Friday July 3, 2026
Nine, Microsoft sign Australian-first AI news content deal
Nine Entertainment Co and Microsoft have struck an Australian-first agreement that will allow Microsoft Copilot to draw on the full text of Nine’s masthead journalism to ground its AI-generated outputs.
The deal marks the first agreement in Australia between Microsoft and a major news media company, and gives Copilot access to Nine’s professional journalism beyond paywalled previews during AI searches.
READ MORE: Nine overhauls nine.com.au in biggest digital shake-up to date
READ MORE: Nine to launch advertising on Stan with new ad-supported tier
Under the agreement, Copilot will display snippets, headlines and summaries drawn from Nine’s real-time reporting, before directing users back to Nine’s mastheads to read the complete story.
The companies said the arrangement is designed to ensure that Copilot’s outputs are grounded in verified facts and to provide users with references.
The agreement covers content from The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Brisbane Times and WAToday.
CEO of Nine Entertainment Matt Stanton said the partnership reflected the growing importance of verified journalism in AI systems.
“As AI continues to evolve, the role of verified, premium journalism in grounding these outputs is essential,” he said. “This collaboration is a win-win, delivering for users of AI while respecting copyright and protecting the long-term value of our intellectual property.”
Nine CEO Matt Stanton
President of Microsoft Australia and New Zealand Jane Livesey said the agreement would give Copilot users a clearer path to trusted information.
“Our agreement with Nine will ground responses from Microsoft Copilot in trusted mastheads, giving people verified facts, a clear path to the full story, and confidence in what they read,” she said. “Forward-thinking partnerships like this show how technology and media companies can work together to ensure a thriving future for Australian journalism.”
Jane Livesey
Managing Director, Publishing at Nine Entertainment, Tory Maguire, said the deal was the first of its kind for Microsoft in the Asia-Pacific region.
“Microsoft has been a proactive, engaged partner who is committed to attribution of sources,” Maguire said. “This continues to unlock new revenue opportunities for our mastheads as the media ecosystem continues to evolve, supporting local and trusted Australian journalism.”
“We are meeting readers where they are, by providing important context for Copilot, we ensure AI outputs are grounded in verified facts, with an easy click-through to our websites to read the full article,” she said.
For the average user, the deal means Copilot’s AI Search results will increasingly surface Nine journalism directly in the interface – verified facts, sourced snippets, with a link back to the original masthead rather than an anonymous AI summary.
In theory, that’s a win for accuracy and for Nine’s traffic and brand visibility.
In theory, that is.
Whether it’s a safeguard for journalism or a slower-moving threat is contested.
Supporters say licensing deals like this create new revenue as search traffic declines, and attribution keeps readers connected to original reporting.
Critics argue attributed summaries can still satisfy curiosity without a click-through, trading long-term audience relationships for near-term fees.
So, while Copilot may be doing the flying, Nine’s still holding the stick… for now.
Married at First Sight 'husband' arrested on rape allegations
A cast member from Married at First Sight UK has been arrested on rape allegations, the BBC reports.
The individual has not been named, nor has the alleged victim.
In May, a BBC Panorama investigation revealed rape allegations from two female cast members, while a third woman alleged a non-consensual sex act.
In response to the investigation, the Metropolitan Police encouraged “anyone who believes they have been a victim of sexual assault” after participating on MAFS UK to contact them.
The police have now told the BBC that the arrest “relates to an ongoing investigation, being led by the Met Police.”
They added that the man arrested “has since been bailed while enquiries remain ongoing.”
READ MORE: MAFS Australia continues to make headlines in Britain
READ MORE: MAFS ‘wives’ allege rape by ‘husbands’ during filming
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MAFS AU allegations reported from the BBC
The Panorama documentary was just the beginning of the BBC’s deep examination of misconduct by producers and ‘husbands’, after numerous wives – including from MAFS AU – made statements and serious allegations about their experiences.
Just one example is Jacqui Burfoot, who was a MAFS AU ‘wife’ when she appeared in 2025’s season. In May, she claimed she witnessed abuse of other wives by their ‘husbands’ during filming.
Burfoot was matched with ‘groom’ Ryan Donnelly, but ultimately began a relationship with Clint Rice, whom she later married in real life.
