China earlier this year. China’s outdoor advertising market was worth RMB117.4 billion (A$23 billion) in 2016 and is forecast to post RMB144.4 billion for 2017.

Tencent clear leader in China’s subscription OTT video market

Tencent Video is the leader in China’s subscription OTT video market and will continue to outperform rivals iQiyi and Youku in coming years, according to eMarketer, which predicts that 24.0% of China’s digital video viewers will subscribe to Tencent Video in 2018, and surpass 29% by 2020. Content investment has been a key element for the so-called BAT companies – Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. Alibaba’s Youku has led in content spending so far this year and picked up the rights to the FIFA World Cup. eMarketer predicts that this will boost Youku’s subscriber base by 55.0% this year, and by the end of next year Youku will overtake iQiyi in second place for digital viewer share. Almost 229 million Chinese people in China will watch video via a subscription streaming service this year and by 2022, more than a quarter of the population will use an OTT service.

Mediaweek Asia: In Brief

• CNN Digital is seeking a news enthusiast with a fascination for Asia and beyond to join the digital team in Hong Kong. The successful candidate must have a deep understanding of what makes a good digital news story that can engage audiences on different platforms in different parts of the world, and needs to deliver breaking news with speed and accuracy.

• Tokenised social engagement platform JET8, which has offices in Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, South Africa, and Spain, has appointed Marthin Romero as director of growth and development in Indonesia. Before joining JET8, Romero was sales and corporate marketing director for Masima Radio Network, overseeing marketing for 18 radio stations in nine Indonesian cities.

Marthin Romero

• Southeast Asian-based video streamer iflix has joined forces with two Indonesian agencies to promote and showcase young Indonesian artists in music and entertainment. The new initiative will consist of five film projects to be jointly developed and produced by iflix, the Indonesian Agency for Creative Economy, and the Indonesian Film Board.

• A recent study – PayPal’s Global Freelancer Survey – showed that 58% of freelancers surveyed in four Southeast Asian markets have at times not been paid for their work and services. Paypal conducted an online survey of 1,602 freelancers from Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

• Singapore Press Holdings will streamline its digital advertising sales with Lineup’s Adpoint, a cloud-based media sales solution that doesn’t require a complex IT infrastructure to deploy and maintain. Ad booking for SPH digital media channels will also directly interface with Google’s DFP Adserver for instant inventory availability checking, product management, reservations and campaign revisions.

• Outdoor Channel (Asia) has today announced its launch on CAST, Singtel’s OTT app that “combines the flexibility of live TV and video streaming apps with on-demand entertainment”. Outdoor Channel (Asia) is owned and operated by Multi Channels Asia, and is available in more than 10 million households in Asia and more than 45 million households globally.

By Peter Olszewski

In July last year it opened a Singapore office partly because, as co-founder and CTO Tim Moylan says with political topicality, the company tax rate in Singapore is an attractive inducement.

Shootsta’s entry into Singapore came on the heels of Foreign Affairs minister Julie Bishop officially launching the federal government’s landing pad for Australian startups in Singapore in mid-March, 2017, with Shootsta CEO and co-founder Mike Pritchett saying at the time that Singapore was a “very big place to start” for Australians wanting to break into Asia.

Tim Moylan tells Mediaweek, “Singapore was a natural progression from Australia with many large brands having a Singapore HQ or office, so leveraging the existing client base was a good launching pad.”

He added that Singapore’s welcoming attitude to startups also played a big part in the decision.

“The Singapore government made it easy to set up a business there with the ability to employ people, and it also has a much better company tax rate,” he says.

Since opening in Singapore, the company now has a team of seven covering sales, customer success, strategy, training and editing.

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By James Manning

Seven

Home And Away had its smallest audience of the week with 613,000.

The Single Wives remains in the 7.30pm slot, but only on Thursday this week, with 293,000.

The Front Bar had a strong night with a network audience of 362,000 and a massive 274,000 in Melbourne. The episode, which attracted the biggest audience this year, featured special guests Bob Murphy, Simon Black and Luke Darcy.

Nine

Reporter Dan Nolan filed a special report on the drought on A Current Affair for the audience of 738,000.

Thursday night NRL did 216,000 in Sydney and 165,000 in Brisbane.

The AFL Footy Show took a hammering again last night from The Front Bar with an average audience of 139,000 in Melbourne, which was close to half the number watching what must now be Seven’s most successful footy entertainment show.

TEN

Pointless did just 222,000 for the channel toward the end of its second week.

The Project then did 279,000 and 502,000. Guests included Jamie Oliver and Ed Oxenbould plus Peter Helliar visited Russell Coight on location.

Episode two of Australian Survivor saw the Champions head to tribal council for the first time. Aussies don’t like a loud mouth or a show off, so it was perhaps no surprise that the much hyped US Survivor superstar Russell Hantz was sent home at the first opportunity they had to vote. It reminded some viewers of the brief appearance of Anthony Mundine on I’m A Celebrity earlier this year. The second Survivor 2018 episode also performed for TEN with 615,000 watching, which gave it wins in total people and key demographics.

A repeat of Law & Order: SVU then did 239,000.

ABC

Grand Designs Australia did 472,000 followed by Everyone’s A Critic on 241,000.

The late night repeat of Victoria did 143,000.

SBS

It’s not often Michael Portillo gets moved out of 7.30pm Thursday. However, he has lost that slot to Sir Tony Robinson for three weeks with the arrival of Britain’s Ancient Tracks. The first episode did 335,000. (Portillo’s Great British Railway Journeys is on Wednesday nights at present.)

Next was a repeat of Alcatraz: Escaping The Rock on 223,000.