Business of Media
Nine Radio employees hit by Frontier cyber breach
Almost 500 current and former employees of Nine Radio had their personal payroll details stolen as part of a massive hack of payroll software provider Frontier Software late in 2021, reports AFR‘s Max Mason and David Marin-Guzman.
Frontier had previously informed Nine Radio that no personal information of its employees had been released. However, this week, it told Nine Radio that advice had changed after weeks of forensic analysis.
“Earlier this week, Nine Radio Pty Ltd (Nine) became aware that personal information from the month of May 2016 relating to 498 current and former employees, including you, may have been accessed as a result of a cyber attack against an external payroll software provider, Frontier Software Pty Ltd (Frontier),” Nine Radio managing director Tom Malone said in an email to affected staff members.
“The cyber attack, which occurred on November 13, 2021, resulted in a file containing these current and former employees’ personal information from that period being exported from Frontier.”
Cyberattack on News Corp, believed linked to China, targeted emails of journalists, others
News Corp was the target of a hack that accessed emails and documents of journalists and other employees, an incursion the company’s cybersecurity consultant said was likely meant to gather intelligence to benefit China’s interests, reports News Corp’s Alexandera Bruell and Sadie Gurman.
The attack, discovered on January 20, affected a number of publications and business units including The Wall Street Journal and its parent Dow Jones; the New York Post; the company’s UK news operation; and News Corp headquarters, according to an email the company sent to staff Friday.
News Corp said it notified law enforcement and hired cybersecurity firm Mandiant Inc. to support an investigation.
Google hits out at Australian media code as US reviews laws
Search advertising giant Google has hit out at Australia’s media bargaining laws, telling a US government department the legislation would be unworkable and harm democracy in the world’s largest economy, reports SMH‘s Zoe Samios.
Australia’s news media bargaining code came into effect last February. Google initially fiercely opposed the code, but it eventually relented with chief executive Sundar Pichai describing the laws to this masthead as “the right construct” allowing it to support news publishers.
However, in a submission to the US Copyright Office, which is reviewing the country’s media laws, the search giant indicated it is still strongly opposed to the framework of paying publishers for the ability to link to their news stories.
Foxtel boss Patrick Delany points to subscriber growth and loyalty as IPO looms
Foxtel chief executive Patrick Delany has cited the growth and loyalty of its subscriber base, as well as healthy and diverse revenue streams, as the key markers of the company’s turnaround amid continuing speculation of an initial public offering before the end of the financial year, reports News Corp’s James Madden.
Speaking to The Australian following the release of News Corp’s second-quarter results on Friday, Delany pointed to the Foxtel Group’s burgeoning subscriber numbers, the return of strong ad revenues, and the fact its churn rate (the percentage of subscribers who discontinue service) had dropped to 13 per cent – its lowest level in more than two years – as clear signs the streaming-led company had momentum.
“We’re doing the things we said we’d do at Foxtel – we’re getting churn down, and we’ll continue to have progress on that, and revenue is on the up,” he said.
REA Group investigating potential staff underpayments
News Corp-controlled real estate listings portal REA Group has ordered an urgent review into its payroll over concerns some staff members may not have been paid the right amount in commissions, reports SMH‘s Zoe Samios.
REA, which announced a record interim dividend payment on Friday, wrote to staff on the same day to inform them consultancy KPMG was reviewing payments over concerns that provider Ascender had not remunerated staff properly by miscalculating tax.
Industry sources familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity, said the KPMG review will assess pay from July 2021 until now. The scale of potential underpayment is unclear.
News Brands
60 years of The Sunday Times Magazine: Brilliant collection of covers
In a UK newspaper market where The Daily Telegraph has just dropped its Sunday glossy magazine, The Sunday Times is reminding readers about its continuing product and its proud 60-year heritage. The Sunday colour magazine initiative pre-dated the ownership by News Corp which didn’t take control until 1981.