In an explosive Instagram post, Burfoot made some of her own serious allegations against Endemol Shine, MAFS AU’s production company.
“There’s a tendency to cast men in particular with domestic violence backgrounds, even histories of criminal records and things like that.
“It is quite alarming when you’re married to a stranger, when you find out that a lot of these men are actually really dangerous or do have propensity to commit acts of domestic violence.
“Now in my season in particular, this did happen and there were men cast with criminal records and histories of domestic violence. There were women that became victims too. These behaviours, a lot of it never went to air because it’s not suitable for primetime TV.”
Tanya Pilbersek speaks out about the conduct of a husband on MAFS AU. Image: Instagram
READ MORE: ‘Incredibly dangerous’: Tanya Pilbersek slams Nine’s ‘MAFS’
Burfoot added: “I also feel for the women over there because it’s really hard to call out behaviour which never went to air because people think they know you, but they don’t know what happened behind the scenes.
“You’re up against people saying ‘stop complaining about your edit, it’s just bad behaviour’. So a lot of the times the victims of these crimes, it’s worse, because not only are you not getting a fair edit, but they give you a crazy edit or they make you look like the villain so that you’re silenced and it’s really, really, really horrible.
“It’s worse than what it sounds like on the surface – you’re not just a victim of sexual assault, you’re then also the victim of a bad edit to discredit your name, so if you ever try and speak out, no one’s going to believe you, no one’s going to listen to you.”
In the caption of the post, Burfoot wrote that she felt a strong obligation to speak out about “behaviours, crimes and moral and legal wrongs.”
She added: “This really isn’t easy to post. I hate that I have. I have a business, a brand, and a public profile that depends on staying in good standing – and staying silent.
“But when woman are getting grap*d [sic], participants committing suicide and I’ve first hand experienced and witnessed similar, it’s just way too much to ask for me to stay silent.”
Response to Jacqui Burfoot from Nine Entertainment
Mediaweek reached out to broadcaster Nine for comment on Burfoot at the time.
A spokesperson for Nine Entertainment responded:
“Nine and Endemol Shine take their obligations in respect to the health, wellbeing and safety of the participants of MAFS Australia extremely seriously.
“All participants have access to the show psychologist and welfare resources during filming, during broadcast and once the program has ended.
“Nine also provides an additional service for participants should they like or need further individual and confidential psychological support. This service gives participants access to clinicians to support those involved in the program in relation to their experiences.
“This service is available to all participants for as long as they need it, with no end date.”
Main image: Report from BBC on MAFS UK. Image: Mediaweek
Australian box office records first-ever three consecutive $100M months
The Australian box office has topped $100 million for three consecutive months for the first time in history, with April, May and June 2026 each surpassing the threshold.
According to data from Numero and CineTAM, cinema admissions across the country were up 16% year-on-year in the first half of 2026.
A mix of franchise films, event cinema and original content drove the result. Standout performers in the first half included Wuthering Heights, Project Hail Mary, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and The Devil Wears Prada 2, while musical biopic Michael has become the highest-grossing film of the year to date.
READ MORE: The ‘Michael’ biopic isn’t ‘sanitised’ to protect his reputation
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Momentum has accelerated over the past fortnight following the release of Toy Story 5 and Minions & Monsters, setting up what is expected to be a strong July school holiday period.
The outlook for the second half of 2026 is strong, with several major global releases due this month, including the live-action Moana, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, all tipped to post record-breaking theatrical results.
Guy Burbidge, Managing Director of Val Morgan Cinema, said the milestone reflected both the strength of the film slate and continued investment in cinema infrastructure.
“Three consecutive $100M+ months is a landmark achievement and proves just how strongly Aussies love watching movies at the cinema,” Burbidge said.
Guy Burbidge
“These record-breaking numbers are a result of not just the best content on the planet, but a sustained investment in the cinema experience itself, with the expansion of IMAX across Australia, alongside premium screen formats such as ScreenX and HOYTS’ newly introduced APEX screens – truly signalling the strength of the industry. Demand for immersive entertainment is at an all-time high, and these formats deliver experiences audiences can’t get anywhere else.”
