July has been a massive month for sport on Nine’s different platforms. So far there have been big audiences for Wimbledon and the rugby international series Australia v France. There is more rugby this week and of course State of Origin rugby league too.

Sport is a key driver for Nine’s broadcast strategy and keeps new chief executive Mike Sneesby busy.

The pace hasn’t slowed for Sneesby since he settled into the CEO chair earlier in 2021, replacing Hugh Marks. After the IT meltdown on his first weekend in the role, he has been on a tour to better understand each part of the company and their teams. That exercise hasn’t been helped by lockdown in different states with head office now a mix of those who need to be in the office and others working remotely. Sneesby told us he is doing a bit of both.

The past week has included a significant executive reshuffle of the publishing division, the first major personnel change since Sneesby’s promotion.

The lockdowns in Melbourne and now a longer one in Sydney haven’t hurt the company’s audience figures. Particularly the recent sporting highlights on FTA and something Sneesby understands very well, Stan Sport. This past fortnight alone viewers to Nine and Stan Sport have been consuming State of Origin, rugby union tests and Wimbledon.

“Those recent events are a really important demonstration of Nine’s strategy in total television,” Sneesby told Mediaweek. “In particular what we are doing with sports television. Tennis and rugby in particular are two sports that fit into the total TV strategy where we acquired all rights with a distribution model that sits across subscription streaming with Stan as well as free and ad-funded on Nine and 9Now.

“Being able to acquire rights for both platforms makes it a viable proposition for those platforms. This past week in particular, with both sports running, you have seen the numbers of Stan Sport accelerating.”

Stan Sport audience update

The last time Stan Sport revealed subscriber numbers was in May this year and the number was 150,000. Sneesby was reluctant to reveal the exact number, apart from saying it was bigger. He did note again that the total Stan audience is 2.3m+ active accounts with 6m+ of the 8.5m Australian households having a Stan account.

Sneesby did say: “The number I am happy to give away is that the Stan Sport audience number on Wednesday night for the rugby union Australia v France was over 200,000 on top of the Nine and 9Now audience.”

The rugby union audience on 9Gem in metro markets that night was 323,000.

“That Stan audience is attracted by it being ad-free. The strategy is clearly working for both platforms and is complimentary. There is no other television business in Australia that has the breadth of assets that Nine has across Nine and Stan when it comes to the ability to distribute sport.”

Sneesby noted Nine is also setting the pace when it comes to global TV strategy. “There is no other live streaming business who is doing something similar. This strategy is unique to Nine. Free TV is giving the sport reach, with Stan being there for the subscriber who wants to see every single game, ad-free in high definition, live and on demand.”

Sneesby said Stan is not urgently seeking more sport to give it year-round activity. “When we negotiate sports rights, every sport has to make sense and be profitable in its own right. We look at each sport and what it would bring to us in terms of subscriber numbers. We don’t have a strategy that says we have to have a certain number of sports to be successful.”

Regarding the Stan Sport pricing model, where customers join Stan and then add the sport package, Sneesby said it has received a fantastic response from consumers. “The best way to measure that is that consumers are signing up because they like the model. Two thirds of Australian households have a Stan account. Stan is already immensely popular and with $10 to add sport it is a very small price for consumers. The subscription numbers indicate it is the right price for them to be paying.”

Here comes UEFA

That $10 for Stan Sport also includes the first content from the UEFA deal next month. After Optus Sport farewelled the rights with the Italy v England match on the weekend, UEFA arrives at Stan Sport next month.

Sneesby: “The past weekend has shown us what UEFA offers. Every season will bring a different wave of emotions and that is what you will see on Stan Sport.”

Stan Sport’s exclusive UEFA coverage will begin with the 2021-22 UEFA Super Cup match between 2020-21 UEFA Champions League winners Chelsea and Villarreal, winners of the 2020-21 UEFA Europa League – kicking off on Thursday, 12 August (AEST).

With Stan Sport and Nine now competing with Seven, 10 and Foxtel/Fox Sports for content, sports have never had it so good. Have rights costs gone up? “We have a good understanding of what is the right amount to pay. Even in the short time since we started Stan Sport, we have walked away from a number of different sports rights opportunities because the numbers did not stack up for us. The platform is presently working for us. If we acquire additional sport they need to fit our commercial model.”

The IMAA, the national, not for profit industry association for independent media agencies launched last year.

Since then it has continued to grow its membership base and make a series of big announcements, including its trade credit deal and a number of new media partners.