This weekend the magazine celebrated its 60th birthday with a special issue which included a wonderful collection of past covers:
On February 4, 1962, out stepped the first issue of The Sunday Times Magazine. Or as it was called then, the Colour Section. Today’s readers might think, “Pah! What’s so special about a newspaper having a magazine?” But it was revolutionary — the first colour supplement published by a UK newspaper.
Our first magazine cover was extraordinarily prescient, consisting of a series of fashion shots inset with one of a footballer — two themes that would go global in the coming decades. The footballer was Jimmy McIlroy of Burnley, whose club was said to be paying him the staggering sum of £80 a week. “With other earnings, he must be making close on £5,000 a year,” the magazine exclaimed. That’s equivalent to less than £115,000 now. The Ronaldos and Messis of today would barely tie their bootlaces for that.
The bigger star, however, was arguably the model Jean Shrimpton, dressed by the designer Mary Quant — who is often credited with popularising the miniskirt — and photographed by David Bailey. [A staff photographer in those early days was Lord Snowdon.]
Chris Uhlmann’s shock plan to quit as Nine political editor
He inherited the highest profile job in Australian political journalism in 2017, when he replaced a retiring Laurie Oakes as Nine’s chief political editor, reports News Corp’s Nick Tabakoff.
But less than five years later, Diary has now learnt Chris Uhlmann is planning to quit the plum role. Indeed, there’s early talk around Nine circles the network is already in the early stages of canvassing potential replacements for Uhlmann’s position.
When we reached Uhlmann late last week, he quietly confirmed our mail. He told us while he intended to cover the likely May federal election and its aftermath, 2022 would most likely be his last year in the coveted job.
Television
Neighbours faces axe after dumped by UK broadcaster Channel 5
The future of Neighbours – Australia’s longest-running TV drama – is in serious jeopardy after it was revealed its contract with a UK broadcaster will cease mid-year, reports News Corp’s Sophie Elsworth.
Filming at the famous Ramsay Street set in Melbourne has been called off on Monday and production company Fremantle is holding urgent talks with more than 100 staff after the news broke in the British media on Sunday that the show’s future was in limbo.
Neighbours first aired in Australia 37 years ago but now faces the axe after it was revealed Channel 5, its British broadcaster network, would not continue airing the program beyond June after being unable to reach an financial agreement with Fremantle.
It’s understood many employees of the show are devastated and are concerned about the future of their jobs.
It’s understood that Channel 5 – which began airing the soap in 2008 – provides most of the funding for the program’s production.
Fans rallying to save Neighbours
Fans are rallying behind iconic Australian TV drama Neighbours which is under dire threat after it was dropped by its UK broadcast partner, reports News Corp’s Fiona Byrne.
Channel 5 in the UK has confirmed it is not renewing its contract with Fremantle, the company that produces Neighbours, and will cease airing the show in Britain as of June.
After news broke on Sunday a petition to keep the beloved show on air has attracted more than 13,000 signatures.
The petition calls on Channel 5 to continue to support the show, saying it has been a staple on UK screens for more than 35 years.
Sports Media
Sam McClure’s sports award under a cloud after The Age issues apology for reports
A prestigious media honour awarded to an Age sports journalist for his reporting on the Adelaide Football Club’s controversial training camp is under review after the media company published apologies over his investigative work, reports News Corp’s Sophie Elsworth.
Sam McClure won the 2020 Quill award in the sports news category for his reporting on the club’s pre-season training camp, which the Melbourne Press Club judges described as a “two-year investigation”.
The article, “Inside the camp that brought down the Adelaide Crows”, was published by The Age on July 4, 2020, and McClure received the honour at last year’s awards ceremony at Melbourne’s Crown Casino.
But this month Nine published apologies that will run for one week in The Sunday Age, on Nine’s Wide World of Sports website and The Age, referencing the series of articles and interviews aired about the camp.
McClure’s award-winning feature was among those stripped from its websites.
