Business of Media
ABC Q+A executive producer Erin Vincent quits, two days after it was announced Stan Grant would not be returning
The boss of the ABC’s Q+A program has quit just two days after it was revealed host Stan Grant would not be returning to the show, reports The Australian’s Sophie Elsworth.
Executive producer Erin Vincent has led the program for three years, and on Wednesday she announced on social media that she too would be leaving.
The program has endured a revolving door of hosts in recent years and falling ratings, plus a move from airing on Thursdays back to Monday nights.
Vincent posted on her Instagram account that “after 14 years at the ABC the time has come for something new”.
“I have had so many amazing opportunities at the ABC, leading so many passionate and talented people,” she said.
Vincent went on to list her various roles she held at the ABC and said she was moving on to become chief executive at Melbourne’s The Wheeler Centre, a books and ideas centre.
ABC news director Justin Stevens sent an email to staff on Wednesday and thanked Vincent for her service, including taking over Q+A at the beginning of 2020 and “navigating the program through pandemic lockdowns and restrictions”.
Olivia Hill-Douglas will take over as acting EP.
Netflix lists AI job worth $900,000 amid twin Hollywood strikes
As actors and writers strike over fair compensation and protections from the encroachment of artificial intelligence, Netflix has listed a position for a machine learning product manager that will compensate somewhere between $300,000 and $900,000 a year. According to the Screen Actors Guild (Sag-Aftra), 87% of the guild’s actors make less than $26,000 per year, reports The Guardian’s Adrian Horton.
The use of AI in the production of film and television – either to write scripts, generate actors’ likenesses, or cut corners in paying creative work, has been a major point of contention in negotiations between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and Sag and the Writers Guild of America (WGA). Writers have been striking since May; the actors joined earlier this month. The first joint strike since 1960 threatens to bring Hollywood to a complete standstill.
The position, first reported by the Intercept, is a new role to “increase the leverage of our machine learning platform”, billed as “the foundation for all of this innovation”. The job lists vague qualifications related to machine learning, but alludes to the company’s farther-reaching goals for AI in “all areas of business”. A separate “machine learning” section on the company’s website says the company will use AI to “shape our catalog of movies and TV shows by learning characteristics that make content successful” and to “optimize the production of original movies and TV shows”.
This is not the only new AI position sought by Netflix. The Intercept reported that the company is also seeking to hire a technical director for generative AI at its gaming studio for up to $650,000 a year.
Universal Music Group CEO welcomes Spotify raising US subscription prices
Universal Music Group chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge has welcomed Spotify raising prices for its premium paying subscriber base to boost streaming audio revenues for his label’s artist rosters, reports The Hollywood Reporter’s Etan Vlessing.
“We obviously welcome Spotify’s announcement, as well as YouTube’s announcement,” Grainge told analysts, while also citing YouTube Music also raising its prices, after the major music label behind Sting, The Weeknd, Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande unveiled its second quarter earnings.
“But addressing average revenue per user is only one component. First we must ensure that real artists with real fan bases are fairly compensated,” he added, while talking up ongoing talks between the major music labels and streaming platforms.
“We see more alignment between the labels and the music platforms that we’ve ever seen before. That allows us to make sure the artists are better compensated and everyone is rewarded for the engagement that those artists drive,” he told analysts.
Kevin Spacey cleared of sexually assaulting four men
Kevin Spacey wept and said he was humbled after being cleared of sexual assault in one of the UK’s most high-profile #MeToo trials, reports The Guardian’s Emine Sinmaz.
The 64-year-old Oscar-winning actor sobbed in the dock as he was found not guilty on Wednesday of sexually assaulting four men after a four-week trial at Southwark crown court.
Wearing a dark suit, pink shirt and burgundy pocket square and tie, Spacey looked at his legal team as jurors cleared him of nine sexual offences against four men.
As he stood in the dock on his 64th birthday, the Hollywood star put his hand on his chest, looked at the jurors and mouthed: “Thank you, thank you.”
The judge, Justice Mark Wall, praised the lawyers in the case and said: “The defendant may be discharged.”
Speaking outside the south London court, Spacey thanked the jury, who reached a verdict following 12 hours and 26 minutes of deliberating and after being given a majority direction by the judge.
Reach revenue hit by cost of Facebook unfriending the news industry
The UK’s largest regional news publisher Reach has blamed changes at Facebook for plunging digital revenue in its latest half-year results, reports Press Gazette’s Dominic Ponsford.
Reach is the commercial news publisher with the largest online audience in the UK, some 37.9 million per month according to Ipsos iris figures from earlier this year.
But its half-year results reveal online page views down 16% (a decline that drops to 2% excluding the impact of Facebook). Digital revenue has also been hit by lower yields from automatically-sold programmatic advertising.
Facebook owner Meta has made a strategic decision to reduce the visibility of news on its platform, leading to falling page views for many publishers. The move comes as it fights efforts by regulators to force it to share some of its $100bn+ of annual ad revenue to support news publishers.
Overall Reach revenue is down 6.1% year-on-year to £279.4m with operating profit down 23.5% to £36.1m.
Television
Australian Holey Moley TV show goes into rough as contract ends
The plug is set to be pulled on producing a multimillion-dollar golfing reality TV game show east of Brisbane after a three-year contract expires on Saturday, reports News Corp’s Judith Kerr.
Eureka Productions, producers of Channel Seven’s Holey Moley golf game TV show, signed the lease with Redland City Council in 2020.
Golfing legend Greg Norman designed the course with holes called Dutch Courage, Putt the Plank, and everybody’s favourite, Uranus hole.
But after complaints from neighbours about night-time production noise, filming was scaled back.
Only one series of the Australian Holey Moley TV show was made at the Thornlands-Cleveland site before ratings fell.
When the series launched, initial audience ratings were 1.01 million viewers, which quickly dropped to an average 639,000 metro viewers.
Holey Moley was not on Seven’s list of major reality TV shows for 2023.
Gold? Great. But Sonia would be happy with the Bert Newton Award, thanks
Sonia Kruger is one of the country’s busiest TV presenters, with The Voice, Dancing with the Stars, Big Brother, Academy Awards Red Carpet and back to the Logies Red Carpet this Sunday night, reports TV Tonight.
No wonder she is nominated for the Gold Logie.
“This is the second time I’ve been nominated,” she tells TV Tonight. “But it’s funny, because the other nomination which rarely gets mentioned is the Bert Newton nomination. I mean, yes, to win a Gold Logie would be amazing and just beyond your wildest imagination. But I have a really special relationship with Bert.”
When Kruger’s father was in hospital, it was Bert Newton who reached out to her.
“They didn’t know each other but dad was a huge fan of Bert. Dad was in intensive care and Bert must have seen a New Idea story or something about it.
“He sent me a text message and said, ‘Pass this on to your dad. Get better soon mate, we’re thinking of you.’ It was just a lovely message. He didn’t have to do that. It just made me think, ‘Wow, those acts of kindness are so rare.’