Thursday February 1, 2018

Nine holds launch event for return of Underbelly

The Nine Network last night returned to the scene of the crime. Or the crime series that is.

The broadcaster held a launch event for the return of the Underbelly brand to the primary channel.

The crime drama series from Screentime has been rested for a few years after a successful run. If the series is half as good as the promos people could be wondering why it ever stopped.

The venue for the launch was a Melbourne early-opened Waterside Hotel. The venue was also the place where then Nine CEO Eddie McGuire greeted guests for the launch of the original Underbelly series and is therefore hoping lightning will strike twice.

Representing Nine were drama heads Jo Rooney and Andy Ryan who were joined by Screentime executive chairman and co-founder Bob Campbell. Joining him were colleagues Peter Andrikidis and Karl Zwicky.

Also attending from Nine executive ranks were Matt Scriven, newly appointed MD Nine Melbourne, and Melbourne head of publicity and marketing Michelle Stamper.

Hosting the event was Nine’s Alicia Loxley who interviewed some of the stars including Aaron Jeffery and Michael Caton.

Other Nine personalities attending included Livinia Nixon, Brett McLeod and Clint Stanaway.

Nine and Screentime are promising the untold story of Mark “Chopper” Read will be revealed when Underbelly Files: Chopper premieres on Nine and 9Now over two nights – Sunday February 11, at 8.30pm and Monday February 12, at 9pm.

Photo: Vince Colosimo, Michael Caton, Aaron Jeffrey, Kevin Harrington and Debra Byrne [Top], Jo Rooney, Aaron Jeffery and Andy Ryan [Lower]

How Melbourne startup Inkl is shaking up news distribution

Former Fairfax Media employee Gautam Mishra quit his job as director of strategy about four years ago to go out on his own and launch a digital marketplace for news.

Inkl came into existence in 2014. Its primary service is to aggregate the news of the day.

Inkl is focused on addressing “the specific problems of the reader that we do not see anyone else solving”, Mishra told Mediaweek. And these issues are around access to premium news content and time efficiency.

“As more and more publishers look for subscriptions, they are withdrawing from many free news aggregators. And this creates an access issue for anyone who needs a market view of the news, so that’s one problem we solve,” Mishra said.

“A lot of news products are ad-based. So what they want to do is capture as much time and attention as they can because that helps their ad views. Our goal is the opposite.

“We want people to be able to get back to their day as quickly as possible. We did this by creating an algorithm that recommends stories based on news value. So it’s not based on what’s trending and what’s popular, it is based on what the world’s top editors are defining as the news agenda.”

Inkl is an ad-free, subscription-based service with three tiers of subscription packages on offer. The first allows users to pay 10 cents for every article they read. The second package has a $15 monthly fee and there is no cap on how many articles a user can access. However, this package does not include access to articles on The Wall Street Journal that are behind the paywall. The $25 per month package includes a subscription to The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s, which is a premier American financial magazine.

“We pay publishers five cents per article read,” Mishra said. “If you think about this in terms of ads, that is a $50 CPM. Given where ad prices are for most publishers today that is about 50-100 times the amount of revenue that some publishers can get from a page impression.

“Our conversion from free to paid users is 15%. That is 10 times higher than what most publishers have. That is partly because we give people a lot of different ways of paying.”

Continued at mediaweek.com.au.

