Peter Costello departs Nine
Catherine West takes Nine’s helm – and crisis – from Peter Costello
Catherine West is in the hot seat. The London-born lawyer was abruptly elevated to chair Nine Entertainment, the highest-profile role of her career, at the weekend, report Nine Publishing’s Max Mason and Sam Buckingham-Jones.
In taking over from former federal treasurer Peter Costello as the chairwoman of the country’s largest media company, West finds herself dealing with the fallout of a major cultural crisis – and steering the publishing and broadcasting giant into an uncertain future.
On Tuesday, Morningstar analyst Brian Han told his clients that conditions were “ripe for Nine to attract takeover interest”. The share price fell another 2¢ to close at $1.38 on Tuesday, taking its fall this year to more than 31 per cent.
See Also: Peter Costello stands down as Nine chairman
With Peter Costello gone, heat is now on Nine CEO Mike Sneesby
Nine Entertainment’s management team has declined to confirm whether they publicly back chief executive Mike Sneesby as the company tries desperately to move on after the departure of long-serving chair Peter Costello following the airport fracas, reports The Australian’s Sophie Elsworth.
The 10 managers who work under Sneesby were all contacted by The Australian on Monday to ask if they support him – not one of them responded.
A Nine spokeswoman said: “We won’t be commenting on this.”
Conflicted Costello’s departure shifts deckchairs in a doomed industry
Peter Costello stepped down as chair of the Future Fund in February. On Sunday he stepped down as chair of Nine Entertainment, report Crikey’s Bernard Keane and Glenn Dwyer.
Thus ends Costello’s reign as Australia’s most conflicted business figure. A Liberal elder — one still prone to commentating on contemporary politics and backing his party — should never have been the head of a major independent institution like the Future Fund. Nor should he have been chair of a company that owns Australia’s second-biggest media company, a position for which his continuing political engagement and his chairmanship of the Future Fund rendered him unsuitable.
The man who wears the crown in Nine’s Game of Thrones
Fresh from Nine’s Sunday morning of high boardroom drama that ended Peter Costello’s reign as board chair, his replacement Catherine West joined the company’s chief executive, Mike Sneesby, on Tuesday for a tour of the Sydney factory floor – the newsroom, reports Nine Publishing’s Elizabeth Knight.
But in Nine’s own version of Game of Thrones, the real king is the 95-year-old Bermudan-based Bruce Gordon, who has made his estimated $1 billion-plus fortune investing in regional television stations – the poor cousins of the three capital city networks.
Business of Media
Paramount’s deal with Skydance falls apart
Skydance’s merger talks with Paramount were called off Tuesday after the two sides failed to agree on terms, according to two people with knowledge of the talks, scuttling a deal that has captivated Hollywood for months, report The New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin and Lauren Hirsch.
The suspended negotiations derail attempts to unite Paramount — the parent company of CBS, MTV and Nickelodeon — with Skydance, the up-and-coming movie studio behind Top Gun: Maverick.
There were several hitches in the last week as Skydance, Paramount and its parent company, National Amusements, reached the final stages of negotiations. Shari Redstone, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, wanted Skydance to agree to provide some legal protection for the deal in case investors filed a lawsuit. A committee of Paramount’s board members evaluating the plan also fired a public relations firm that it had been using.
Global ad revenue will hit $1 trillion faster than expected, GroupM forecast says
Global advertising revenue will grow 7.8% in 2024 to nearly $990 billion, excluding U.S. political advertising, media investment group GroupM said in a new forecast significantly raising expectations from a previous estimate of 5.3%, reports The Wall Street Journal’s Megan Graham.
The revision puts the global ad industry on track to surpass $1 trillion in revenue in 2025, one year earlier than expected, by increasing 6.8% next year to $1.1 trillion, the forecast said.
Meanwhile, Nine opened its new Canberra studio
Nine formally opened its new Nine News studio at Parliament House last week, although the event was upstaged by Peter Costello’s arrival at Canberra Airport and surrounding headlines, reports TV Tonight.
PM Anthony Albanese opened the studios last week (having opened new Seven News studios last August), joined by new Head of News & Current Affairs Fiona Dear, Director of Television Michael Healy, Sydney News Director Simon Hobbs, Melbourne News Director Hugh Nailon and Director of Communications Victoria Buchan.