Mediaweek has been profiling members of the IMAA – previous features can be found here. This week we spoke to the director of Saint Mob Media Mark O’Brien.

O’Brien was originally from Melbourne and started his career as a company accountant, but moved into media after only 6 weeks.

He eventually transferred to Sydney in the 90’s and worked across WPP and OMG agencies. Before spending 11 years at Frontier. O’Brien then started Sain Mob Media in September 2020.

He started off with an impressive list of foundation clients that included ClubsNSW, NSW Minerals Council, Jumbuck KFC franchisees NSW and Billy Lou Kids Shoes

“Coming from dealing with group agencies where it was more about negotiations and a lot less client contact and a lot more media contact, and then moving into an independent media where there was more client contact as opposed to media contact, being close to clients allowed me to start the business up,” O’Brien told Mediaweek.

“Once you develop a trust with the clients then they tend to back you, and I had a few that wanted to come with me when I started up myself, and I brought them into Frontier 10 or 11 years ago so it gave me a little stable to start off with.”

Since the launch less than a year ago Saint Mob Media has also added clients such as East33 Oysters, T Magazine, KFC franchisee group Victoria, Makita, and Brighte. O’Brien believes the reason for his success is having contact with a network of individuals.

“Over the last five or ten years, I have met a lot of individual operators who I have worked with either for clients or other agencies. I think having contact with that network has helped because it is not a case of me pounding the footpath and knocking doors down, I think it is more of a case of me being given a heads up by the network to say ‘this could be good for you, I have put you forward’ type of thing.”

Since Saint Mob Media was set up in September, the agency has bought its media direct through Horgs at OMD, which O’Brien said has been a valuable set-up.

“OMD was great because they just have great systems and I know the people that work in the systems there quite well and have been dealing with them for 20 or 30 years. Everything works and there is a lot of good communication there, so it’s good to have that sort of backing and processes in place when things go wrong.”

Despite O’Brien’s main background as a national investment director for large companies like WPP, when asked about what his agency specialises in he said it is a hands-on approach.

“Just being a touchpoint for the clients and understanding what’s going on.”

O’Brien also mentioned a quote that he received from Alan Scash, 13 years ago.

“Stay close to the client first, they are the ones that matter, the media will always be there”

Being a member of the IMAA

O’Brien described himself as fortunate to have seen the founding seeds of the IMAA in February of 2020 when he was with Frontier.

“When I moved into my own shop, IMAA was just a great way of being networked. What they have got on the plans are great and we really need help with them especially with training and reputation.

“And it gives us the ability to feed off each other which is terrific, it is refreshing to have honest conversations with everyone.”

There was no new arrival the top 10 on the Top 100 Podcast Ranker chart although the most popular podcasts from LiSTNR, ARN and Nova all moved up one pace in the top 10 – Hamish and Andy, Life Uncut and The Update.

The Podcast Ranker charts provide data the Top 100 Podcasts as well as the Top 10 Publishers in Australia from 1 June through 30 June, 2021, as measured by Triton’s Podcast Metrics measurement service.

A number of new entities appear in the Top 100 Podcast Ranker this reporting period including 99% Invisible (Stitcher Media), Breakfast with Vossy (Sports Entertainment Network SEN), and The New South Wales Briefing as well as Roo and Ditts for Breakfast (SCA). Casefile True Crime (Audioboom) remained in the #1 spot as the most downloaded podcast in the country this reporting period.

As for the All-Australian Top 100 Ranker, new entities this reporting period include Halfternoons with Those Two Girls, Your Morning Agenda with Natarsha Belling, and Forty (SCA – LiSTNR). Casefile True Crime (Audioboom) also remained in the #1 spot as the most downloaded Australian podcast in the country.

The biggest mover in the Top 100 overall was ARN’s Revisionist History which lifted 28 places to #65.

The biggest movers in the Top 100 Australian podcasts were SCA’s Roo and Ditts for Breakfast and Podshape’s Your Morning Mantra with both climbing the chart 23 places.

Total downloads of all shows by all participating publishers in the month of June is 50m, with the last four months all over 48m.

Participating publishers in the Australian Ranker include ARN/iHeartMedia, Audioboom, Babyology, Equity Mates, Kinderling Kids Radio, News Corp Australia, Nine, Nova, Podshape, Schwartz Media, Southern Cross Austereo, Sports Entertainment Network, Stitcher Media, TOFOP Productions, Wavelength Creative, West Australian Newspapers, and Wondery.

