Business of Media
Nine board set for ‘refresh’ as Mike Sneesby faces staff revolt this week
Nine Entertainment’s board is set for a “refresh” after months of turmoil at the media company, which has been beset by serious allegations of misconduct, widespread job cuts, the resignation of its chair and high-profile news boss and a sluggish share price, report The Australian’s Sophie Elsworth and James Madden.
The six-person board, chaired by Catherine West — following the abrupt exit of Peter Costello last month — has set up a nomination committee to start the formal recruitment process to find a new board member, possibly two.
Sources told The Australian Nine is firmly focused on “refreshing” the board, in limbo since Costello’s departure, which was triggered by an incident at Canberra Airport where he forcibly barged into Liam Mendes, a reporter from The Australian who was asking him questions about the state of the media organisation.
Rupert Murdoch’s secret succession drama is a warning to rein in the super-rich
We live in an era of private dynasties. America’s billionaires are worth a cool $5.5tn at the last count. Three – Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Tesla’s Elon Musk and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg – are worth over a staggering $500bn between them. Americans dominate the global billionaire league table: Britain has none in the top hundred. But we still have enough to cause concern, reports The Guardian’s Will Hutton.
Individuals who have resources on this scale change the dynamics of the economies and societies in which they live, as the US increasingly dramatises. Their spending pulls economies out of kilter so that too much production is directed towards opulent, useless baubles, but, more dangerously, it spills over into buying political influence – directly in the political process and indirectly via media ownership. Unconstrained, the impact can only grow in the decades ahead, a phenomenon of which the dynastic founders are well aware, even if the wider public is not.
The $600 billion digital ad business is hanging on a few words From Google
Google abandoned efforts to eliminate tracking cookies in its Chrome browser, but the snippets of code that have fueled the lucrative digital-advertising economy for decades might disappear anyway, report The Wall Street Journal’s Suzanne Vranica and Patience Haggin.
Instead of killing cookies itself, Google will leave that up to the consumer. And if history is any lesson, people might just do it.
Google plans to introduce a prompt asking users to opt in or out of cookies in Chrome, according to U.K. regulators overseeing the process. The strategy shift followed a four-year effort to sunset and replace the tracking technology, a process mired in delays and pushback by the ad industry.
Andrew O’Keefe arrested after allegedly driving while on drugs
Former TV host Andrew O’Keefe has been arrested for driving under the influence of drugs just weeks after he was caught allegedly driving with a suspended licence, reports News Corp’s Jessica Wang.
Officers from the Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command allegedly stopped the 52-year-old at about 11.45am on Sunday where he was found behind the wheel of a Mercedes sedan on Cranbrook Road in Sydney’s affluent suburb of Bellevue Hill.
He was then arrested and returned a positive roadside drug test.
Audio
Disrupt Radio’s founder says expansion plans are underway
Disrupt Radio founder Benjamin Roberts is hopeful the start-up broadcaster will expand overseas, despite recording tiny audiences in Australia in its first year of operation, reports The Australian’s Sophie Elsworth.
Roberts said the station was undergoing capital raising and is looking to break into other markets outside of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane where it is available on DAB+.
Speaking to The Australian, Roberts said after marking one year in operation this month, the station’s “format is resonating”.
A few blockbuster podcasts are making all the money
Alex Cooper is nearing a $100 million deal for her Call Her Daddy podcast with Sirius. Trevor Noah is in talks to reup for a second season with Spotify. Joe Rogan inked a deal with the audio giant worth up to $250 million. And it’s looking like football’s Kelce brothers’ show could be next in line, as the No. 4 podcast in the U.S., reports The Wall Street Journal’s Anne Steele.
The podcast industry was initially a way for a crowd of voices from culture watchers to true-crime nerds to talk about everything from murders to science and sex. All you needed was a decent microphone.
Now, podcasting is turning into an industry of megastars who command the most money and the biggest audiences.
Sports Media
Olympics camera operators urged to avoid ‘sexism’ in filming female athletes
The official Olympics broadcaster has urged camera operators to film male and female athletes in the same way to avoid “stereotypes and sexism” creeping into the coverage, reports Agence France-Presse.
The Paris Olympics are the first in the 128-year history of the modern Games to reach gender parity among athletes, with women’s sport also given more prime-time broadcast spots to help raise its profile.
With the Games now in full swing, the head of Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) said his organisation had updated its guidelines for camera operators, most of whom are men. OBS is responsible for the TV coverage of the Olympics, with its images shared with rights holders around the world.
99 not out: Cricket signs seven-year radio deal with the ABC
The ABC will produce radio coverage of the Big Bash League under a new deal with Cricket Australia that will also boost coverage of women’s cricket on commercial radio, reports Nine Publishing’s Mathew Dunckley.
At the conclusion of the seven-year-deal the ABC will have broadcast Australian cricket on the radio for 99 years.
Cricket Australia said the timing of the radio deals with ABC, SEN and Triple M aligned with its television broadcast rights with the Seven Network and Foxtel in running through to 2030-31.