Business of Media
Meta settles lawsuit in Cambridge Analytica scandal
Facebook’s corporate parent has reached a tentative settlement in a lawsuit alleging the world’s largest social network service allowed millions of its users’ personal information to be fed to Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump’s victorious presidential campaign in 2016, reports Nine Publishing via AP.
Terms of the settlement reached by Meta Platforms, the holding company for Facebook and Instagram, were not disclosed in court documents filed on the weekend. The filing in a San Francisco federal court requested a 60-day stay of the action while lawyers finalise the settlement. That timeline suggested further details could be disclosed by late October.
The accord was reached just a few weeks before a September 20 deadline for Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and his long-time chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, to submit to depositions during the final phases of pre-trial evidence gathering, according to court documents.
The case sprang from 2018 revelations that Cambridge Analytica, a firm with ties to Trump political strategist Stephen Bannon, had paid a Facebook app developer for access to the personal information of about 87 million Facebook users. That data was then used to target US voters during the 2016 campaign that culminated in Trump’s election as the 45th president.
Kate Ritchie’s public apology after being charged with drink driving
Former Home And Away star Kate Ritchie has said she is “truly sorry” for her actions after being caught drink driving on Monday, report News Corp’s Cydonee Mardon and Jessica McSweeney.
The 44-year-old actress and radio host was fined $600 and hit with a three-month driving ban after being pulled over in Sydney’s east and returned a positive reading
Police said Ritchie is alleged to have blown 0.06 on Monday afternoon at Pagewood. She was stopped in her blue Subaru station wagon on Heffron Rd by police conducting random breath testing.
She underwent a secondary test at Maroubra police station.
Sudanese journalists form independent union to defend freedoms
Sudanese journalists have formed the country’s first independent professional union for decades, in what campaigners said was an important step towards re-establishing freedoms after a military coup, reports Reuters.
“The victory is to regain our syndicate after more than 30 years in order to defend the freedom and professionalism of the press,” said one journalist Waleed Alnour, who waited hours in the sun to cast his vote in an election for the union’s leadership on Sunday.
The union has an 1,164 members, 659 of whom took part in Sunday’s vote.
Shadow unions that sprang up in opposition to autocrat Omar al-Bashir, who packed unions with regime-friendly members, were instrumental in an uprising that toppled him in 2019. A military coup last October ended a power-sharing arrangement with civilians that followed the uprising.
Paramount sues company behind McDowell’s pop-up, citing ‘Coming to America’ infringement
A pop-up restaurant that paid homage to the 1980s classic comedy Coming to America now faces a lawsuit from Paramount Pictures over copyright infringement, reports The Wall Street Journal’s Talal Ansari.
JMC Pop Ups LLC created a temporary version of McDowell’s, the fictional fast-food burger place in the 1988 film starring Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall. In the movie, Murphy’s character, Prince Akeem Joffer, gets a job at the restaurant and falls in love with the owner’s daughter.
McDowell’s itself, a restaurant operated by small-business owner Cleo McDowell, is a tongue-in-cheek gag throughout the film. It is patterned after McDonald’s with golden “arcs” in place of McDonald’s signature arches and a “Big Mick” burger rather than a Big Mac. The Big Mick, unlike the Big Mac, comes on a seedless bun.
News Brands
ABC director facing board pressure over Digicel position
ABC directors have raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest on the board of the public broadcaster, after one of its most recently appointed members accepted a position linked to one of its technology suppliers, Telstra, reports Nine Publishing’s Zoe Samios.
Media sources familiar with the situation, who requested anonymity because board discussions are confidential, said some ABC board members had objected to director Fiona Balfour’s recent appointment as a director of Telstra-owned Pacific telco operator Digicel. The government and Telstra completed the acquisition of Digicel Pacific in July, a move designed to prevent Chinese interests from acquiring the telco amid heightened national security concerns.
Some members of the ABC board believe the appointment is a conflict of interest because the ABC has contracts in place with Telstra and believe Balfour should resign. Others on the ABC board disagree.
Balfour has been approached for comment. An ABC spokesperson said it does not comment on board matters.
Television
Australians got addicted to subscription TV. What happens now?
