Business of Media
Judith Neilson signals change in funding direction for journalism institute
The head of Judith Neilson’s family office has signalled the philanthropist is looking to change directions in her charitable funding for the media, looking to prioritise other areas, reports News Corp’s David Ross.
The Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas was rocked by the mass departure of its four independent directors last week after Neilson signalled a change in approach.
This led to the chairman, former NSW chief Justice James Spigelman, The Australian’s Paul Kelly, Free TV chief executive Bridget Fair, and one-time ABC news director Kate Torney resign from their roles after Neilson indicated she would seek to bring the institute under her auspices.
Judith Neilson family office chief executive Simon Freeman said Neilson wanted to be more involved in the institute’s running and its allocation of grants.
Truthful climate reporting shifts viewpoints, but only briefly, study finds
People’s views of the climate crisis can be influenced by the media, according to new research. But accurate scientific reporting only has limited impact on people who already have a fixed political viewpoint, particularly if it is opposed to climate action, reports The Guardian’s Fiona Harvey.
Researchers who ran an experiment in the US to find out how people responded to media reporting on the climate found that people’s views of climate science really were shifted by reading reporting that accurately reflected scientific findings. They were also more willing to back policies that would tackle the problem.
But the effect quickly faded, especially when people were exposed to other media that cast doubt on climate science, according to the paper, to be published on Friday in the peer-review journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Judge to hear move to delay trial following Logies speech
The ACT’s Chief Justice Lucy McCallum has agreed to hear an application to delay a rape case following Lisa Wilkinson’s acceptance speech at the Logie Awards, reports TV Tonight.
Bruce Lehrmann is accused of sexually assaulting Brittany Higgins inside an office in Parliament House in 2019.
He was charged last year after Higgins complained to police, and has pleaded not guilty.
His legal team has asked the court to consider a new stay application, following a speech by Lisa Wilkinson after The Project won Most Outstanding News Coverage or Public Affairs Report for her work on the story.
Agencies
VaynerMedia names Marc Langenfeld as head of media for APAC
VaynerMedia has announced the appointment of Marc Langenfeld as head of media for the Asia Pacific region.
Langenfeld’s appointment to the role further bolsters VaynerMedia’s credentials as a full-service agency offering strategy, creative, media, production and analytics – to deliver impactful business results.
The newly-appointed head of media will serve as a strategic partner to clients, and help further build the agency’s integrated services.
Langenfeld begins his role with immediate effect and reports to VaynerMedia APAC managing director, Tim Lindley.
The Research Agency announces three key senior appointments to its Sydney team
The Research Agency (TRA) has announced three key senior appointments to the insights and research consultancy in Sydney.
Nikki Davey, who joins the agency from Kantar, has been appointed to the role of head of innovation. Her remit includes leading TRA’s innovation capability, partnerships and thought leadership while driving growth for clients.
The newly-appointed head of innovation said of her new role: “I’m so looking forward to joining this incredibly talented and well-respected team and being part of an agency that has such a clear, recognised innovation mindset and fresh take on generating insights.
“On a personal level, I am excited to get started doing what I love most, which is building strong relationships with our client partners to drive business growth at this pivotal moment in TRA’s journey.”
The Sydney team also welcomed former customer insights specialist at Kmart, Ngaia Calder, appointed as business director, and Tara Collins former associate director at The Behavioral Architects and senior consultant at TRA New Zealand, who steps into the role of account director.
News Brands
Paramount: we won’t remove content from eras with ‘different sensibilities’
The boss of the US media company Paramount has said he does not want to remove historic programmes from his new subscription streaming service because they no longer meet current expectations, reports The Guardian’s Jim Waterson.
Bob Bakish, Paramount’s CEO, said his company had thousands of shows in its back catalogue. “By definition, you have some things that were made in a different time and reflect different sensibilities,” he said. “I don’t believe in censoring art that was made historically, that’s probably a mistake. It’s all on demand – you don’t have to watch anything you don’t want to.”
Streaming companies have struggled with how to adapt to modern cultural expectations when it comes to archive shows, with BritBox and the BBC’s iPlayer among those removing content that is no longer deemed appropriate for modern tastes.
Top 50 most popular news websites in the world: Wordle fuels huge New York Times traffic growth
The New York Times was the fastest growing top news site in the world in May 2022, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking of the 50 biggest English-language news websites in the world, reports Press Gazette’s Aisha Majid.
The New York Times website, which has seen a recent run of strong growth was the fastest growing top ten site with visits to nytimes.com up 52% year-on-year to 524.6 million according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb. NYT year on year traffic growth has been helped by the acquisition of popular online game Wordle in February 2022.
It was followed by dailymail.co.uk to which visits were up 14% to 373.3 million and CNN (641.8 million visits, up 4%).
Television
TV’s night of whites: Why are the Logie Awards taking so long to catch up on diversity?
It’s been seven years since a whitewash among Oscars nominees sparked the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag and demands for greater diversity within the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the body that governs film’s most prestigious awards, reports SMH’s Osman Faruqi.
The 2015 backlash – which eventually led to significant reform in terms of the makeup of the Academy – was in response to every single nominee in the acting categories being white. This year’s TV Week Logie Awards, thankfully, weren’t quite that bad. The complete whiteout in terms of nominations was restricted to the popular and outstanding actor categories, outstanding supporting actor category, and most popular actor or actress in an international program.
Total Control’s Deborah Mailman and New Gold Mountain’s Mabel Li were nominated in the actress categories, preventing a repeat of the infamous 2015 Oscars, though neither won. Overall, every individual winner at this year’s Logies was white, except for the ABC’s Tony Armstrong, who picked up the Graham Kennedy Award for most popular new talent.
The rise and rise of Tony Armstrong, TV’s most popular new star
It’s a very specific type of person who has the raw charm to reduce Natalie Bassingthwaighte into a pure display of exultation and praise live on stage. Tony Armstrong – charismatic, hardworking and incredibly popular – is exactly that type of person, reports SMH’s Anthony Segaert.
From jubilating celebrations with sports fans on live television, through to delivering bad news with a smile, and using his platform to speak out against racism, the 32-year-old has quickly made a name for himself as a fresh and versatile television personality.
A proud Barranbinya man, Armstrong is relatively new to the world of TV presenting. He began filling in for sports presenter Paul Kennedy on the ABC’s News Breakfast in early 2020, before being given the full-time role in June last year.
Anger over new reality gig for SAS Australia host Ant Middleton
The news SAS Australia host Ant Middleton has been signed to a new Seven Network TV show has provoked some angst among members of the SAS community who last week reached out to this column to register their disgust and dismay, reports News Corp’s Annette Sharp.
As this writer predicted three months ago, talent-strapped Seven has wasted no time in signing the divisive abusive grunt Middleton to a new reality show, Million Dollar Island, set to premiere on the broadcaster in 2023.
In March this writer called Seven out for failing to recognise the implications of sticking by Middleton after he was dumped by Britain’s Channel 4 in 2021 for “personal conduct”.
It coincided with reports Middleton had allegedly made “lewd and suggestive comments” to women who worked on the set of Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins program and after he’d posted tweets encouraging the British public to flout Covid safety measures.
It also came after he called Black Lives Matters protesters “scum”, prompting an apology from Middleton.