The restructure means there are no longer roles for ARN’s chief commercial officer Emma-Jayne Owens or Sydney and Brisbane commercial director Mason Rook.

Peter Whitehead, currently ARN’s commercial director Melbourne and Adelaide, will move into the role of chief commercial officer and he will join the executive leadership team. Whitehead will take up the national role immediately and will continue to be based in Melbourne.

Also being made redundant are HT&E’s chief revenue officer Tony Kendall (also a former ARN chief executive) and partnerships director Greg Tremain who are leaving the business.

Tony Kendall with Jo and Lehmo

After announcing the departures HT&E chief executive and managing director Ciaran Davis said: “I would sincerely like to thank EJ, Mason, Tony and Greg for their contribution to ARN and HT&E and we wish them all the very best.

“EJ joined us in 2017 in the newly created role of chief commercial officer and during her time at ARN was part of the executive team in renewing ARN’s vision and made progress in reviewing ARN’s commercial approach to market. Mason joined ARN a year ago and in that time has made a significant contribution to the Sydney and Brisbane markets.

“I would like to thank Tony and Greg for their tireless efforts in taking the group proposition to market and to Tony in particular for his previous leadership as CEO at ARN.

“I congratulate Peter on his new position as chief commercial officer. Pete has driven some great success in the Melbourne and Adelaide markets and we look forward to having him in this expanded role.

“As I’ve said recently, HT&E is a fantastic business with a portfolio of high quality investments, and a balance sheet the envy of the traditional media sector. These changes are a result of our objectives to optimise the cost structure, reduce corporate costs and ultimately set the business up for ongoing operational effectiveness and further growth.

“ARN underpins HT&E as a market leading radio business and I’m looking forward to working with all our team to achieve ARN’s vision to create the future of audio entertainment focussing on our strengths in content creation, audience delivery and our relationships with advertisers.”

—

Top Photo: Emma-Jayne Owens

Winner: Leigh Sales (ABC)

If Mediaweek readers voted ABC News as the Best News Brand, it makes sense that one of its highest-profile journalists receives this award.

People who value the ABC News offering also value the contribution from Leigh Sales and have voted accordingly.

Sales has a day job on the ABC primary channel and a number of other roles that helped to move our readers to choose her as the best.

That day job is the host of the daily current affairs show 7.30. After the 7pm edition of ABC News each day, 7.30 is usually the next most-watched program on the channel each weekday. Although the show is a collaborative effort from a big team, much of the attraction for audiences are the feature interviews that host Sales conducts.

A dual Walkley Award winner, Sales has interviewed dozens of world leaders and celebrities, from Australian prime ministers, Hillary Clinton, the Dalai Lama to Patti Smith, Harrison Ford and Julie Andrews. One of her most memorable in the past 12 months was with Paul McCartney.

Audiences wanting more of the Leigh Sales magic last year were able to download her podcasts with friend and colleague Annabel Crabb – Chat 10 Looks 3. Towards the end of 2018 they recorded a live podcast in front of fans in Melbourne. One host’s description of the podcast is:

A peripatetic podcast in which Leigh Sales and Annabel Crabb discuss what they’re reading, watching, cooking, listening to or irrationally exhilarated by.

One of them likes show tunes and is a monster who chucks books once she’s read them. The other one wrote this.

Sales also delivered a book to her publisher earlier in the year, which surfaced in October from Penguin Books:

Any Ordinary Day: Blindsides, Resilience and What Happens After the Worst Day of Your Life.

Penguin Books said Sales talks intimately with people who’ve faced the unimaginable, from terrorism to natural disaster to simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Expecting broken lives, she instead found strength, hope, even humour:

“Leigh brilliantly condenses the cutting-edge research on the way the human brain processes fear and grief, and poses the questions we too often ignore out of awkwardness. Along the way, she offers an unguarded account of her own challenges and what she’s learned about coping with life’s unexpected blows.

“Warm, candid and empathetic, this book is about what happens when ordinary people, on ordinary days, are forced to suddenly find the resilience most of us don’t know we have.”

Many viewers are disappointed that with Malcolm Turnbull no longer PM there are no more of the Sales v Turnbull clashes that made 7.30 such a must-watch. However Sales still confronts his successors and asks the hard questions.

There might be no more Malcolm, but there will be a federal election this year where the entertainment on election night on the ABC will include Sales and the channel’s election specialist Antony Green.

Second place: David Speers (Sky News)

The Sky News political editor is arguably the channel’s single most important asset. He and his Canberra colleagues have set the political agenda for many years and with Sky News turned on during the day viewers know they are not missing out on anything that happens in the nation’s capital.

The David Speers’ trophy cabinet includes three Walkley Awards, TV Week Logie and Kennedy Awards and numerous AACTA and ASTRA Awards.

He too published a book late in 2018 – Melbourne University Press published On Mutiny last October. “How did Scott Morrison emerge as Prime Minister? Why was Malcolm Bligh Turnbull removed?” Or as Lisa Wilkinson said in a blurb on the cover: “If you’re wondering WTF just happened in Australian politics.”

Mediaweek has been lucky enough to talk to Speers a number of times for written interviews and podcasts.

During 2018 we paired him with Sky News colleague Paul Murray where the two explained their different roles at the channel and misconceptions about how Sky News operates. Speers responded to comments Nine’s Chris Uhlmann made about Sky News:

“Chris Uhlmann is a mate and I respect him as a journalist. I have spoken to him about what he said and his views. I don’t disagree that Malcolm Turnbull did cop some pretty aggressive criticism. I think every prime minister who leaves office has made the same complaint though about copping some grief from a section of the media. Maybe it was a bit tougher on Turnbull in particular. What I don’t see evidence of is what Chris is suggesting in terms of what went on behind the scenes. Bullying, threats or intimidation to MPs – I know those people but I am not aware of any of that sort of behaviour.”