Photo: Gautam Mishra

Week 5 TV: Wednesday
WEDNESDAY METRO
ABCSevenNineTenSBS
ABC10.7%724.5%920.1%TEN14.0%SBS One5.7%
ABC 22.7%7TWO3.5%GO!2.9%ONE2.4%VICELAND1.1%
ABC ME0.7%7mate1.6%GEM1.6%ELEVEN2.0%Food Net0.8%
NEWS 241.5%7flix2.0%9Life2.1%NITV0.2%
TOTAL15.6%31.6%26.7%18.3%7.8%
WEDNESDAY REGIONAL
ABCSeven AffiliatesNine AffiliatesTen AffiliatesSBS
ABC9.2%724.5%916.7%WIN13.4%SBS One5.3%
ABC 22.9%7TWO5.7%GO!3.7%ONE2.7%VICELAND1.2%
ABC ME0.9%7mate2.4%GEM2.7%ELEVEN2.0%Food Net0.8%
NEWS 241.7%7flix1.9%9Life2.3%NITV0.1%
TOTAL14.7%34.5%25.4%18.1%7.4%
WEDNESDAY METRO ALL TV
FTASTV
87.5%12.5%
Wednesday fta
  1. My Kitchen Rules Seven 1,078,000
  2. Seven News Seven 1,000,000
  3. Seven News / Today Tonight Seven 946,000
  4. Married At First Sight Nine 929,000
  5. Nine News Nine 898,000
  6. Nine News 6:30 Nine 885,000
  7. Seven News Special: The Beaumont Children Seven 797,000
  8. A Current Affair Nine 785,000
  9. I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! Ten 780,000
  10. Home And Away Seven 682,000
  11. ABC News ABC 655,000
  12. The Project 7pm Ten 611,000
  13. Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell ABC 568,000
  14. The Chase Australia Seven 562,000
  15. 7.30 ABC 537,000
  16. Hot Seat Nine 453,000
  17. 300 Years Of French And Saunders ABC 451,000
  18. Ten Eyewitness News First At Five Ten 443,000
  19. QI ABC 425,000
  20. 2017 Montreal Comedy Festival Ten 402,000
Wednesday fta
  1. My Kitchen Rules Seven 1,078,000
  2. Seven News Seven 1,000,000
  3. Seven News / Today Tonight Seven 946,000
  4. Married At First Sight Nine 929,000
  5. Nine News Nine 898,000
  6. Nine News 6:30 Nine 885,000
  7. Seven News Special: The Beaumont Children Seven 797,000
  8. A Current Affair Nine 785,000
  9. I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! Ten 780,000
  10. Home And Away Seven 682,000
  11. ABC News ABC 655,000
  12. The Project 7pm Ten 611,000
  13. Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell ABC 568,000
  14. The Chase Australia Seven 562,000
  15. 7.30 ABC 537,000
  16. Hot Seat Nine 453,000
  17. 300 Years Of French And Saunders ABC 451,000
  18. Ten Eyewitness News First At Five Ten 443,000
  19. QI ABC 425,000
  20. 2017 Montreal Comedy Festival Ten 402,000
Wednesday multichannel
  1. Go Jetters ABC2 209,000
  2. Octonauts ABC2 207,000
  3. Dot. ABC2 201,000
  4. Peter Rabbit ABC2 198,000
  5. Andy’s Prehistoric Adventures ABC2 187,000
  6. Peppa Pig-PM ABC2 181,000
  7. Floogals-PM ABC2 175,000
  8. Hey Duggee-PM ABC2 169,000
  9. PJ Masks-AM ABC2 166,000
  10. Ben And Holly’s Little Kingdom-AM ABC2 165,000
  11. Peppa Pig-AM ABC2 163,000
  12. Kazoops!-PM ABC2 162,000
  13. Ben And Holly’s Little Kingdom ABC2 157,000
  14. A Touch Of Frost-PM 7TWO 154,000
  15. Neighbours ELEVEN 154,000
  16. The Justine Clarke Show!-AM ABC2 144,000
  17. Fireman Sam-PM ABC2 143,000
  18. Noddy Toyland Detective-AM ABC2 142,000
  19. Get Grubby TV-AM ABC2 141,000
  20. Shaun The Sheep ABC2 139,000
Wednesday subscription tv
  1. Melbourne: Real Housewives Of… ARENA 85,000
  2. The Flash FOX8 53,000
  3. NCIS TVH!TS 50,000
  4. Paw Patrol Nick Jr. 49,000
  5. The Simpsons FOX8 48,000
  6. High Plains Drifter FOX Classics 48,000
  7. Paul Murray Live SKY NEWS LIVE 48,000
  8. Family Guy FOX8 47,000
  9. Location, Location, Location LifeStyle Channel 44,000
  10. American Dad! FOX8 42,000
  11. Open All Hours FOX Classics 42,000
  12. Paw Patrol Nick Jr. 42,000
  13. Beverly Hills: Real Housewives Of… ARENA 38,000
  14. Shimmer And Shine Nick Jr. 37,000
  15. Credlin SKY NEWS LIVE 36,000
  16. Highway Patrol FOX8 36,000
  17. Lewis 13TH STREET 35,000
  18. Paw Patrol Nick Jr. 35,000
  19. Shimmer And Shine Nick Jr. 35,000
  20. The Young & The Restless ARENA 33,000

Shares all people, 6pm-midnight, Overnight (Live and AsLive), Audience numbers FTA metro, Sub TV national
Source: OzTAM and Regional TAM 2018. The Data may not be reproduced, published or communicated (electronically or in hard copy) without the prior written consent of OzTAM

TV Ratings Analysis

Primary Channels
By James Manning

Seven

Home and Away’s week is playing something like this so far:
Monday 796,000, Tuesday 733,000, Wednesday 682,000.