SCA has the biggest number of active podcasts with 403. ARN had the most monthly downloads with 12,188,466.

See also: Podcast Ranker May 2021: Acast’s Equity Mates highest new entry

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Taboola has announced a new three-year strategic partnership with Weatherzone, a DTN company. The partnership includes Taboola’s content discovery feature Taboola Feed, plus Taboola Video and Taboola News.

Weatherzone is Australia’s largest private weather service, reaching one in five Australians each month with weather forecasts, news and insights. In addition to its consumer services, Weatherzone provides operational intelligence to business, corporate and government clients across 15 industries including energy, travel, insurance, agriculture, retail, and mining. 

Taboola’s content recommendation tool will be rolled out across the Weatherzone website (www.weatherzone.com.au) and its mobile apps, integrating the Taboola Feed, enabling users to access content recommendations, and Taboola News for new audience engagement opportunities. 

Weatherzone will also integrate Taboola Video, allowing audiences to watch high-visibility videos, boosting engagement and user experience.

Weatherzone managing director, Martin Palmer, said: “We are always exploring ways to enhance our user experience with contextualised content. Taboola’s ability to enhance content discovery and audience engagement across our web and app platforms was a key driver in our decision to partner with them.”

Adam Singolda, CEO and founder at Taboola, said: “We are thrilled to partner with Weatherzone, a premium publisher and key weather destination in the Australian market. We look forward to supporting their local and national news by giving their readers more of what’s relevant, interesting, and new.”

The Weatherzone partnership follows Taboola’s recent announcements of partnerships with Are Media, Repco Supercars Championship and Val Morgan Digital.

Speaking about the partnership, Are Media head of product, Asa Rossier, said: “We are constantly looking at ways to enhance our user experience by connecting our audience with the right content, at the right time. Partnering with Taboola gives us access to their powerful recommendation engine that provides us with even more valuable data and insights on the content interests and behaviours of our users. Taboola’s ability to enhance content discovery and audience engagement across our network of sites was a key driver in our decision to work with them.”

Ogilvy Australia has announced the expansion of its Sydney strategy team, with the promotion of Ryan O’Connell to chief strategy officer and Rachel Pool to head of planning.

The promotions follow an exciting year of transformation and strong growth in new business for Ogilvy Sydney.

Alongside these promotions, Toby Harrison now expands his current role as chief strategy officer to lead Growth & Innovation across the newly formed ANZ Ogilvy Network.

Within this Network, the Ogilvy Agency, Ogilvy NZ, Ogilvy Health and PR (opr) business units are integrated into one powerful offering for clients.

Commenting on the appointments, Michelle Holland, managing director Ogilvy Sydney & Brisbane, says: “Ryan has been an outstanding leader, successfully driving Ogilvy’s effectiveness agenda to bring success to our key clients. He has been a fundamental contributor to our recognition as APAC Effies Agency of the Year in 2020, alongside our recent WARC award wins.”

“Ryan will be supported by Rachel, who has brought an amazing strength to our brand strategy and customer experience capabilities since joining last year. She’s already proven invaluable to the team, and her strategic leadership will be instrumental in future-proofing our client’s businesses. Together they will take our Sydney-based strategic offering to the next level.”

These appointments are the latest in a series of recent new hires that build out the ANZ Ogilvy Network strategic offering, including Nicolas Mendel’s appointment as head of digital performance and Mark Albert as chief data officer.

Speaking on his appointment earlier in the year, Mark Albert, chief data and analytics officer, said: “I am very excited to be re-joining the Ogilvy Network, and feel privileged to collaborate with such an amazing team. There is a huge opportunity for us to continue accelerating the smart application of data and analytics, and I look forward to combining my extensive data analytics experience with Ogilvy Australia’s talented creative minds to deliver exceptional work.”

This week, the Australian box office made a total of $10.2 million. This was up a massive 43% on last week, with the new set of lockdown restrictions taking their toll on cinema over the last few weeks.

Debuting to the top spot this week is the latest Marvel film, Black Widow. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline,  the film is set just after the events of Captain America: Civil War, which was the last Marvel movie that Black Widow appeared in before Infinity War and Endgame.

Black Widow tells the story of Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, as she confronts her history as a spy, and the relationships she damaged long before she became an Avenger.

Dropping out of the top five this week is Disney’s dalmatian-filled live action film, Cruella.