Foxtel and HBO are flying high again. The rights-holders and producers of House of the Dragon, the first spin-off of the prestige TV hit Game of Thrones, saw a record number of Australians tuning in to watch the latest round of medieval geopolitics, brothel debauchery and now, at least one scarring forced-birth scene. A Foxtel spokesperson claimed the premiere was the company’s biggest ever across broadcast and streaming, report Nine Publishing’s Mark Di Stefano and Max Mason.
It accompanied a massive marketing campaign around the release, with bus stops and newspapers covered with ads. But Australians didn’t need a bulky cable subscription. To watch the show, Foxtel was also spruiking its streaming platform Binge, which charges $10 per month.
The latest numbers from research firm Telsyte appear to show the push for subscribers from local and international giants is working. The results from the company’s annual subscription entertainment study, shared exclusively with The Australian Financial Review, showed that memberships to subscription video on demand (SVOD) platforms were up 22 per cent over the last 12 months, with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video leading the pack.
But how streaming companies and consumers react to an economic downturn will be the ultimate test to see whether the sugar-rush of subscription TV can last.
Samantha Armytage reveals why she’d never go back to Sunrise
Samantha Armytage has opened up about life after Sunrise in her first in-depth interview since departing the breakfast television program in March last year, reports news.com.au.
The media personality didn’t hold back in her sit-down with Stellar as this week’s cover star, declaring that she wouldn’t consider going back to the program.
“I’d never go back. You don’t go backwards in life. You’ve got to keep going forward.”
She went on to say she senses “fear” in the mainstream media landscape now that she’s stepped away from TV and into a role hosting her own podcast, News Corp’s Something To Talk About with Samantha Armytage.
Podcasts
Spotify’s head of ‘talk’ talks crime, creators and exclusivity
When Max Cutler started making true-crime podcasts, he gave them titles that doubled as search terms: “Serial Killers,” “Cults,” “Unsolved Murders,” reports The Wall Street Journal’s Anne Steele.
“At that time, discoverability was woefully broken in the podcast space,” he said. The plain-spoken titles made it easier for resident true-crime fans to find them. “That allowed us to kind of hack our way to the top of the charts.”
Three years after selling his company, Parcast, to Spotify Technology SA, Cutler is leading the Swedish streamer’s efforts to make its platform more appealing to creators. Cutler, 31 years old, recently took over as Spotify’s vice president of talk creator content and partnerships—a remit shifting his focus to the people who power one of the audio giant’s biggest growth areas.
In an effort to be the biggest participant in what Spotify believes will become a $20 billion business, the company is spending money on attracting more podcasters.
Sports Media
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland ‘engages’ AFL, media giants, over TV rights deal
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland approached key media stakeholders, including senior figures at Seven and Foxtel, as well as top-tier executives at the AFL, in a bid to clarify her controversial public statements last week about the terms of the sport’s lucrative broadcast rights, reports News Corp’s James Madden.
The details of Rowland’s engagement late last week with the media giants and the AFL’s top brass have not been made public, however it is telling that the minister did not reach out to representatives from Nine or 10, suggesting those two networks are unlikely to secure a slice of the next TV deal, which is expected to be finalised this week – possibly as early as Tuesday.
The exclusion of Nine and 10 from the three-cornered follow-up talks initiated by Rowland indicates the incumbent holders of the AFL TV rights, Foxtel and Seven, are in the box seat to extend their current contract, albeit with some significant tweaks.
Rowland took many media insiders by surprise last Wednesday when she took the unusual step of commenting on a live commercial negotiation.
See Also: Michelle Rowland urges AFL to keep matches on free-to-air ahead of rights deal
Seven expected to air FIFA Women’s World Cup next year
Seven West Media is in the box seat to become the free-to-air home of the Matildas when they compete in the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia next year, report Nine Publishing’s Zoe Samios and Vince Rugari.
Telco giant Optus was the successful bidder for the rights to more than 60 matches, but was scoping the market for a free-to-air broadcast partner that could simulcast key games and finals when the tournament, which is being co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, commences next July.
Multiple media sources, who spoke anonymously because the deal isn’t finalised, said Seven had emerged as the preferred bidder after 10 and Paramount failed to meet the financial expectations of Optus. If a deal is signed, Seven will simulcast all Matildas matches and the finals of the tournament.
Optus declined to comment. Seven was approached for comment.