Media
SCA pushes SWM merger as investors split
Southern Cross Australia chair Heith Mackay-Cruise has been lobbying shareholders to back the all-scrip merger with Seven West Media.
The Australian Financial Review’s Sam Buckingham-Jones writes that while Mackay-Cruise says support is strong, major investor Gabriel Radzyminski isn’t convinced.
The Sandon Capital boss, holding 11% of Southern Cross, called the deal “deworsification” and warned it could sink value.
Perth fans short-changed on NRL grand final coverage
In this Op-Ed, TV Central’s Aaron Ryan argues that while Nine is giving most of the country the full NRL Grand Final experience this Sunday, Perth once again gets the cut-down version.
Because daylight savings kicks in over east, Nine has rejigged schedules in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide.
Perth, however, misses out – Weekend Today airs on delay and live sport is bumped to 9Gem.
Bruce Beresford slams Trump’s film tariff plan
Donald Trump’s proposal for a 100 per cent tariff on films made outside the US has been met with ridicule from veteran Australian director Beresford.
As The Daily Telegraph’s Jonathon Moran writes, Beresford called the announcement “mad” and asked how a movie could be treated like “boxes of butter or bits of steel”.
Legal
Rinehart sidesteps Roberts-Smith funding questions
Nine’s bid to prove Gina Rinehart helped fund Ben Roberts-Smith’s failed defamation appeal has been shut down, after her lawyers confirmed she holds no such documents and the subpoena was dropped.
As The Australian’s Stephen Rice reports, Roberts-Smith still owes about $1.5m in legal costs, on top of the $900,000 he’s already paid as security.
Brands
Ferrari names new Australasia boss as sales accelerate
Ferrari has appointed longtime executive Giuseppe Comelli to head its Australia and New Zealand operations, overseeing sales and brand strategy in one of its most passionate markets.
As Forbes Samuel Hussey writes, Comelli, with two decades at Ferrari and a past stint in F1 engineering, called the role both a privilege and a challenge, highlighting plans to strengthen ties with clients and fans.
Social Media
Snapchat puts a price on Memories
The social media giant is putting limits on nostalgia, announcing that users with more than 5GB stored in its Memories feature will now have to pay to keep their archives.
The BBC’s Liv McMahon reports that the change comes as part of a global rollout, though Snap hasn’t revealed what the storage plans will cost.
AI
Google AI sparks questions over Trump search gap
Following an experiment by The Independent’s Rhian Lubin, the tool is serving up different results for nearly identical queries about Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Searches asking if Trump is “in cognitive decline” returned no AI summary, while the same phrasing for Biden generated a full response.
AI takes the director’s chair in new Italian film
First an (ahem) ‘actress’, now a director?
Italian producer Andrea Iervolino has pulled back the curtain on what he’s calling the first movie directed by artificial intelligence.
According to Deadline’s Jake Kanter, the project, The Sweet Idleness, is led by “FellinAI”, a virtual director designed to channel the dreamlike style of classic European cinema.
Meanwhile…
In an interview with Variety’s Adam B. Vary, director James Cameron has moved to reassure the industry that, in his view, AI will never take the place of human storytellers.
“We need our artists,” he said. “It’s artists in control of the process.”