My Kitchen Rules took the contestants to Melbourne to the instant restaurant set up by Roula and Rachael. Their House of Flava didn’t live up to its name with disastrous entrees. They recovered for the main course but dessert dropped away to see them at the bottom of the rankings so far with a score of 62.

My Kitchen Rules week one:

Monday 1.09m, Tuesday 1.01m, Wednesday 1.07m.

The Seven News special on the Beaumont Children followed with Michael Usher hosting and Mark Llewellyn driving behind the scenes. The special did great business with 797,000 MKR.

Seven then screened its second Grammy event in three days with Grammy’s Greatest Stories: A 60th Anniversary Special with 220,000 watching.

Nine
A special event on A Current Affair as the show recalled the exclusive that a very young Martin King had 25 years ago – his interview with cult leader David Koresh. The episode won its timeslot again with 785,000.

More strangers then tied the knot on Married At First Sight with brutal honesty – or as brutal and honest as you get on reality TV. The couple included Instagram model and businesswoman Davina and a tradie called Ryan.

The series’ first week for 2018 so far:

Monday 912,000, Tuesday 907,000, Wednesday 929,000. Like MKR, these two reality franchises have enjoyed very stable weeks.

A movie wrapped up primetime with 306,000 watching Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in 2015’s Sisters.

TEN
Highlight of The Project was a long exit interview with Bernard Tomic from the jungle in South Africa. The tennis player seemed to handle his early exit from another big event without too much concern despite lots of questioning about his mental state. The show ended just as the panel was discussing his behaviour with Waleed Aly noting it was hard to assess from a distance exactly what is going on with Tomic. The episode started with 361,000 and grew to 611,000 after 7pm.

I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here carried on without its biggest celebrity on the day christened Horrifying Hump Day. The program also confirmed that Danny Green would be sent into camp on Sunday’s episode. With no Tomic, Anthony Mundine stepped up and delivered some insights about his confrontations with racism during his life.

The first week in the jungle looks this this:

Sunday 1.27m and 1.10m, Monday 859,000, Tuesday 852,000, Wednesday 782,000.

The channel then screened its first episode of Tommy Little hosting a special on the 2017 Montreal Comedy Festival recorded back in July. Aussies performing include Wil Anderson and Carl Barron with 402,000 watching.

ABC
Comedian Bill Bailey was one of the guests on QI at 8pm with 425,000 watching.

Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell returned at 8.30pm with 568,000.

The recent UK New Year’s special 300 Years of French and Saunders was a mix of old and new and featured some funny cameos including Joanna Lumley. Highlights included Dawn French as Kim Karcrashian and both comedians on the (real) set of Poldark interacting with the real-life actors portraying Demelza and George. There was also a special film version of The Handmaid’s Tale. The special did 451,000 after 9pm.

The start of series 13 of Adam Hills: The Last Leg followed with another guest appearance of David Tennant for the 224,000 watching.

SBS
Episode five of World’s Greatest Bridges was in France with 291,000 watching.

Episode one of Russia with Simon Reeve followed with 278,000 and then the final of this season of Vikings did 188,000.

Media News Roundup THURSDAY

Investment

Most creditors of Network Ten are this week receiving payments of 100 cents in the dollar under a dividend distribution announced by KordaMentha Restructuring.

The administrator noted that for some creditors, the payments are higher than originally estimated.

The new owner of the Australian broadcaster, CBS, has provided $40.58 million to fund a dividend to creditors.

Key content providers who remain with Network Ten and ongoing trade creditors receive 100 cents in the dollar, same as the original estimate.

Financial, statutory and other creditors get a first dividend of 45 cents in the dollar, with KordaMentha noting an estimated final dividend of 21 cents to be paid before June 2018.

This is materially higher than the original estimate of 34 cents because claims from creditors were lower than anticipated.

Onerous and terminated contracts (excluding Fox) get 100 cents in the dollar. This is higher than the original estimate of 10 cents in the dollar because of lower claims.

Fox will receive a fixed payment of $12 million.

Mark Korda said the outcome for everyone involved in Network Ten was outstanding under the circumstances. He said: “The network has a strong and stable new owner, a talented leadership team and a loyal, creative staff whose support was critical to the successful restructure. The viewers, advertisers, content partners and suppliers also helped the network get through a challenging period. And most of the creditors are now getting all their money back.”

