The global media landscape is dotted with Aussies doing interesting things, at the centre of some of the biggest stories, working within some of the most well-known media brands, building their own media businesses and working with some of the industry’s highest profile figures. 

In a new Mediaweek series, Aussie Abroad, Christian Murphy shines a light on some of our best media exports, kicking it on the global stage.

It seems that much of Melissa Madden’s life and experience has been leading to her current role as a brand builder and purveyor of content to audiences in every corner of the globe.

Born in Australia to an Aussie mum and Brit father and raised in Hong Kong, her uniquely global point of view was formed from an early age, mixing with kids from diverse nationalities in the school playground.

“Hong Kong in those days was almost literally at the centre of the world, it was a bustling British colony in a Chinese country with nationalities from all corners of the globe, both near and far, represented in the school ground,” Madden said.

“For me it was just a normal part of life, being surrounded by and exposed to so many different nationalities, it was like being schooled in these diverse cultures.”

For Madden and her two sisters, these childhood years and their experiences left an indelible impression, one that they still carry today and one that has shaped her life and career in particular.

“The downside for me of this wonderful childhood experience, being exposed to so much, has left me with constantly, perennially itchy feet!”

Madden’s experience growing up in Hong Kong and traveling frequently between Australia and Europe would come home to roost as her career started to pick up steam. In her first significant senior career role, she was appointed GM Marketing for Qantas, the only airline she had known growing up, shuttling between Sydney and Hong Kong. 

“Qantas really was very personal to me, I felt emotionally connected to it and still do today, like many Australians. It is like coming home when you enter that plane in some far-off location.”

So it is of little surprise Madden was a driving force behind the groundbreaking campaign using Peter Allen’s brilliant “I Still Call Australia Home” that effectively launched Qantas as one of the world’s great airlines.

“Being a part of that campaign, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, was incredibly rewarding as it touched on so much of my experience and memories growing up.”

In addition to the personal pride Madden felt in being a part of those truly transformative years at Qantas, was the realisation that authentic, emotionally based story telling was an amazingly powerful way to engage audiences and deliver a brand message. 

“That iconic campaign touched the hearts of so many people, all around the world and really confirmed for me that the combination of strong, evocative storytelling coupled with a brand was the most powerful way to engage people.”

Melissa’s experience at Qantas ignited in her a passion for creative storytelling and brand building which was just what the doctor ordered as David Leckie asked her to join the team alongside Tim Worner, James Warburton and others charged with rebooting Channel Seven.

“David assembled an amazing team at Seven who all came together so well, bringing different experiences and perspectives to take on what seemed like a monumental challenge.”

At the time, Seven was an also ran behind the dominant Nine and in those days a strong 10.  Madden’s focus out of the gate was to start to rebuild the brand for the long term while keeping an eye on the immediate challenge of driving tune in for the current crop of shows and those they were about to launch.

With a lot of hard work and a little help (and luck some might say) with the US’s biggest hits in Desperate Housewives and Lost amongst others, Seven started out on the beginning of a run that ended Nine’s dominance from the early 70s and lasted for more than the last decade. The power of franchises like Desperate Housewives and Lost was not lost on Madden and something she actively developed and carefully grew throughout her time at Seven.

“When it comes to brand building for the long term, establishing and carefully nurturing a franchise is fundamental to engaging and maintaining audiences. It allows you to build an active, on-going relationship and build a community of brand advocates, not just viewers.”

After her successful stint at Seven, Madden moved to the BBC, one of the most global and storied brands in media, filled with some of the best known entertainment franchises and talent in the business.

Running marketing for BBC Worldwide brands across Australia and New Zealand, reporting up to the marketing team in London, she was now officially working with global brands and franchises, offering her the opportunity to put her own imprimatur on them.

While Madden’s role at the BBC was primarily focused on launching or relaunching the existing BBC channels on pay TV platforms and helping them grow and thrive throughout Australasia, it didn’t take long for a unique opportunity to create something completely new on a global scale to materialise.

