Business of Media
Anti-AFR price rise could breach competition law: Samuel
Billionaire media baron Kerry Stokes’ decision to increase the cost of printing The Australian Financial Review in Western Australia so high it has forced the cancellation of hard copies in the state appears to breach competition laws, former watchdog chief Graeme Samuel says, report Nine Publishing’s Sam Buckingham-Jones, Tom McIlroy and Tom Rabe.
Samuel, the former chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, said there appeared to be a breach of section 46 of the Competition and Consumer Act, which says companies must not engage in conduct that has the purpose or effect of substantially lessening competition.
See Also: AFR to stop printing in Western Australia
Meta’s dangerous playbook to be exposed, as Labor establishes a committee to probe tech giant
The decision by tech giant Meta to abandon payment-for-content deals with news outlets, and its failure to monitor publishing of harmful and illegal material on its social media platforms, will be the focus of a federal parliamentary inquiry, report The Australian’s Sophie Elsworth and James Madden.
The Albanese government will establish a joint parliamentary select committee to investigate the consequences of Meta walking away from its financial deals with news media companies, and the impact that decision will have on Australian society.
Apple apologises for iPad ad depicting crushed creative tools
Apple has apologised for an advertisement that depicts an array of creative tools being crushed and reveals a new iPad in their place, saying it fell short of the company’s standards, reports The Wall Street Journal’s Aaron Tilley.
The ad, which Chief Executive Tim Cook posted on X after Apple unveiled new iPads Tuesday, depicts a studio filled with musical instruments, a record player, cans of paint with vibrant colors and other items being physically crushed by what appears to be a giant compressor.
When the compressor lifts, an ultrathin iPad is all that remains in place of the tools.
TikTok to auto-flag AI videos – even if created on other platforms
TikTok will flag users who upload artificial intelligence-generated content (AIGC) to the video-sharing site from other platforms, the company says, becoming the first big video site to automatically label such content for users to see, reports The Guardian’s Alex Hern.
Content created using TikTok’s own AI tools is already automatically marked as such to viewers, and the company has required creators to manually add the same labels to their own content, but until now they have been able to evade the rules and pass off generated material as authentic by uploading it from other platforms.
News Brands
‘Intense’ News Corp restructure to target premium content
News Corp has inked an extension to its US$100 million ($152 million) a year content deal with Google as it progresses an “intense and ongoing” restructure expected to strip tens of millions of dollars from its Australian publishing business, reports Nine Publishing’s Sam Buckingham-Jones.
The Murdoch family-controlled business’s global chief executive, Robert Thomson, delivered the company’s third quarter results on Thursday morning, noting a challenging advertising market that had hit the news division in particular.
News Corp renews lucrative Google deal
News Corp has extended its existing partnership with Google, in a deal that will see the tech giant continue to pay the media company for the use of its content, reports The Australian’s James Madden.
The announcement of News Corp’s renewal of its lucrative contract with Google coincided with the release of the media company’s third-quarter results.
The value of the deal has not been disclosed, but News Corp’s chief financial officer Susan Panuccio said “the financials were consistent” with the previous partnership which was signed in 2021.
Sony and Apollo’s plan for Paramount: Break it up
Shari Redstone helped build Paramount Global into a media empire, but if Sony Pictures Entertainment and the private-equity giant Apollo Global Management succeed in acquiring it, they plan to break it all up, according to three people familiar with the matter, report The New York Times‘ Benjamin Mullin and Lauren Hirsch.
The plan would include auctioning off CBS, cable channels like MTV and the Paramount Plus streaming service, said the people, who asked not to be identified sharing private details. Paramount Pictures — home to blockbusters like The Godfather, Top Gun and the Mission: Impossible franchise — would be combined with Sony’s business.
Television
ABC multichannels replaced with ABC Family, ABC Entertains
From June there will no longer be two dedicated children’s TV channels on ABC, reports TV Tonight.
ABC TV Plus channel will rebrand as ABC Family, with ABC Kids in the daytime then from 7:30pm family titles aimed at older teens and co-viewing titles.
ABC ME will end in June to be replaced by ABC Entertains with comedy and entertainment. Although there are children’s titles in the morning, there will be more adult offerings across the day.