Business of Media
ABC’s login plan to stem viewer exodus fuels privacy fears
Concerns about loss of audience to the large international streaming platforms has prompted the ABC to push on with its plan to personalise digital media offerings, mandating logins for 1.7 million ABC iview users despite concerns from privacy experts, reports AFR‘s Tom Burton.
All iview users will be required to create and use an ABC account from March 15, after the national broadcaster released data showing its free-to-air TV services had seen its weekly reach decline from 54 per cent to 43 per cent over the past five years.
The switch to online services has seen iview grow from 17 per cent reach to 22 per cent reach, while the ABC’s other digital outlets have enjoyed huge growth from 20 per cent reach in 2016 to 38 per cent in 2021.
The ABC said personalised ABC iview services would mean “increased user experiences through features including program recommendations, watch lists and the ability to pick up a show where they left off, across multiple devices”.
The broadcaster said it would not rely on recommendation engines and algorithms alone – “human curation will still be involved”.
Agency
Nicola Lewis promoted to CEO of Finecast
Group M have announced the promotion of Nicola Lewis to CEO of Finecast, WPP’s addressable TV company operated by GroupM.
Lewis’ appointment is effective immediately.
She will be responsible for the strategy and operations of Finecast, including working with local markets to execute global strategies and set growth targets all aimed at making clients’ TV advertising more relevant and effective to their consumers.
Nicola Lewis
Before joining Finecast, Lewis was the chief investment officer of GroupM Australia and was responsible for driving innovation and leading commercial growth. While in that role she also played a key role in the launch of Finecast Australia.
Throughout her career, she has focused extensively on developing new partnerships across the industry ecosystem to make advertising work better for people, publishers, and advertisers.
Finecast was created to enable advertisers to precision-target viewers across multiple on demand, linear and live streaming TV environments. The business provides clients with a single access point to the TV ecosystem with standardised measurement to bring clarity on the real impact of addressable TV on an ad campaign.
Christian Juhl, GroupM’s Global CEO, said: “As we invest in building the industry’s leading performance capabilities at GroupM, Finecast will continue to play a critical role in how we deliver addressable, relevant and performance-first campaigns for our clients.”
“Nicola’s proven leadership abilities and success in growing Finecast’s business to date make her the ideal person to lead the business into its next era of growth and innovation,” he added.
Lewis said of her appointment: “We believe in a future where media and creative are fused together to deliver more relevant experiences for consumers as well as accurate measurement and continuous growth for our clients.”
“As the TV advertising ecosystem evolves, one of the biggest beneficiaries will be brands with audience-first addressable strategies. Finecast is perfectly positioned to help clients capitalise on this change and, through our continued collaboration with media vendors, create a robust ecosystem set up for the future of TV.
“I’m excited about where we’re headed and the ways in which our growth will continue to benefit both clients and consumers as we introduce addressable TV capabilities to more and more local markets,” she added.
Catherine Reay appointed as managing partner of AnalogFolk
AnalogFolk have announced the appointment of Catherine Reay as managing partner, effective immediately.
Reay steps into the new role, joining the Sydney office of the global independent creative agency.
Catherine Reay
She will be responsible for client service, as well as broader business and product strategy for the agency.
Reay brings with her more than a decade of experience working in agencies in Australia, New Zealand with Y&R and the UK with iris worldwide
Prior to her new role, she was general manager of Primary Club of Australia.
Reay was previously operations director and group account director at The Works in Sydney, and group account director at J. Walter Thompson, also in Sydney.
We Are Different appoints Claire Salvetti as head coach of its culture program
We Are Different have appointed Claire Salvetti as the head coach of its culture program.
Salvetti, founder of Peepul Tree Coaching, will be responsible for leading the independent and earned-first creative agency’s staff development initiatives.
This includes the launch of a coaching culture program that looks to drive team performance and career fulfilment among agency employees.
Claire Salvetti
The industry veteran and mentor is ex-PR agency, with previous stints as CEO of One Green Bean and as managing director of Mango, but moved into coaching in 2020.
She leads her own business, Peepul Tree Coaching, and most recently was coaching director of DDB based out of Europe.
Since finishing up her role with DDB in January, she joined We Are Different as head coach from February, while still running Peepul Tree independently.
Salvetti consults with the agency from her base in Europe while working with a portfolio of clients in the USA, Europe and Australia.