“The Sydney based team had been developing a concept for a channel using the BBC’s amazing library of drama content. I joined the team and working with London we developed the concept, built the strategy and launched this world first entertainment channel on Foxtel, BBC First.”

As the first ever dedicated drama channel that the storied BBC had ever launched, which subsequently rolled out in many other markets, it wasn’t long before Madden was packing her bags for London to join her colleagues in HQ.

Taking her seat in London provided some relief to her perennially itchy feet while also extending her brand building experience. Her role to date had been solely channel focused, packaging, launching and growing the BBC channel brands through Australasia. Now Madden had the opportunity to get upstream on building the actual products, the BBC shows and franchises that were driving the channels business.

“The move to London was an exciting development as it extended my experience, opened up many new relationships, especially with producers and gave me the opportunity to flex many new and less used muscles.”

Wednesday in Mediaweek: Melissa Madden working on global BBC brands out of London and her latest international media role.

Tyler, who reports to Newton, was previously group business director at JCDecaux Brisbane and in her new role will lead the Brisbane sales team, manage and expand advertiser and agency relationships and help drive revenue growth in the Queensland market.

Tyler has more than 10 years experience in the media business. She has worked with APN Outdoor in Brisbane, most recently as group sales manager – agency. Starting her career with Mitchell & Partners as an account manager, Tyler has also worked with Bauer Media, Goa and Australian Radio Network.

Commenting on the promotion, Newton said: “Lauren has really proven herself to be a future leader in our business and has developed important advertiser and agency partnerships in the Queensland market. In her new role, Lauren will continue to grow the JCDecaux business across our billboard, transport, Brisbane CityCycle and street furniture portfolio in the expanding Queensland market.”

Tyler said: “The out-of-home market in Queensland, led by JCDecaux’s innovative digitisation program, has really driven advertiser interest in the medium because of the dynamic, creative opportunities it offers. I am excited to take on this new role to help continue that growth in Queensland.”

Tyler replaces Chris Perera, who is relocating with his family back to Perth in July.

“I’d like to acknowledge Chris’s contribution to our business over the past 10 years and wish him all the best for the future,” Newton said.

Tyler’s appointment is effective immediately.

Over the past month, the company has added four premium digital signs in the hard to reach southern Sydney and a further eight digital billboards in Queensland.

oOh!’s chief commercial & operations officer Noel Cook said the expansion of the digital roadside portfolio was strategically driven to deliver premium sites that enabled advertisers to be more dynamic and targeted with their audiences.

“In addition to a qualitative review of our sites, our investment decisions on digitisation is now also backed up by our leading data tools to identify quality locations from our already impressive inventory that will provide even more powerful audience-led opportunities for our advertisers,” Cook said.

“This new data led approach to our inventory management allows us to be more focused on developing sites that strengthens our audience metrics and therefore helps advertisers better reach more of their audiences.

“These new digital sites extend our buyergraphic performance across many key metric for industries including, but not limited to, automotive, finance and insurance.

“By digitising these prime audience sites, we are also providing advertisers the opportunity to capture the attention of audiences through contextually relevant targeting of creative based on the time of day, the temperature or current events that relate back to the product.

“And through our Classic billboards we continue to provide advertisers the big impact awareness that Out of Home has become recognised for.

“Now more than ever, we can help advertisers achieve real impact and high levels of engagement through our roadside inventory, coupled with rich data, research and insights to help better pinpoint their audiences.”

Cook said the new digital signs included four new premium overbridge signs in the southern part of Sydney, which has traditionally been a hard market to advertise using out-of-home.

“Combined these four signs help advertisers reach two in three motorists travelling to and from the southern part of Sydney towards the city every fortnight,” Cook added.

“In addition to that we have added eight new signs in Brisbane to extend oOh!’s large format digital coverage to the city’s northern and eastern pockets.

