Business of Media
Is Foxtel’s Patrick Delany on the AFL shopping list for its new CEO?
AFL chairman Richard Goyder has spent 48 hours shimmying between back-to-back interviews with candidates for Gillon McLachlan’s role as AFL CEO, reports Yoni Bashan in his Margin Call column in The Weekend Australian.
On Friday there were proddings of AFL executives Travis Auld and Kylie Rogers, with Andrew Dillon and Richmond FC chief Brendon Gale slated for their turn on Saturday morning (Dillon apparently being an industry favourite).
Still unknown, however, are the names of two additional candidates for McLachlan’s job that were fielded by New York-based recruiters Spencer Stuart. Foxtel CEO Patrick Delany is rumoured to be one, and despite the sensitivity of our antennae we were sadly unable to establish the other.
What we did hear is that Spencer Stuart is receiving upwards of $1m for its services, an extravagant amount but not all that surprising given it’s been engaged in the search for almost a year.
It’s been anything but seamless, clearly, and it sounds like the search became so fraught, so desperate, that earnest attempts were made to cajole McLachlan into keeping the role a bit longer.
ABC managing director stands by the decision to withhold Louise Milligan defamation documents
The ABC has defended its decision to refuse to disclose documents detailing the handling of reporter Louise Milligan’s defamation case, in which she falsely accused former Liberal MP Andrew Laming of taking an “upskirting” photo of a woman, reports The Australian’s Sophie Elsworth.
A letter dated February 28 from ABC managing director David Anderson to the Senate environment and communications legislation committee states “the ABC contends that disclosure of the documents is not in the public interest, especially … in circumstances where the outcome of the code of conduct matter is already on the public record”.
“Disclosure of the documents would not further elucidate the issue but may expose the individual to harm, which the ABC as an employer has a duty to protect against,” the letter says.
The letter was written to explain the ABC’s reasons to stand by its public interest immunity claim, which prevents the public disclosure of documents because they would be prejudicial to the public interest.
It comes despite senior parliamentary official Richard Pye previously informing the committee additional information on the matter could be requested.
Disney+ users paid up when the price rose
Subscribers to Walt Disney Co.’s flagship Disney+ streaming service barely blinked at a 38% price increase that the company imposed in December as part of its launch of an ad-supported streaming product, reports the Wall Street Journal’s Robbie Whelan.
About 94% of subscribers to the old, ad-free Disney+ service stayed with the product at a higher price point and swallowed the US$3 a month price increase, according to new data from subscription-analytics firm Antenna.
Disney declined to comment on Antenna’s numbers, but the data suggest the company has some headroom to raise the streaming price beyond the current level of US$10.99 a month. Newly returned Chief Executive Robert Iger has hinted that increases might be coming.
“In our zeal to grow global [subscriptions], I think we were off in terms of that pricing strategy, and we’re now starting to learn more about it and to adjust accordingly,” Iger said last week at a conference hosted by the investment bank Morgan Stanley. “We have a lot of rationalization to do from a pricing perspective, but that’s one path to profitability.”
In 2019, the company launched Disney+ at a price of US$6.99 a month.
Inside the fall of the country’s most popular wine magazine
Sometime over the summer, the country’s most popular wine journal quietly called it quits and stopped publishing, reports Nine Publishing’s Kylar Loussikian.
Gourmet Traveller Wine – more recently known simply as Wine – had passed from the Packer family to German publishing giant Bauer, before being acquired by storied Sydney restaurateur Stan Sarris and his wife Judy.
But money was always scarce, former staff and contributors say, and by late 2019 the magazine was in administration. Still, it continued publishing until days before Christmas, when the Federal Court called time and appointed liquidators. The pandemic and an unexpected tax bill, Sarris claimed, had ended any chance of reviving the publisher, GT Wine Magazine Pty Ltd.
This week, liquidators delivered their own verdict. In a report filed with the corporate regulator on Wednesday, DW Advisory’s Cameron Gray outlined a startling number of claims against Sarris and other senior figures at the magazine, accusing them of “illegal phoenix activity” and fraud.
More than $1.1 million had also been loaned to an entity known as Winecraft – its only shareholders are the Sarris family – with no indication, Gray wrote to creditors, that this money would ever be recovered.
News Brands
News Corp tests Daily Telegraph, regional news arm merger
News Corp Australia is testing the merger of its Sydney masthead The Daily Telegraph with the state’s network of community news journalists, known as NewsLocal, reports Nine Publishing’s Sam Buckingham-Jones.
While The Daily Telegraph has published stories produced by NewsLocal journalists for years, the merger would formalise the reporting line, physically moving Sydney-based NewsLocal journalists into the masthead’s newsroom, and bringing local and national coverage closer together.
Sources with knowledge of the arrangement – speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not permitted to speak publicly – confirmed a pilot is underway that aims to give the editor of the newspaper more control over NewsLocal’s resources.
News Corp Australia declined to comment.