“The depth of our slate is incredibly strong, with a diverse and high-quality pipeline of releases set to carry this momentum through the remainder of the year and into 2027,” he added.
Turns out cinemas are still the reel deal.
No, don’t get up. I’ll show myself out.
Musk's X fought to keep Bondi massacre content online
The Royal Commission into the Bondi terror attack has heard Elon Musk‘s X Corp argued footage of the Bondi massacre was “not any worse … than a gore movie.”
The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion entered its fourth round of hearings yesterday, with eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant giving tesitmony.
Ms Inman Grant testified for several hours about her office’s power when it came to dealing with online hate and negotiating with social media platforms, the ABC reports.
Elon Musk’s X Corp, she said, was fighting her office on three different take-down orders of violent content, including the killing of Charlie Kirk and the stabbing of a Ukrainian woman in the United States.
“I would say that the willingness of the mainstream tech platforms to work collaboratively with us, even in a mass casualty situation, has changed somewhat,” Ms Inman Grant said.
“It was often [the case that] we find the content [and] we make the platforms aware of it and then they confirm that they’ve not just blocked those URLs, but any other variations.
“But now we’re at a place where the companies won’t just take our word for it when we say ‘this is [violent] content’.
“We fought hard against X in not allowing post-mortem Bondi content [and] they said it’s not any worse than you would see in a gore movie.”
“And I said, ‘I can’t think of anything more horrific for the family members in the Australian Jewish community.’”
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Royal commission into Bondi terror attack looks at online hate
Mediaweek reported earlier this week that former Westfield co-chief executive Steven Lowy told the inquiry his family had faced more than 15,000 serious online attacks in a year.
The family has been forced to hire independent security to help monitor posts online.
The royal commission heard that the team identified 200 “persons of interest” and referred “in the order of” 30 or 40 to police.
The commission was shown evidence of Lowy, his wife Judy Lowy, and his father, Frank Lowy – a Holocaust survivor – being the target of horrific anti-semitic attacks.
Lowy expressed concern about a physical manifestation of the threats, and called for social media platforms to help prevent hateful content.
Arsen Ostrovsky, the head of the Australia, Israel and Jewish Affairs Council’s Sydney office, was injured in the Bondi attack. A photograph he shared online of his injuries head was manipulated and used to spread conspiracy theories.
Ostrovsky told the commission:
“And there were images, videos and material suggesting everything from that this was a false flag attack … that this wasn’t real blood, that it was ketchup. There were images of me holding a what looked like a Academy Award trophy, and many of these images, videos and material, are still online today.”
Over the next two weeks, commissioner Virginia Bell will hear more evidence from witnesses including academic experts, and social media company Meta.
Main image: Julie Inman Grant. Image: ABC
'F**king bonkers': Evan Shapiro slams Cannes Lions 'cognitive dissonance' amid industry layoffs
Cannes Lions bills itself as the biggest party in the marketing calendar. Evan Shapiro just called it a “f**king schlep” – and he was paid to be there.
The independent television and film producer, known in industry circles as the Media Cartographer, didn’t hold back on the Media Tarts podcast during a conversation with host Wade Kingsley.
The five-day International Festival of Creativity, Shapiro argued, has become a monument to an industry eating its own tail – one where the same companies gutting their workforce are the ones pouring millions into beachfront real estate to show off the technology replacing those very jobs.
“Omnicom laid off thousands of people in the last six to eight months. They’re going to lay off more. They’re closing three legendary agencies right now,” Shapiro said.
“And they built a three-million-dollar structure on the beach on the Mediterranean Sea to demonstrate their AI products that are taking the f**king jobs.”
For Shapiro, the maths simply doesn’t add up.
READ MORE: Omnicom faces shareholder revolt over John Wren’s A$108.5m package
READ MORE: Omnicom completes IPG acquisition to become world’s largest agency group
“I don’t get it,” he said. “So the cognitive dissonance: while tens of thousands of people are losing their jobs because of AI, because of a lack of vision, and the consolidation crash happening to the whole economic-industrial complex – it’s just f**king bonkers.”
Source: Evan Shapiro’s Substack, Media, War & Peace
It’s a position that comes with a personal cost, and Shapiro knows it.