The good news is that Speers remains as Sky News’ Canberra ace under the channels new CEO in an election year – good times ahead.

Third place: Kate McClymont (The Sydney Morning Herald)

Kate McClymont takes to the podium

If Grey Hywood was the steadying hand on the executive level during years of turmoil at Fairfax Media, in the Sydney newsroom at least that role seems to have been filled at times by multi award-winning reporter Kate McClymont.

A prolific user of social media, McClymont’s tweets about her stories and what was happening at The SMH kept readers abreast and alert to the latest developments.

Just this week readers were reminded why they are so used to having her in the paper and online:

“I came back to the Herald in January 1990 after a two-year stint as a researcher at Four Corners #gulp. All up I have worked at the Herald for 32 years. Have loved every single minute (well almost).”

Her bylines have appeared on many of the big stories over those years.

In particular people alleged to have behaved badly from politicians to underworld figures to investigations into entertainers like Don Burke and Craig McLachlan.

McClymont has one seven Walkley Awards including a Gold Walkley in 2002.

Fourteen of its community newspapers relaunched this month in a compact tabloid format with cleaner design including new page one mastheads. It brings the newsprint editions in line to similar size of the existing gloss editions.

The decision to move to a smaller, friendlier format was based on reader feedback following extensive research. Sales teams met with clients over the last few months to ensure their support ahead of the change.

The first editions of the new Blacktown Advocate, Canterbury Bankstown Express, Central Coast Express Advocate, Central Sydney, Fairfield Advance, Hills Shire Times, Hornsby Advocate, Liverpool Leader, Macarthur Chronicle, Manly Daily, Northern District Times, Parramatta Advertiser, Penrith Press and Rouse Hill Times were delivered to over one million homes last week.

Over 100 people across News Corp Australia were involved in the project that touched all areas of the business to ensure smooth transition to the new format.

The change also meant an investment in new machinery for F-Press at Sydney Print Centre.

NewsLocal Publisher, John McGourty said: “While the size of our publications is changing, our commitment to our local communities is not.

“In the years ahead we will continue to be a trusted, proud voice in our community, advocating on behalf of our readers.

“For advertisers, the trusted environment that our newspapers offer will remain as strong as ever.

“Our newspapers play a critical role in the busy lives of our readers and to continue to deliver on our promise to readers and advertisers, we are evolving.”

In addition to the new format, NewsLocal has also launched a new brand campaign: Get Closer With Your Local.

The campaign slogan appears on every NewsLocal masthead and on house advertising and will soon be rolling out to static and digital street furniture and social media in the next few weeks.

The campaign was based on reader feedback saying how important local papers are to their sense of community pride and the critical role they play in their daily lives.

Each week, the celebrities will need to report to class. What happens next is up to their teacher, Mr Scott Tweedie.

But if the celebs think that their excursion from camp will be easier than convincing their parents to buy them Bacardi Breezer’s, Mr. Tweedie has a few surprises up his khaki sleeves.

The campmates will compete in a series of wickedly fun challenges for the chance to win The Golden Lunchbox. If successful, they will find all their playground favourites: muesli bars, bananas, juices and ham and cheese sangas.

After a week of rice and beans, with a side of warthog testicle, that lunchbox will mean everything to our hangry campmates.

“Chris and Julia do an astounding job starving and taking all our jungle celebs to almost-breaking-point, so it’s only fitting on a Saturday night I take it one step further with some of the most stupid games you’ve ever seen, so we can laugh at them even more,” said Scott.

Week 3 2019 – Summer schedule – Tuesday

By James Manning

Seven

No Big Bash League = smaller audience.

The Seven News remained a timeslot and Tuesday champ with 900,000 tuning in at 6pm and it was the #1 show for the night in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

Seven screened an episode of The Force at 7pm with under 500,000 watching.

The numbers then slipped below 350,000 for the 10th anniversary special of My Kitchen Rules. It was not the audience Seven wanted for the first appearance of the brand this year, but the real thing is yet to be unleashed.

Much earlier in the day, Seven remained on top at breakfast:

Breakfast TV Seven v Nine Week 3

Monday

Sunrise 427k (Metro 266k Regional 161k)

Today 311k (Metro 197k Regional 115k)

News Breakfast 173k* (Metro 103k Regional 70k)

Tuesday

Sunrise 444k (Metro 275k Regional 169k)

Today 303k (Metro 202k Regional 102k)

News Breakfast 163k* (Metro 100k Regional 64k)

Doesn’t include ABC News simulcast audience

Nine

The channel was again a winner with both primary and combined channel shares on the second night of the Australian Open.

The Tuesday tennis audiences were as follows:

• Day 2 evening 616,000
• Day 2 day 274,000
• Day 2 late 217,000

10

Reality was again a winner for the channel after 7.30pm where episode three of I’m A Celebrity was in clear control with 715,000. Although the numbers were down on previous nights, it was enough to convincingly win the timeslot, taking the scalps of both Nine’s Australian Open coverage and a My Kitchen Rules special on Seven.

Week one: I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!

• Monday 1.098m and 1.014m
• Tuesday: 890,000
• Wednesday: 732,000

The Project started low on 209,000, but as usual the numbers climbed dramatically after 7pm to 436,000.

Later in the night NCIS: Los Angeles did 211,000.

ABC

Foreign Correspondent was in the 8pm slot with 316,000.

A repeat of The Human Body: Secrets Of Your Life Revealed then was on 232,000.

SBS

Great American Railroad Journeys was the best on 215,000.