Radio
‘Absolute unmitigated disaster’: Kyle Sandilands blunt assessment of Melbourne rollout
“Melbourne, it’s been 12 months and it’s an absolute unmitigated disaster. Well, I blame you guys, in all honesty. I blame you guys. What we should have done is roll this out nationally from day one. Put our balls in our hand and f***ing moved forward.”
That was Kyle Sandilands’ blunt assessment of The Kyle & Jackie O Show’s Melbourne rollout, delivered directly to a room of independent media buyers and advertisers at the IMAA Sound Bites event in Sydney on Thursday.
The comments, directed toward executives from the Australian Radio Network (ARN), which syndicates the KIIS FM show, set the tone for a no-holds-barred conversation.
Social Media
YouTube hits back at eSafety Commissioner’s call for Under 16 ban
Earlier this week, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant told the National Press Club she’d advised Minister Anika Wells to include YouTube in the proposed under-16 social media ban.
YouTube responded Thursday evening, warning that restricting access could do more harm than good.
The proposed ban wouldn’t block YouTube entirely, teens could still watch content without logging in, but it would limit access to the platform’s social features.
Legal
ABC denies early offer as Lattouf payout stirs fresh scrutiny
The ABC is pushing back against claims it could’ve wrapped up the Antoinette Lattouf case for $85,000 a year ago, as criticism mounts over the more than $1 million it’s now spent fighting the unlawful termination claim.
As Ellie Dudley and James Dowling report in The Australian, the broadcaster is copping heat after the Federal Court ruled it unlawfully dumped the fill-in host over her views on the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Managing director David Anderson issued a public apology on Wednesday, admitting the ABC mishandled the situation.
Media
ABC corrects the record on Sinodinos and Fitzgibbon’s AUKUS ties
The ABC has admitted it missed a key disclosure when it aired interviews with Arthur Sinodinos and Joel Fitzgibbon earlier this month, namely, that both men co-chair the advisory board of AUKUS Forum, a business group aiming to cash in on the AUKUS defence deal.
The oversight came during Afternoon Briefing segments about, you guessed it, AUKUS.
As Anton Nilsson writes in Crikey, while Sinodinos and Fitzgibbon both spoke on the topic, neither the host nor the chyron flagged their direct link to an organisation pitching itself as a gateway for businesses eager to get a slice of the submarine action.
FOI documents reveal ABC’s internal diversity targets
A Freedom of Information request has revealed the inner workings of the ABC’s diversity program, showing just how far reporters are being asked to go to meet internal representation quotas.
According to Oscar Godsell in Sky News Australia, the “50:50 Equality Project” outlines targets across gender, cultural background, disability and Indigenous representation—and includes processes for logging those identities in story data.
The project is being driven by ABC news director Justin Stevens, who, according to one internal email, once accused staff of racism during a 2022 push to speed up the rollout.
Sport
Optus Sport on the chopping block as EPL deal nears
Optus Sport could be heading for shutdown, with more than 100 jobs now in limbo as Optus edges closer to handing English Premier League rights to Nine’s Stan.
According to John Buckley in Capital Brief, the telco is reportedly finalising a deal that would see it exit the sports streaming game entirely.
The EPL has been the backbone of Optus Sport since its 2016 launch, and without it, there’s little reason for the platform to continue.
Podcasts
Schwartz exits podcasting as Read This joins 7am on the chopping block
Schwartz Media is winding down its podcast slate, and it’s not just 7am heading out the door.
As Daanyal Saeed writes in Crikey, the publisher has quietly axed Read This, the acclaimed literary podcast hosted by The Monthly’s Michael Williams, marking a major loss for book lovers and the local publishing scene.
Williams confirmed the news on social media, revealing the final episodes will drop by end of June as Schwartz exits podcasting entirely.
Publishing
Anna Wintour steps back from Vogue after 37 years at the top
Anna Wintour is handing over the reins at American Vogue, stepping down as editor in chief after nearly four decades in the role.
As Isabella Simonetti and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg write in The Australian, while she’s not disappearing from fashion’s front row, the move paves the way for a fresh editorial voice to take charge of the iconic brand.
Wintour, now 75, will stay on as Condé Nast’s global chief content officer and continue overseeing the international Vogue titles, as well as Vanity Fair, GQ, Allure and Glamour.
AI
Reddit fights AI flood to keep its conversations human
Reddit is drawing a line in the sand as AI-generated content floods the internet.
CEO Steve Huffman says the platform is in an “arms race” to protect the real, messy, lived-in texture of its user conversations, something tech giants are now scrambling to licence for training their AI models.
As Daniel Thomas and Hannah Murphy write in the Australian Financial Review, with two decades of deeply human, highly searchable content, Reddit has become a goldmine for companies like Google and OpenAI, both of which have inked multi-million-dollar deals to access its data.
Meta clears legal hurdle as authors lose AI copyright fight
Meta has come out on top in a closely watched copyright case, with a US judge ruling that the tech giant’s use of books to train its AI models counts as “fair use.”
As Dan Milmo writes in The Guardian, the decision marks the second courtroom win this week for the AI sector, following a similar result for Anthropic.
The case was brought by a group of high-profile writers, including Sarah Silverman and Ta-Nehisi Coates, who argued their work was used without permission.