Australia’s biggest corruption scandal under the spotlight in Secrets We Keep: Baghdad Nights
LiSTNR’s third series of Secrets We Keep is currently up it’s sixth episode and explores Australia’s biggest corruption scandal when a trusted Australian company funnelled hundreds of millions of dollars to dictator Saddam Husseun in the lead-up to the Iraq War.
Secrets We Keep: Baghdad Nights follows multi-award-winning journalist Richard Baker and his investigation into Australia’s biggest-ever international trade scandal, told by the men on the inside. Listeners can hear personal accounts of how Australia conducts its dirty business in far-flung places and who pays the price when scandal erupts.
The audience is taken into war zones, secret meetings, and the offices of the country’s most powerful people, whilst hearing what it is like to have the nation’s media bearing down.
The scandal, which unfolded in the early 2000s, revealed a complex web of corruption and deceit involving the United Nations’ oil-for-food program in Iraq. At the heart of the scandal was the Australian Wheat Board (AWB), a corporation responsible for selling Australia’s wheat crop to the world.
AWB, once a pillar of the Australian agricultural industry, was implicated in a scheme to funnel $300 million to the regime of Saddam Hussein, which Australia and its allies ultimately declared war on.
The key players from AWB implicated in the scandal, are integral voices in the series. The trio, including former AWB Chairman Trevor Flugge, have never spoken about their work in Iraq nor what it was like to go from being trusted government insiders to the poster boys of a national scandal.
Baker told Mediaweek in an interview about the new season that the idea for the podcast has been in the making since 2017.
“I knew back then that I’d like to do it, and it’s just taken me this long to get around to doing it,” he said.
“It was probably when I decided to leave the Nine Newspapers in 2022 that I knew I wanted to get straight into this.”
Baker expressed how hard it is to contextualize historical events discussed in the podcast for a younger audience as well as finding the balance between providing enough background information without being condescending in the script.
Baker hopes that listners of the new season will take away the complexity of the world around us and hopes the show emphasises the importance of avoiding black-and-white thinking.
“We have to think carefully about instantly painting people as either good or evil, or black or white. The reality of the way the world really works is there’s a lot of grey and a lot of in-between,” he said.
“This story is about how our nation conducts its business on the world stage. It’s about how it goes about making money, how it goes to make war and when everything blows up, how do we hold people to account? Do we hold the right people to account?”
TAB teams up with ESPN for new Hoops & Hits podcast
TAB and ESPN have launched a new podcast to serve the booming local interest in American sports.
Hosted by former NRL stars and US sport tragics, Justin Horo and Josh Reynolds, the ESPN Hoops & Hits podcast – presented by TAB, provides a detailed but distinctly local take on all the major US sports for fans and punters.
“We know there’s a rapidly growing Aussie fanbase craving more and more content around the American codes, but in a way that’s relatable to us here in Australia,” TAB’s head of sponsorship, events & sport content, Kate Waugh, said.
“By leveraging TAB’s exclusive wagering partnerships with the NFL and NBA, and ESPN’s renowned local and US sports coverage, we can keep fans tuned into everything happening, from the NFL to College Football, NBA to WNBA, the NHL, Major League Soccer, UFC and anything in between.
“Justin’s a huge Green Bay Packers fan and Josh loves the Philadelphia Eagles. They obviously understand professional sport with their backgrounds, but they’re also a lot of fun and huge fans of all US sports.”
The ESPN Hoops & Hits Podcast – presented by TAB, will launch its debut episode on Wednesday 4 September.
Travis and Jason Kelce’s New Heights signed to LiSTNR’s exclusive sales representation in Australia
New Heights with Travis and Jason Kelce is now available on LiSTNR off the back of the podcast signing to Amazon’s Wondery, in a deal reportedly worth close to $100m.
LiSTNR’s Australian ad-sales rights with the New Heights podcast, also includes the show’s back catalogue. With the third season kicking off in time for the new NFL season, the weekly podcast gives fans ‘next-level’ access to life in the league.
The famous football brothers and Super Bowl champions provide insights and share unique perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines, plus they drop entertaining stories about their off-field interests and welcome special guests. The podcast has also found an entire new audience segment since Travis began dating Taylor Swift and started sharing news about their life.
“With more than 2 million signed-up listeners, sales and content partnerships with some of the world’s biggest publishers, and our advanced AdTech Hub, LiSTNR provides our clients new innovative and targeted audience capabilities, setting us apart as one of the most experienced, data-led and privacy compliant digital audio companies in Australia,” executive head of LiSTNR podcasts, Grant Tothill, said.
“The best-in-class LiSTNR AdTech Hub has been a genuine game-changer for the Australian digital audio industry, business owners, marketers and media agencies, offering an irresistible audience-focused proposition with proven results,” concluded Tothill.
Adam Ferrier and Brent Smart return for series 4 of Black T-Shirts
The first guest for the new season is Sir Martin Sorrell, founder of the world’s largest advertising and PR group, WPP.
Sir Martin talks Adam and Brent through what it takes to run a creative business at scale and offers his insights on the health of the industry at large.
All episodes of Black T-Shirts will be available via podcast creators MIK Made. Black T-Shirts podcast episodes are played in their entirety on Disrupt Radio, available on DAB+, and now for the first time as a vodcast on the Black T-Shirts YouTube channel.