ABC political editor lashes Paul Keating’s treatment of journalists
ABC political editor Andrew Probyn has unloaded on Paul Keating’s treatment of journalists during a fiery National Press Club appearance on Wednesday, describing the former PM’s behaviour during the appearance as “very poor indeed,” reports The Australian’s Nick Tabakoff.
Keating took an array of colourful potshots at a number of journalists who dared to ask him questions about the role of the China threat in Anthony Albanese’s signing of the new AUKUS submarine deal last week.
But in comments to Diary, Probyn suggested Keating had crossed the line, particularly in his treatment of Sky News political reporter Olivia Caisley and Nine journalist Matthew Knott.
“I thought the dismissive manner in which he dealt with younger, especially female journalists, who all asked perfectly decent questions, was very poor indeed,” Probyn told Diary.
Audio
ABC hires consultants amid nationwide radio ratings slump
Australia’s national broadcaster has established an internal advisory group and brought in external consultants to try to stop the dramatic decline of its radio audiences in capital cities across the country, reports Nine Publishing’s Zoe Samios.
In the first GfK radio ratings survey of the year, all of ABC’s metropolitan stations, as well as respective breakfast and drive time programs, reported a concerning drop in audience share compared to the same time the previous year. The cumulative audience, which quantifies how many people listened to a station at least once during the week, has fallen in every single market.
Sources, who spoke anonymously because it is confidential, said the ABC had commenced an eight-week project, which will look at ways to improve ABC’s local radio strategy and how to arrest the decline in audience.
The sources said the group is being led by ABC’s head of corporate strategy Jeremy Millar, who is speaking with radio managers, presenters, and employees across the country until April. The review will be incorporated into the ABC’s updated five-year plan (it is unclear when this will be made public).
Play School launches new podcast amid children’s audio boom
Big Ted, Humpty and Jemima made the leap into audio land this week, with the launch of the Play School: Ears On podcast, reports NIne Publishing’s Kerrie O’Brien.
Pitched at two to four-year-olds, the pod is a spin-off of the much-loved 57-year-old TV show, replete with many of its characters and presenters. Each six-minute episode features a mystery sound and takes children on an adventure to work out what it is, modelling active listening, asking for help and spending time with friends.
In the first episode, presenter Teo Gebert and Big Ted are learning to tie their shoelaces when they hear a zipping noise, which they decide to investigate. Along the way they meet a friend, with the distinctive Play School piano providing the soundtrack.
Each episode has a similar format, featuring different presenters and characters. The toys will have different voices each season, as they do on the TV show, based on whoever is animating them. Simple, yet clever and engaging, the podcast will no doubt delight young listeners as they encounter familiar characters in a new format.
Radio’s top duo Kyle and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson silence the haters and doubters
Topping the ratings and having the most listened-to podcast in the country is a bit of an “I-told-you-so” moment for KIIS FM duo Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson. And after 23 years on air, they’re happy to say just that, reports News Corp’s Lisa Mayoh.
“You’ve got to remember, we were told years ago over at the other radio station, ‘you guys are just about at the end of your career’ — and I was shocked, we both were,” Kyle said.
“We thought we were not even in the middle of our career at that stage, and then the other mob were winding us up and I thought ‘ah, we best go somewhere else, we might be appreciated’ — and that’s really why we moved.
“And here we are, more than 10 years down the track, with the biggest ratings any radio show has ever had in the history of radio.
“And that’s even before — remember when it was FM and Triple M, there was no Smooth, no Nova — so it’s impressive.”
“There is the sense of ‘you guys were wrong’,” agreed Jackie.
“And that’s nice, in a way, when you get told you’re not going to last, or you’re not going to make it beyond a certain point — it’s nice to prove somebody wrong.”
See Also: Radio Ratings 2023, Survey 1: Highlights + Full Results
Sports Media
TV reform delay kicks a goal for free-to-air footy fans
Attempts by Rupert Murdoch’s pay-TV company Foxtel and the major football codes to reduce the number of matches on free-to-air television have been dealt a blow, with the federal government expected to delay legislative reform until later this year, reports Nine Publishing’s Zoe Samios.
Australia’s anti-siphoning list, which was to expire on April 1, decides what major sports and cultural events the federal government deems should be made freely available to Australians through commercial television networks.
Media sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because plans are not announced, said Communications Minister Michelle Rowland would introduce a new list before the end of the month, but it would be largely unchanged.
The decision gives Rowland the chance to continue consultations with stakeholders before finalising a new framework that will ultimately determine how sports can be accessed and viewed in the future, given the advent of streaming services.
The decision temporarily thwarts attempts by Foxtel and the sporting bodies to have the laws eased, and also the efforts of commercial television networks to make the laws apply to global streaming platforms. A spokesperson for Rowland declined to comment.
Anti-siphoning laws were introduced in 1992 at the beginning of the pay-TV era as a way to keep major sporting and cultural events free for the public and to protect the free-to-air networks from losing key rights from Rupert Murdoch’s newly created company, Foxtel.