Mediahub Australia appointed as media agency of record for AHI Carrier
Mediahub Australia has announced its appointment as media agency of record for AHI Carrier Australia, the company representing Toshiba Air conditioners and heat pumps.
Andrew Livingston, Mediahub APAC executive director, said of the appointment: “It’s a privilege to be working with Toshiba, a genuine innovator in the air-conditioning industry.
“As an agency for challenger brands, we feel we are the perfect partner to help the team maintain the technological advantage in market. We are delighted to be able to partner with Vijay and the team,” he added.
Vijay Dravid, general manager sales and marketing AHI Carrier (Toshiba) Australia & New Zealand said: “We were impressed by the depth of insight provided by the Mediahub team, and their outcome-focussed approach.
News Brands
The Age deletes its story on Geoff Bainbridge ice video
The Age has removed an article about Melbourne entrepreneur Geoff Bainbridge from its online platforms, after conceding the newspaper had been “misled” by him over a video of him taking illegal drugs, reports News Corp’s James Madden.
Last Thursday, The Age reported that the long-time managing director of Lark Distillery had been subjected to “an extortion racket that began in December 2015”.
The Age’s story, authored by chief reporter Chip Le Grand, stated that Bainbridge was in a Southeast Asian country on a business trip, and after a night out woke in an unfamiliar apartment “to find two strange men with video footage showing what he’d done the night before”.
On Monday, The Age acknowledged it had been duped and deleted the story from online platforms. “The Age and Herald have removed an earlier story on this subject from our online sites after new information came to light,” read an addendum to Tuesday’s online story about how Bainbridge had misled the newspaper.
Nine Network apologises for ‘error’ suggesting Queen may have used ivermectin to treat Covid
The Nine Network has apologised after mistakenly suggesting the Queen was using the drug ivermectin after contracting Covid, reports Guardian Australia’s Josh Butler.
The error had already been boosted by anti-vax and anti-lockdown groups that support the use of ivermectin to treat Covid despite it being labelled “ineffective” by Australia’s chief medical officer.
TV program A Current Affair (ACA) broadcast a segment on Monday night about the Queen’s Covid diagnosis. The segment featured Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, a Victorian GP and former Australian Medical Association boss, who has been at the forefront of the Covid response, including spearheading testing and vaccination clinics in Melbourne’s west.
A Nine spokesperson said the shot of stromectol “shouldn’t have been included” and was the “result of human error”.
“We did not intend to suggest Dr Mukesh Hawikerwal endorsed ‘stromectol’,” the spokesperson said on Tuesday.
“We’ve apologised to him this morning and he has accepted that apology. We do not suggest the Queen is using ivermectin.”
Television
Netflix releases first trailer for controversial Byron Baes reality show
Netflix has today dropped the first trailer and images for the controversial Byron Baes reality show, set among the glamorous world of models, influencers and entrepreneurs in Byron Bay, reports News Corp’s Nick Bond.
The series has been hit with controversy since the moment it was announced – but we’ll soon get to see for ourselves what all the fuss is about, with Byron Baes launching on Netflix on Wednesday March 9.
Cast assembled for the show includes former Bachelor and Bachelor in Paradise contestant Nathan Favro, Kyle Sandilands’ assistant turned talent manager Alex Reid and Gold Coast singer-songwriter St James.
Rounding out the cast are oh-so Byron types like ‘Spiritual Coach/Fire Performer’ Simba, and influencer Jade, whose claim to fame is once getting a selfie with Kim Kardashian.
Sport Media
Beijing Olympic Ratings Were the Worst of Any Winter Games
An average of 11.4 million viewers watched the Beijing Olympics on NBCUniversal platforms each night — the smallest prime-time audience on record for any Winter Games and well off the 19.8 million nightly viewers for the Pyeongchang Games in 2018, reports the New York Times’ Tiffany Hsu.
More than two weeks of coverage, starting with the frigid opening show on Feb. 4 and ending Sunday, drew 160 million total viewers across the NBC television channel, the Peacock streaming service and other platforms, NBCUniversal said on Monday.
Dramatic story lines proliferated during NBCUniversal’s 2,800 hours of coverage, but few catered to an audience that may have craved escapist forays and tales of triumph. Pandemic restrictions forced the competitions to take place in a bubble. The result: mostly empty stands, and NBC announcers such as Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski having to deliver their dispatches from a compound in Connecticut.