Sony Music Entertainment and Tencent Music Entertainment Group have launched a new electronic dance music label, Liquid State.

Launched at an event held overnight in Hong Kong, the label will be home to artists from Asia and further afield.

Liquid State will also showcase talent via live tours and club events.

As part of his regional role, Sony Music Australia CEO and chairman Denis Handlin was officiating at the launch, along with Tencent Music Entertainment CEO Cussion Pang.

“These are exciting times for the music industry and Liquid State has been created to support and enhance the discovery and development of electronic and EDM talent across the Asia region,” said Handlin.

“Together we will make Liquid State the destination for a wide range of highly talented new and established global and local artists.”

Sony Music artist Alan Walker is a key signing for Liquid State with the Norwegian artist to release projects across 2018.

Photos: Tencent Music’s Cussion Pang with Sony Music’s Denis Handlin at the Liquid State launch in Hong Kong plus artist Alan Walker with Liquid State ambassadors.

Jeff Bezos‘s Amazon is one step closer to becoming the world’s first trillion-dollar company, with the e-commerce giant beating its rivals Apple and Google to be named the world’s most valuable brand, while locally telcos, banks and the grocery giants continued their dominance, reports The AFR’s Yolanda Redrup.

Telstra extended its lead over the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and ANZ Banking Group in Brand Finance’s list of the top 100 most valuable Australian brands, growing its value from $13.7 billion in 2017 to $15.6 billion, up almost 14%.

All of the top 10 brands in the country grew their value in 2017, with Woolworths, Coles, NAB, Westpac, BHP, Optus and Rio Tinto rounding out the top 10.

[Read the original]

Media People

Celebrity chef George Calombaris has had his conviction for assaulting a teenage soccer fan at the A-League grand final overturned on appeal, reports Fairfax Media’s Georgina Mitchell.

Calombaris, 39, was at the A-League grand final between the Melbourne Victory and Sydney FC at Moore Park on May 7 last year. As he stood on the sidelines, he exchanged heated words with a 19-year-old fan in the stands and then punched him in the abdomen.

In September, a court heard Calombaris told the teenager, “you’re a big-mouthed man you dodgy c—” before the punch was thrown.

A lawyer for Calombaris said he believed the fan had called his mother a “c—” first.

In the District Court on Wednesday, Calombaris had his conviction set aside and was given a 12-month good behaviour bond.

Although the offence was not “trivial”, Judge Scotting found Calombaris’s actions were “spontaneous”, he had apologised and he was unlikely to reoffend.

[Read the original]

Radio

Southern Cross Austereo’s latest radio station Triple M Country went live at midnight as we started the second month of 2018.

The digital radio brand joins the portfolio of Triple M Modern Digital, Triple M Greatest Hits and Triple M Classic Rock Digital.

Triple M Country will feature contemporary music by many celebrated Aussie and international artists, from Lee Kernaghan, Kasey Chambers and Keith Urban, to Sam Hunt, Florida Georgia Line and Carrie Underwood.

Kernaghan will host his own music show The Range, each Sunday 6am-8am, with the show also airing across the Triple M regional network and syndicated stations.

Other shows include Nashville Access with its weekly insight into the heart of American country music and Hot Country Saturday Night.

Triple M Country is available on digital radio in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, online at triplem.com.au/country, or via the Triple M app (available on iPhone and Android).

Southern Cross Austereo’s chief creative officer Guy Dobson said: “The launch of the Triple M Country signals the continued growth and diversification of the Triple M brand across Australia.

“This is the next brand extension for Triple M – offering even more solutions for our clients and an even broader audience reach.”

Mediaweek suggested early in December that with Crocmedia merging with Pacific Star Network, via a reverse takeover, 1116 SEN could perhaps expect to hear Adelaide’s Kane Cornes on their radio soon, and that is what is happening from tomorrow.

The former Port Adelaide star has been appointed to host the morning slot on the radio station every Friday with Gerard Whateley hosting his new 9am until noon show four days a week Monday to Friday.

Cornes is seen on Nine’s Sunday AFL Footy Show, formerly hosted by Crocmedia’s Craig Hutchison. Cornes also co-hosts the Crocmedia-produced Adelaide Sportsday on Fiveaa with new co-host Malcolm Blight.

Digital Media Measurement

In the Nielsen Digital Content Ratings for the Global News and Current Events subcategory for the last full week of January (22-28), Fairfax Media grabbed a spot in the top 10 with Fairfax Digital Regional sitting at #8.

