Business of Media
Accenture Song targets media agencies in move to full service agency
Accenture Song, the creative unit of consultancy giant Accenture, is adding media planning and buying services to its portfolio, making it the first full-service agency offering from a “big four” firm in Australia, reports The Australian’s Danielle Long.
To spearhead the new division, Accenture Song poached the management team from media agency Initiative Media, with chief executive officer Melissa Fein, national managing director Sam Geer and chief strategy and product officer Chris Colter set to join the business.
The move means Accenture Song can now provide clients with a fully-integrated experience comprising creative, technology and media services, helping the agency realise its ambition of providing a complete marketing suite.
Seven poaches rising star Gemma Williams from rival Nine in major TV shake-up
Seven has poached one of Nine’s rising stars to helm its beleaguered Spotlight current affairs show, reports News Corp’s Jonathon Moran.
Gemma Williams has been hired to replace Mark Llewellyn as executive producer on the Sunday night program that goes head-to-head with long-running 60 Minutes.
It symbols a major cultural and generational shift following recent events, where Llewellyn left the network following months of damaging claims about how the current affairs show secured the controversial Bruce Lehrmann interview.
OpenAI to pull ChatGPT voice that sounds similar to Scarlett Johansson
When the generative artificial intelligence startup OpenAI released a demo of its new ChatGPT 4o model last week, it included extensive video of its “Voice Mode,” which features an emotive voice answering user questions, reports The Hollywood Reporter’s Alex Weprin.
While there are a number of voices available, viewers noticed that one of them, “Sky,” sounded suspiciously like actress Scarlett Johansson, who portrayed the voice of an emotive AI in the 2013 film Her (in fact, OpenAI founder Sam Altman posted “her” on X during the demo).
Now, OpenAI says that it is “pausing” the use of the Sky voice as it seeks to address the concerns from users about such a familiar voice being used.
Radio
Sandilands a no-show for live radio program
Kyle Sandilands took his first “sickie” and was absent from live radio on Monday, reports News Corp’s Jackie Epstein.
The decision was made in the morning by KIIS FM to run a “best of” show in his absence, which meant Sandilands and co-host Jackie ‘O’ Henderson were still heard on air.
Controversial host Sandilands will be back on Tuesday for normal programming.
Television
MasterChef Australia under fire over major claims show is ‘greener’ for using ‘renewable gas’
MasterChef Australia is under fire over claims the show is “greener” for using renewable gas, leading to a complaint being lodged with the consumer watchdog, reports News Corp’s Tileah Dobson.
The complaint made to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) were lodged by a climate communications group Comms Declare, with particular aim at one of the show’s sponsors.
The specific claim that caught their attention came from MasterChef host Andy Allen, who in episode 4 stated that “I’m excited to say this year, MasterChef is going greener with renewable gas”.
Is it time Network 10 moved entertainment to 7pm Sundays?
On Sunday night Seven and Nine were locked in a TV battle at 7pm with their big reality shows, split by just 14,000 viewers, reports TV Tonight.
Meanwhile 10 was screening The Sunday Project trailed by 700,000 viewers, leaving MasterChef Australia to do all the heavy lifting when it began thirty minutes later.
Over the past ten weeks, 10’s Sunday share has trailed behind ABC eight times.
A record spend on Australian content …and absolutely $0 on Children’s Drama
Commercial Free to Air networks spent $1.91b on content in the 2022 – 2023 financial year, down slightly on $1.94b the previous year, reports TV Tonight.
The numbers have been released by the Australian Communications and Media Authority in their annual Commercial TV Expenditure Report.
87% of all program expenditure was for Australian content, an increase of 8% on the previous year.