Business of media
Andrew Forrest accuses Kerry Stokes’ Seven West Media of bias over trucking stoush
Andrew Forrest has appealed directly to fellow billionaire Kerry Stokes about the reporting by Seven West Media’s Perth newspaper of Fortescue Metals Group, which Dr Forrest describes as “vengeful” and having to potential to harm Mr Stokes’ “legacy”, reports The Australian’s Nick Evans and John Stensholt.
In an extraordinary attack, Forrest doubled down on his criticism of Stokes, The West newspaper and the wider Stokes family’s Seven Group’s mining truck business that begun with a stinging video to all Fortescue staff members and continued when the Fortescue executive chairman announced his company’s profit results.
It also emerged that a $1bn property joint venture between Forrest and Stokes’ private business empires were set to undertake at the East Perth Power Station has collapsed, as first revealed by The Australian online on Wednesday.
Seven Group’s earnings beat expectations, Stokes says inflation targets unrealistic
The billionaire media and industrials Stokes family has the Reserve Bank of Australia “more in the foreground” than usual, reports The Australian’s Tansy Harcourt.
It has called for the bank to reconsider its inflation target because of the impact its consecutive rate rises are having on the economy.
Speaking after the family controlled Seven Group unveiled a higher-than-expected 16 per cent increase in underlying half-year earnings, chief executive Ryan Stokes said the RBA needed to reconsider its “objective” of getting inflation back down to its target range.
“This notion of having a target of 2 to 3 per cent inflation in our view is not realistic, nor is it appropriate, Stokes told The Australian.
“Our fear is the current structure could lead to an overshoot, which is not ideal … it feels like it’s far more damaging across the economy.”
See also:
The AFR: Ryan Stokes delivers RBA warning as Seven surges
News Brands
ABC shuts down Twitter accounts of Insiders, ABC Politics, News Breakfast
The ABC is closing the Twitter accounts of three of its most popular news programs, with the move angering many of its followers on social media who fear the decision will make it more difficult for the public to engage with the taxpayer-funded broadcaster, reports The Australian’s James Madden.
The Sunday morning political chat show, Insiders, will close its Twitter account — which has 146,000 followers — after this weekend’s program goes to air; the ABC Politics account, with 45,000 followers, will also disappear on Sunday; while News Breakfast, the weekday show hosted by Lisa Millar and Michael Rowland, will end its Twitter presence on Monday.
All three programs will continue to maintain active Facebook pages.
In a statement on Wednesday, an ABC spokeswoman said: “We’re closing some of the ABC News program accounts and consolidating our activity in our main Twitter account, @abcnews, which has by far the most activity, followers and engagement with audiences.
Flash boosts its live channel line-up with MSNBC, loses key executives
News Corp Australia’s world-first local and international news streaming service, Flash, is adding a further two heavyweight media brands to its on-air line-up, reports The Australian.
Foxtel-owned Flash, which launched in October 2021, already houses some of the world media’s most respected sources on its aggregation platform, including BBC World News, Bloomberg TV, CNN International, FOX News Channel, France 24, Al Jazeera and Sky News Australia.
From March 1, NBC News Now and MSNBC News will feature on Flash, boosting the streaming service’s suite of products to over 25 global and local news sources.
The addition of MSNBC and NBC News Now to Foxtel and Flash forms part of the multi-year partnership between the Foxtel Group and NBCUniversal (NBCU) announced at the end of 2022.
Ogrin also announced that Flash executive director Kate de Brito, and James Law, the head of editorial, will be leaving the service.
There will also be a small reduction in the overall staff headcount at Flash, Mr Ogrin said.
Why Leigh Sales is back on the ABC after considering career upheaval
For more than a decade, Leigh Sales spent four nights a week asking people questions. As host of ABC’s flagship current affairs program, 7.30, she regularly grilled world leaders, celebrities, actors and sportspeople, reports Nine Publishing’s Thomas Mitchell.
So perhaps it makes sense that when it comes to promoting her new job as host of Australian Story, Sales is all interviewed out.
When this masthead requested an interview with Sales, rather than agreeing to a face-to-face, she asked for an email interview to discuss her return to the small screen, the liberation of semi-retirement and her decision to step away from the news cycle.
“To be honest, I gave some thought to a total career change,” said Sales. “But, in the end, I love telling stories and I love the creative process, whatever medium.”
Television
Number 96: Documentary recalls the Australian TV show that shocked the world
On March 13, 1972, a new show aired on Australian TV, reports News Corp’s Benedict Brook.