News.com.au was again clear leader with the combined ABC News websites at #2.

The sports subcategory for the same week of January shows news.com.au – sport holds a narrow lead ahead of the Cricket Network sites. It will be interesting to see how this changes over time with the last month of summer seeing the initial pre-season football codes getting under way around Australia.

Social Media

Nielsen has added Instagram-owned measurement into its Social Content Ratings platform in Australia and some other markets.

This launch marks the first time that Instagram will be measured and delivered by Nielsen’s syndicated social TV measurement solution. With the recent additions of Instagram and Facebook metrics, Nielsen states its SCR platform now offers insights across three of the biggest social media platforms – including Twitter – claiming it is the most comprehensive measure of program-related conversation in the industry.

Since launching in 2016, Nielsen said SCR has become the only social measurement solution that measures both organic and owned social TV activity.

By measuring those two types of activity, media owners, agencies and advertisers can now have a total view of cross-publisher activity surrounding television programs, allowing them to maximise the impact of social strategies.

“Every day, people come to Instagram to connect with their favourite TV shows and stars. We’re excited that Nielsen’s Social Content Ratings will now reflect the ongoing conversation about TV happening on the platform,” said Katie Faul, director, partnerships at Instagram.

In addition to integrating Instagram-owned to the platform, Facebook-owned metrics were integrated into Social Content Ratings user interface in November as a part of Nielsen Social’s commitment to providing comparable measurement across social platforms.

Television

The producers of The Doctor Blake Mysteries have cleared Craig McLachlan of claims he sexually harassed his co-workers, but admitted the show’s workplace culture was “bawdy and crude” and may have offended some cast and crew members, reports the ABC’s Lorna Knowles.

Two weeks ago, production company December Media hired a workplace consultant, Fiona Bigelli, to investigate claims of sexual misconduct on the set of the top-rating TV show.

December Media said in a statement that Bigelli had interviewed a “sufficiently large number” of people who worked on season five of the production, and had produced a confidential report.

“But there were no findings of sexual harassment, sexual misconduct or workplace bullying by Craig McLachlan or any other person on Doctor Blake,” the statement said.

[Read the original]

Despite reality TV shows raking it millions of dollars for the networks, thanks to the money they earn through advertising dollars and sponsorship deals, contestants on reality shows don’t get any cut of that, reports News Corp’s Karlie Rutherford.

A former Bachelor contestant said the cast members got paid below minimum wage.

“You don’t get paid a wage as such, you get given a weekly expense allowance which is under $100 a day. It is below minimum wage,” she said.

The exceptions? If you’re already a celebrity before appearing on the show.

Take I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here. If Bernard Tomic actually made it past two weeks in the South African jungle, he would have walked away with $1 million.

However, even then it’s not an even playing field, with the lesser names on the show getting paid more like $10,000 a week.

[Read the original]

TV Demand charts

Not a lot of movement this week at the top of the charts measuring cross-platform demand for TV shows in Australia and New Zealand as measured by Parrot Analytics.

The chart leaders remain Stranger Things (Digital Originals) and The Walking Dead and Vikings (Overall TV).

One TV brand on the rise again is This Is Us, where the US broadcast of the long-expected episode covering the death of character Jack Pearson (played by Milo Ventimiglia) is looming. The US drama series returns to Network Ten in Australia on Valentine’s Day, February 14.

Photo: This Is Us

 

Sports Media

With the arrival of Patrick Delany at Foxtel, all eyes are now on sports rights negotiations and how this could affect the fees being paid for cricket and tennis in Australia.

Broadcast companies controlled by Rupert Murdoch and his family continue to keep sport as an integral part of the business model after the deal for IPL rights in India last year worth US$2.6b and this week’s more recent deal for Thursday Night Football in the US, which comes 25 years after Murdoch’s original ground-breaking deal with the NFL:

Rupert Murdoch in 1993 lent his still-fledgling Fox broadcast network new life when he paid a whopping US$1.6b for the rights to Sunday NFL games previously held by CBS, reports Variety.

Now Murdoch and his family are relying on a similar technique. Their 21st Century Fox won a coveted contract to air the NFL’s Thursday Night Football for the next five seasons.

Fox will replace NBC and CBS, which had previously split a 10-game package for the past two seasons at a cost of around $450 million each season. Fox is said to be paying more than $650 million per year.

[Read the original]

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