“The data driven approach will continue to be part of our decision-making process in looking at what sites we will digitise with state-of-the-art screens from our market leading Out of Home portfolio.” 

The roadside digital portfolio forms part of oOh!’s digital network of more than 9500 across its network including Retail, Commute, Fly, and Locate environments.

From 6am – 6pm there will be no radio shows, no ads, no news or traffic reports on Triple M Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane.

Instead, Tripe M is using the space where it would normally talk to encourage men and women to talk to their mates, family or a colleague about mental health and work on reducing men’s suicide.

According to Beyond Blue, this year alone 65,000 people will attempt suicide in Australia. Eight will die every day and six will be men.

Head of Triple M Mike Fitzpatrick said, “As a network that talks to a lot of Aussie men we feel as though it’s our responsibility to continue to encourage these men to be more aware of not only their own feelings but that of those around them. To reach out if they need someone to talk to or offer an ear to their mates.

“We know it’s sometimes hard to talk about your feelings, but it might be the most important conversation you ever have.

“We are lucky to be able to partner with an organisation like Beyond Blue to help empower our community and continue to break down the stigma surrounding mental health.”

Triple M hosts from around the country have joined forces to promote this cause and recorded the below videos to roll our across Triple M’s online and social platforms.

Sydney – 

Melbourne – 

Brisbane – 

Adelaide – 

By Trent Thomas

The fourth installment of Pixar’s original feature film has lapped the competition making almost four times more than any other film this past weekend. 

Animation is a recurring theme of the Australian box office this weekend with The Secret Life of Pets 2 making its debut in the number two spot after also enjoying a strong release.

Disney also occupied the number four spot this week as Aladdin has continued its strong returns during its fifth week of release bringing its overall total to $29.22m. 

Two new entries mean that two films have slipped out of the top five over the weekend, including John Wick 3 which finally ended its top five run after six weeks and making $14.52m.  The other film to fall was X-Men: Dark Phoenix which only lasted two weeks in the top five and had a second weekly decline over 60%, with its total now sitting at $5.08m.

One notable new release which didn’t make the top five was the latest addition to the Chucky franchise with the latest reboot of the original film Child’s Play making $806,352 in its opening weekend.

It was a big weekend for the Australian box office with an increase of 43% after making $18.27m, thanks in part to the two new entries to the top five and the staying power of films like Aladdin and Rocketman.

#1 Toy Story $8.03m

Toy Story hasn’t lost its lustre since the first film in 1995, or in the nine years since its most recent sequel with the film bringing back the signature voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen along with an ensemble cast including Annie Potts, Tony Hale, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Madeleine McGraw, Christina Hendricks, Keanu Reeves, Ally Maki, Jay Hernandez, Lori Alan, and Joan Cusack. Despite knocking on the door of featuring in four different decades since its release,  the film hasn’t lost its appeal to audiences after averaging $13,704 on 586 screens in its first weekend in theatres.

#2 The Secret Life of Pets 2 $2.07m

Almost any film, especially animation, was going to get a silver medal when going up against Toy Story in a battle of opening weekend totals, but despite the competition Universal’s The Secret Life of Pets 2 had a very solid opening weekend, making an average of $7,404 on 280 screens which is less than half of the number that Toy Story 4 was screened on.

#3 Men in Black: International $1.89m

Despite a 51% drop off from last weekend the new incarnation of Men In Black continues to deliver strong numbers for hometown boy Chris Hemsworth, averaging $4,788 on 396 screens (the second highest).

#4 Aladdin $1.62m

After five weeks the Disney reboot is still bringing in a large audience, having a 45% decline the remake of the 1992 classic made an average of $5,904 on 275 screens.

#5 Rocketman 1.49m

After a 33% decline on its total from last weekend, the Elton John biopic continues its strong run in theatres in its fourth week of release making an average of $4,774 on 314 screens.