In that very first episode – still in black and white – were characters whose very appearance would be a world first.
And yet, it’s likely the millions of people who settled down at 8.30pm to watch new soap Number 96 had no idea what they were witnessing.
They wouldn’t find out for weeks.
But it was so shocking that it would see the show effectively banned in the UK and US.
“There was this whole bunch of really ground-breaking taboos in Number 96 and that prevented it from being sold around the world,” writer and TV commentator Andrew Mercado told news.com.au.
Mercado is the producer of a new documentary, Outrageous: The Queer History of Australian TV, which features Number 96. It has its premiere on February 16 at the Sydney QueerScreen Mardi Gras film festival, part of the city’s World Pride events.
“You could maybe cut the nudity, but you couldn’t cut out the gay characters.”
In 1972, homosexuality was illegal everywhere in Australia. Yet here, on prime time, week in, week out, was lawyer Don Finlayson.
Outrageous will premiere at the QueerScreen Mardi Gras film festival on Thursday February 16 at 6.30pm at the Event Cinemas, George St, Sydney.
The bold and the dutiful: Michael Idato on the latest Star Trek adventure
The third and final season of Star Trek: Picard stands as more than mere epilogue to Star Trek: The Next Generation, the 1987 television series that first introduced us to Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-D, writes longtime Star Trek franchise watcher Michael Idato in Nine newspapers.
Drawing together story strands from both The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, it owes as much to Back to the Future as it does The Wrath of Khan, the fan-favourite boom crash space opera of Star Trek submarine warfare. This might be the most menacing Star Trek ever written.
The good vibrations return with the second coming of RocKwiz, now on Foxtel
Q: Which beloved music-quiz show is returning after a seven-year absence with a new setting and on a different network? A: RocKwiz. Correct!
It’s back, and the producers are as chuffed as its many fans, reports Nine Publishing’s Debi Enker.
In the foyer of a South Melbourne TV studio, RocKwiz co-creator and co-presenter Brian Nankervis is greeting some of the lucky ones who have been quick on the keyboard and secured seats in the audience for the recording of two episodes in the eight-episode revival season. He’s ushering people in, merrily chatting and circulating like a bubbly party host.
Why Charlie Pickering’s newest TV gig is a dream come true
There’s an air of anticipation in the crowd gathered outside Docklands Studio 5 on a cold and rainy October evening in Melbourne, reports Nine Publishing’s Debi Enker.
The 100 people who’ll fill the audience for this episode in the second season of 10’s comedy quiz, Would I Lie To You?, are happily chatting as they wait to be “loaded” into the building. There’s no social distancing and few face masks, a markedly different picture from the show’s first season when production was shut-down due to Covid and audience numbers were limited.
Charlie Pickering, who’s joined the production as a team captain for the new season, is hoping that the upbeat mood will be discernible on screen, that “viewers will feel the joy of just having people in a room together and making each other laugh”.
Sports Media
Fever pitch: Curators ban media from taking pictures of Delhi Test pitch
The second Test pitch is already embroiled in controversy with ground staff attempting to ban Australian media from taking pictures of the strip, as another stern examination against spin looms for the visitors against India, reports Nine Publishing’s Andrew Wu.
The 22-yard-long strip in the middle of Arun Jaitley Stadium is the most important piece of land for the next few days – and it was being protected with commensurate intent by the venue’s curators on Wednesday.
In a sign of how sensitive an issue the pitch has become after the controversy leading into the series opener, ground staff ordered an accredited member of the touring media not to take footage of the bone-dry surface.
Netflix shuns live sports but embraces sports documentaries
By the fourth season of Netflix’s documentary series about Formula 1, Drive to Survive, the streaming company had plenty of evidence that it was onto something: Ratings and attendance for Grand Prix events, as well as merchandise sales, were surging, reports The New York Times.
So Netflix executives began discussions with the show’s producers: What other sports are out there?
“It really showed us that the ceiling was much higher than we might have thought,” said Brandon Riegg, the Netflix vice president of nonfiction series.
On Wednesday, Netflix’s latest sports documentary series, Full Swing, which focuses on men’s professional golf, will become available, just weeks after its tennis-focused series, Break Point, debuted.
For years, live sports rights have been a topic of near-constant debate in Netflix leadership meetings. But even as executives have considered it, they have always settled in the same place: The company’s money is better spent elsewhere.