Business of Media
Is Southern Cross Media the country’s most painful takeover target?
It’s no secret Melbourne billionaire Alex Waislitz and his media executive offsider, Antony Catalano, are deep in the red having bet on Southern Cross Media, report Nine Publishing’s Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport.
The pair, who control regional publisher Australian Community Media, went substantial at Southern Cross in March. Since then, the shares are down 38 per cent, although this hasn’t stopped their investment vehicle, 19 Cashews, upping its stake since. At last count, they own 14.4 per cent. The stock has continued to decline, last trading at 61¢ a share.
Seven threatens Amber Harrison with legal action over remarks about Four Corners interview
Seven West Media has threatened to take Amber Harrison to court for alleged breaches of an injunction over comments she made about her interview being omitted from a Four Corners investigation into the media company, reports Nine Publishing’s Calum Jaspan.
This masthead understands a legal letter threatening contempt proceedings was issued to Harrison, a former executive assistant at Seven, on Wednesday morning as the company revealed a 69 per cent slump in full-year profits and flagged huge cost cuts to counter an advertising downturn.
On Tuesday, Harrison said an omission of a three-hour interview she conducted with the ABC’s Louise Milligan left a significant story untold after the flagship investigations program cut the footage at the eleventh hour on Monday night.
Seven Group boss Ryan Stokes says TV culture ‘needs to change’
Seven Group boss Ryan Stokes says inappropriate behaviour won’t be tolerated across his television business or any of the industrial assets he operates, reports The Australian’s Eric Johnston.
The chief executive told The Australian that where other sectors have moved ahead, the television industry has to recognise that it needs to change its culture just as much as media has to adapt to new business models.
Stokes comments follow a tough few months for Channel 7, with hundreds of job cuts and widespread restructuring as advertising revenue falls off. At the same time Channel 7 was the subject of an investigation this week by the ABC’s Four Corners program, which alleged sexism, bullying and harassment mostly toward female staffers.
Labor’s tilt away from a gambling ban makes sense — TV lobbyists get what they want
On Tuesday, Government Services Minister Bill Shorten all but confirmed the government is leaning against a full ban on gambling advertisements, reports Crikey’s Anton Nilsson.
“I’m not convinced that complete prohibition works,” he told the ABC’s Q+A, before hinting at which interest group might have been influencing the government’s thinking.
Shorten said free-to-air broadcasters were under “massive attack” by the likes of Facebook and needed gambling advertising revenue to survive: “Some of you might say, ‘Well, bugger them, just don’t worry, we don’t need free-to-air media’ … but free-to-air media is in diabolical trouble.”
See also: Networks call for spectrum fee cut as gambling ad ban proposal finalised
Aussie TV stars go public with ‘terrifying’ secret problem
It was Monday afternoon when much-loved TV and radio presenter Carrie Bickmore made a public confession that came as a shock to many who’ve followed her career since the early noughties, reports News Corp’s Nick Bond.
An emotional Bickmore revealed that she’d secretly battled sometimes debilitating anxiety for the past 20 years, suffering panic attacks throughout her career while co-hosting Rove Live, The Project, and in her current radio gig on the Hit Network’s Carrie & Tommy show.
The next morning, as Bickmore’s on-air revelation made headlines, another popular Australian TV personality was experiencing the very same problem in real time.
Television
How ‘The Challenge’ made reality TV a real career
When Johnny Devenanzio swiveled in his chair and playfully called for his mother to bring some meatloaf, he knew exactly what he was doing. In his impression of Will Ferrell’s man-child from Wedding Crashers, he was really evoking Johnny Bananas, the Peter Pan-like alter ego he has played for much of his adult life on the grandfather of all reality-competition shows: MTV’s The Challenge, reports The New York Times’ Jonathan Abrams.
Devenanzio, 42, said he’d likely be a stay-at-home-son had his life not so permanently veered into the world of reality television. Or maybe he would have used his Penn State college degree to enter the world of finance. Of his large flock of one-time castmates, many have forged ahead with new careers, gotten married, started families. Not Devenanzio.
Gold Logie nominee Tony Armstrong on his life, career and finding self-worth
Tony Armstrong knows what it’s like to stare down the barrel of a big career change, reports the ABC’s Velvet Winter.
The ABC News Breakfast presenter was barely out of high school when he was drafted into the AFL. After 35 games for the Adelaide Crows, Sydney Swans, and the Collingwood Magpies over six years, Armstrong was — in his own words — “sacked because [he] wasn’t good enough”.
So, he pivoted. In 2020, he began hosting footy show Yokayi Footy for NITV, and producing and presenting sports content for ABC Radio. The next year he filled in on ABC News Breakfast, and was eventually appointed as the go-to sports presenter.
Sports Media
Why sports gambling ads need to be out of our lives
Nothing, as the saying goes, is as powerful as an idea whose time has come. And that applies double when the idea is so obvious it would kill a brown dog, reports Nine Publishing’s Peter FitzSimons.
The idea in question right now is: let’s stop the saturation of every damn sports event with wall-to-wall gambling advertising. Let’s protect our kids, ourselves and, most particularly, those who can’t help themselves by getting sucked into the gaping maw of an industry where every adherent – no exceptions – loses in the long term.
It’s a subject your humble correspondent has been banging on about for years, and it now looks to be close to achieving a critical bipartisan mass – and pushed hard by the Teals – to bring in the legislation to, if not stop it, at least limit the damage.