Live voting for the TV Week Logie Awards Most Popular categories has reopened and will finish at the end of the red-carpet telecast on Nine and 9Now, Sunday, June 30.

A success last year, live voting across the week leading in to the big night gives fans the opportunity to have their say about who should take home the Gold Logie, as well as the awards in the other Most Popular categories.

Fans will be able to vote for their favourites from the shortlisted nominees at www.tvweeklogieawards.com.au

Sunday 30 June, 7pm – Nine’s Red Carpet Arrivals show

The party kicks in with the red-carpet arrivals when hosts Sylvia Jeffreys, Leila McKinnon and David Campbell give you front-row access as TV’s favourite stars make their entrance to the eagerly anticipated annual awards ceremony.

7:30pm – Live broadcast of the 61st TV Week Logie Awards

Comedy legend Tony Martin returns as the voice of the Logies, while a cavalcade of stars will take to the stage in The Star Gold Coast Pavilion Ballroom to announce the honours. This year’s presenting line-up is:

Hamish and Andy, Boy George, Kelly Rowland, Rebecca Gibney, Sigrid Thornton, Carrie Bickmore, Kat Stewart, Tom Gleeson, Shaun Micallef, Georgie Gardner, Julia Morris, Costa Georgiadis, Peter Helliar, Richard Wilkins, Jane Kennedy, Mick Molloy, Tracy Grimshaw, Sam Neill, Sophie Monk, Amanda Keller, Bernard Curry, Todd Sampson, Edwina Bartholomew, Nicole da Silva, Ryan Corr, Grant Denyer, Scott Tweedie, Anton Enus, Rob Collins, Dan Wyllie, Andrew Winter, Dilruk Jayasinha, Dr Chris Brown, Dylan Alcott, Stephen Curry, Aaron Pederson and Leah Purcell.

The cast of Nine’s hit US comedy, Young Sheldon, will make a special guest appearance and an all-star lineup of music acts – Delta Goodrem, Guy Sebastian, Jessica Mauboy and American boy band Why Don’t We – will perform live.

The 61st TV Week Logie Awards will take place on Sunday, June 30, at The Star Gold Coast in Queensland. All the action from the red-carpet arrivals and awards-show celebrations will be telecast on the Nine Network and 9Now.

Photo: TV Week Gold Logie nominees as pictured in the current edition of TV Week magazine

Premiering on Foxtel’s Lifestyle Channel in early 2020, Money School follows behind the scenes as Pape attempts to launch a financial revolution in schools.

The money education program Barefoot Money Movement designed for primary and secondary schools has received an overwhelming response since its launch in May, with 8991 principals and teachers supporting the initiative, and over 2000 schools, or one in five of all Australian schools, applying to be part of the program, which he hopes to roll out to every school in Australia – beginning with a number of pilot schools this year.

Scott Pape said: “Kids spend a total of around 2,300 days at school. Yet not even one of those days is dedicated to teaching them essential money skills.  Debt is tearing families and communities apart – a quarter of the nation can’t repay their credit cards, and a million homeowners are under stress.  It’s clear that money education needs to be better. 

“Too many Australians don’t have the skills to pay the bills.  Most of us had to learn these skills the hard way because we were never taught them in school.  Our kids deserve better.  My goal is that by teaching the kids, we help their parents too.  And when we help parents, we can change the nation.”

Wendy Moore, Foxtel Group General Manager, Lifestyle, said: “It’s incredibly rewarding for the Lifestyle team to be working with Scott to capture such a fabulous, positive movement that literally starts from the ground up. That we can take this knowledge to such a wide audience is so powerful, and the fact that it is so authentically Australian makes it a perfect project for our audience.”

Money School is produced by Essential Media exclusively for Foxtel, with principal production investment from Screen Australia.