It detailed events that took place at the camp, run by Queensland-based high-performance mindset training specialists Collective Mind and its two directors, Amon Woulfe and Derek Leddie.
After an investigation into the camp by workplace safety investigator SafeworkSA found no health and safety breaches, Nine Entertainment (owner of The Age newspaper) agreed to remove a series of articles published between 2018 and 2021 by McClure and The Age’s former chief football writer, Caroline Wilson.
The MPC’s chief executive officer Cathy Bryson told The Australian issues relating to McClure receiving an award for his work were under review.
Sports rights retreat: How the BBC gave up on live TV sport portfolio
When fans tune in to watch Saturday’s [Rugby Union] Calcutta Cup, they will be witnessing an increasingly rare televisual phenomenon: a major sporting event shown live by the BBC [on TV] , reports London’s Daily Telegraph.
The Six Nations is among the casualties in the slow but savage erosion of the national broadcaster’s portfolio of Britain’s most popular sporting occasions.
A deal struck last year saw the BBC, which had already lost the rights to half of rugby union’s biggest annual tournament, end up with only one live match per round and one England game of any kind per year.
Analysis by Telegraph Sport has found that, out of 22 elite events across a range of sports, the BBC no longer holds exclusive live rights to any of them and has a share of those rights for just eight.
By comparison, as recently as 2012, it had the exclusive live rights to seven of the 22 and a share of those for another six. In its 1992 pomp, meanwhile, the BBC had a near-monopoly, boasting 17 of these events exclusively and sharing three of the remaining five.
The main cause of the BBC’s stripped-back coverage is simple: money. The correlation between a pay TV-driven spike in broadcast rights fees and a reduction in the BBC’s corresponding sporting portfolio is well established.
Former athlete can keep broadcasting job despite new sports management role
The BBC will allow Steve Cram to occupy a senior role at UK Athletics while remaining its lead commentator for the sport, despite a push by the BBC director general, Tim Davie, for more impartiality at the corporation, reports The Times.
This week Cram, the 61-year-old former world 1,500m champion, was named by UKA as a member of the governing body’s new performance management group, which has been set up to advise the performance staff and the governing body’s senior executive team before a summer during which British athletes will participate in the World and European Championships as well as the Commonwealth Games.
In 2019 BBC Sport’s athletics team came under fire for failing to declare Paula Radcliffe’s commercial link to Nike — and the fact that her husband was coaching Mo Farah — when she spoke as a pundit about a four-year doping ban for Alberto Salazar, the disgraced American coach who masterminded Farah’s Olympic and World Championship success as the head of the now disbanded Nike Oregon Project.
Cram, too, has a long commercial history with Nike.
Sports rights could be split? Too much Big Bash League is barely enough
Former cricket administrator Andrew Jones writes in The Sydney Morning Herald and answers criticisms that there are too many BBL games:
The 14-game season allows each team to play each other team home and away, ensuring the fairest possible competition. This is the model followed by the IPL, EPL, Super Netball and numerous other leagues around the world.
The seven-week window is designed to entertain Australian families every night of the festive season and the school holidays. The ratings show BBL does this very effectively – hundreds of thousands per night across Seven, Fox and Kayo.
The 61-match schedule allowed CA to give Foxtel/Kayo an exclusive match package in the 2018-24 rights deal without reducing the number of matches accessible free of charge to all Australians.
For the future:
Plan for the next round of media rights. BBL and WBBL are massive drivers of audiences and subscriptions at a time there has never been more competition in television. If 45 games is too many for one FTA network, either split the FTA games across two stations or shift some to Kayo, Stan Sport, Paramount+, Amazon Prime et cetera.
There are only two major summer sports properties, cricket and tennis, but many more than two buyers. All the world’s big streaming services are going all-in on sports rights and BBL is well-positioned to cash in.
Andrew Jones is CEO of The Killer Group. He was previously chief executive of Cricket NSW (2013-19) and CA’s general manager strategy (2010-12).