#1, Black Widow, $6.14 million

Black Widow has continued the Marvel tradition of huge opening weekends. The film cracked the $6 million mark, and averaged a whopping $10,400 across 590 screens.

#2, Fast & Furious 9, $1.04 million

Now in it’s fourth week of release, Fast & Furious 9 isn’t taking its foot off the break. By bringing in another million this week, the film has almost hit the $20 million mark, having made a total of $19.85 million. It averaged $3,942 across 264 screens this week.

#3, Spirit Untamed, $600,286

There is a significant drop between second and this place this week, but Spirit Untamed continues to perform well in its fifth week of release. An average of $2,318 across 259 screens brought the animated film to a total of $5.23 million.

#4, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, $428,784

Starring Salma Hayek, Ryan Reynolds, and Samuel L. Jackson, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard has dropped two places this week. It averaged $1,864 across 230 screens, bringing it to a total of $6.67 million to date.

#5, In the Heights, $340,030

Rounding out the top five this week is Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In The Heights. Holding steady in its third week of release, the film has made a total of $3.37 million. It averaged $1,771 across 192 screens.

Primetime News
Nine News 1,184,000/1,142,000
Seven News 1,113,000/1,006,000
ABC News 797,000
10 News First 421,000 (5:00pm)/ 278,000 (6:00pm)
SBS World News 200,000 (6:30pm) 146,000 (7:00pm)

Daily current affairs
A Current Affair 783,000
7.30 715,000
The Project 356,000 (6:30pm)/527,000 (7pm)
The Drum 212,000

Breakfast TV
Sunrise 273,000
Today 244,000
News Breakfast 214,000

Late News
ABC Late News 132,000
The Latest 121,000
Nine News Late Edition 102,000
SBS World News Late 63,000

Nine

Beauty and The Geek had 622,000 as the Geeks had to go undercover as professional photographers at a real-life photoshoot, with the chance to win a date for themselves and their Beauty. Alexander won taking himself and Eliza to a jazz bar.

Four of the couples were re-paired following chemistry from Jess and James, and host Sophie Monk, feeling Alexander was in to much of a comfort zone with Eliza.

Emergency then followed with 299,000.

Later in the evening, Footy Classified had 121,000 while 100% Footy had 63,000.

Seven

Seven had the top primary (18.7%) and network (27.6%) share thanks to a strong start from Home and Away with 633,000 followed by Farmer Wants a Wife with 660,000 viewers

On Farmer, Rob realised that he hadn’t found love with any of his three remaining ladies. “Unfortunately you can’t manufacture love, and if there isn’t a spark there, there’s nothing to build on.”

With Lucy, Meg, and Katie, in the kitchen, Rob explained, “I probably think we’re great friends, but I don’t think I feel that lightning bolt connection with any of you.” Appreciating the ladies’ busy lives with careers and children, Rob suggested it was best to leave the farm. “Oh for f**sake,” said Meg letting rip to camera after Rob announced his news. “This is my chance at finding love.” 

Another shock happened when the Farmers were introduced to a new lady chosen for them by their mothers. 

The Farmers met their mothers’ chosen ladies for a date at the pub. Andrew and Will decided they had stronger connections with the ladies already on the farm and chose not to invite them back. 

Sam and Matt invited their mothers chosen ladies back to the farm to meet the other ladies.   

Still not having been chosen for a one-on-one date and sensing Andrew has stronger connections with the other ladies, 26-year-old receptionist Caity decided to leave the farm.  

10

The Project had 336,000 (6:30 pm) and 527,000 (7:00pm) as the show covered the ongoing Sydney outbreak of Covid-19 and Peter Helliar talked to Lebron James.

Part one of the MasterChef Grand Finale was the top non-news program of the night with 799,000 viewers and was #1 in the 16-39 demo.

Pete heads into the third and final round tonight leading with 53 points after serving up a 10/10 in round one with his King George whiting.

Have You Been Paying Attention? followed with 674,000 as 10 had the top two non-news programs of the night. The episode featured Mick Molloy, Kitty Flanagan and Alex Ward alongside regulars Sam Pang and Ed Kavalee.

ABC

Courtney Act’s One Plus One had 380,000 viewers as Act was joined by Aweng Chuol who talked about her early life in Africa, coming out, and representing Australia.

Four Corners and Media Watch followed with 450,000 and 451,000 respectively.

SBS

The top non-news program on SBS was Secret Scotland with 163,000.