Head of Documentary at Screen Australia, Bernadine Lim, said: “Culturally we can be hesitant to talk about our personal finance, so the premise of this documentary stood out to us as a unique opportunity to explore a touchy subject. Coupled with the fact Essential Media have a proven track record in delivering insightful Australian content that is highly accessible, Money School will definitely be one to watch.”

Money School is currently in production and will premiere on Foxtel’s Lifestyle channel early next year.

By, Luke Reilly, games editor, IGN Australia

 The single new entry is Nintendo’s ever-popular Mario Kart 8, which has snuck back into the top 10, displacing one of the many Sony first-party developed games in the list (Detroit: Become Human).

They’re also, as you may note, all from 2018 (there are only two games in the top 10 this week that were released this year, and they’re the same two games as the week before: Days Gone and Mortal Kombat 11).

There are a few reasons for the dominance of older games in the charts for the past fortnight; it’s been another quiet week in terms of new releases, and many of these games are currently available for deep discounts (the mid-year sale at specialist games retailer EB Games, for instance, has seen prices for some games in stock cut by 50%). Expect this to change next week, however. Activision’s highly-anticipated Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled was just released on Friday and is probably an absolute lock for next week’s number one.

Monday Week 26 2019

By James Manning

• Seven News 1,096,000/1,021,000
• Nine News 973,000/952,000
• A Current Affair 811,000
• ABC News 741,000
• 7.30 609,000
• The Project 336,000/543,000
• 10 News First 449,000
• The Drum 205,000
• SBS World News 116,000

Breakfast TV

• Sunrise 292,000
• Today 195,000

Seven

Home And Away was on 651,000. The week 25 average audience was 654,000, down from 673,000 in week 24.

House Rules Monday was on 591,000, down from 626,000 a week ago.

Seven’s Monday night movie was John Wick: Chapter 2 with an audience of 271,000.

Nine

A Current Affair started its week with items about the NBN, food allergies and an $80m Lotto jackpot. The opening night did 811,000 after average audience for the past two weeks of 756,000 in week 24 which dipped to 741,000 in week 25.

Team George and Team Kelly culled some of their singers last night with more to come tonight on The Voice. The episode also featured Adam Lambert. Despite the guest, the numbers dipped to 832,000, the smallest audience this season.

From Adam Lambert, Nine segued into the doco – The Show Must Go On: The Queen – Adam Lambert Story. The special did 337,000.

10

The Project started its week on 543,000 after 7pm with the show stepping up its campaign to get Waleed Aly another Gold Logie. Aly meanwhile had an incredible story about a woman who remembers every day of her life in detail. She has also memorised every Harry Potter book and can recite any chapter!

MasterChef then featured no pressure test and a visit from Adelaide superstar chef Jock Zonfrillo. The episode did 684,000 after 648,000 a week ago.

Have You Been Paying Attention? was up week-on-week from 718,000 to 750,000. It was the #1 show under 50 and the program’s biggest under-50 audience this year. Welsh comedian Lloyd Langford was on the panel and the guest quizmasters included Gold Logie nominee Costa Georgiadis.

10 noted the total audience for last week’s episode grew to 1.174m adding timeshift, BVOD and encore screenings.

Kinne Tonight gets better each week and last night was a cracker. Guests included his director Max Price who didn’t look old enough to be piloting a TV show, but he’s doing a good job. Kinne worked in front of his small studio audience wearing a Miller Gold Agency T-shirt, which would have thrilled Entourage fans. The episode did 297,000.

ABC

The second episode of the new season of Back Roads visited the community (there’s no town!) of Tolmie in north-eastern Victoria with 610,000 watching.

Four Corners was then on 413,000 featuring the fight to save Australia’s endangered species from reporter Stephanie March.

Media Watch did 417,000 followed by Q&A on 355,000.

SBS

The final of the three part 63 Up did 271,000.

Medicine Or Myth was on 210,000 followed by 24 Hours In Emergency on 155,000.