“I say this at the risk of my own revenue,” he said. “I made a lot of money at Cannes this year. People flew me there to moderate panels and say shit like this on stage to be entertaining. But I am aware that I might not be invited back next year because I’m saying all this s**t.”
You don’t need Cannes to network
Shapiro isn’t arguing the festival is worthless – he’s arguing it’s wildly, expensively unnecessary. Real business, he conceded, does get done on the Croisette. What he can’t square is the price tag attached to doing it there specifically.
“There’s a lot of great networking there. Business actually gets done,” he said. “But it’s the only conference that ever takes place there that spends a hundred-plus million dollars building structures on the beach to house meetings that could take place in New York, London, Los Angeles, or Paris any day of the f**king week.”
The backdrop, as Shapiro frames it, makes the spend harder to defend rather than easier: an industry that has shed 100,000 jobs over the past five years, still finding the budget to build temporary palaces on the sand.
Cannes Lions will no doubt survive the criticism – festivals built on champagne and superyachts tend to.
But Shapiro’s parting shot lingers longer than the rosé: an industry can keep building bigger beach houses, or it can explain to the people it just laid off why it needed to.
The episode is scheduled to go live at around 1pm today.
Ogilvy index reveals brands’ silent customer exit
Ogilvy Australia’s latest Believability Index 2026: The Power of Proof has found 92 per cent of Australian consumers will silently disengage when brand believability is lost.
The research suggests the biggest reputational risk for brands may not be public backlash, but customers quietly leaving without warning.
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According to the report, consumers who stop believing a brand are most likely to stop purchasing, quietly switch to a competitor, or avoid the organisation’s content without telling anyone.
What did Ogilvy’s Believability Index find?
The report found 58 per cent of Australians stop buying from a brand when believability is lost, while 37 per cent quietly switch to a competitor.
A further 22 per cent simply avoid the brand’s content. Only six per cent said they would post a negative comment about a brand experience on social media.
Richard Brett, President Ogilvy PR & Influence Asia and ANZ, and Chief Client Officer ANZ, said believability is now a critical indicator of business health.
“For years, the communications industry has equated reputational risk with visible, public outrage. But our data proves that managing the vocal minority means missing the silent majority. By the time a consumer publicly complains on a forum, multiple others have already transferred their loyalty to a competitor without leaving a digital trace. The true cost of this ‘silent exit’ is measured in lost revenue, not negative headlines.”
Australians want proof they can verify
For the first time, Ogilvy’s index examined how consumers across seven Asia-Pacific markets decide what, and who, they believe in a more complex information environment.
The report found Australians place greater weight on lived experience than institutional authority. More than half of Australians value lived experience as the most credible source, rising to 60 per cent among Baby Boomers.
By comparison, 57 per cent of consumers in Singapore find government or official sources the most believable on important issues, compared with 30 per cent of Australians.
Australia also emerged as the region’s most evidence-demanding market. When making high-stakes decisions, 59 per cent of Australians prioritise evidence they can verify themselves among their top three sources, compared with the regional average of 48 per cent.
“Australians have long prided themselves on a healthy scepticism of authority and that scepticism has deepened in 2026. A single APAC communications strategy is almost certainly bound to underperform here,” Brett said.
Competence outweighs purpose
The report found product and service performance remains a major driver of brand belief in Australia.
Thirty-eight per cent of Australians said they abandoned an organisation in the past year because a product or service did not do what it promised. That was higher than the 24 per cent who left over poor business ethics.
Ogilvy also found factual correctness is Australia’s top believability attribute, cited by 71 per cent of respondents. It was followed by integrity at 65 per cent, relevance at 49 per cent, commitment at 45 per cent, shared values at 36 per cent, and affinity at 27 per cent.
Belief can be rebuilt
The index found lost belief is not always permanent, with 83 per cent of Australians saying it can be regained.
That view differs by generation. Ninety-three per cent of Gen Z respondents said belief can be restored, compared with 73 per cent of Baby Boomers.
However, the report found consumers expect more than a traditional apology. Fifty-eight per cent said they want active operational correction before believing a brand again, ahead of the 50 per cent who prioritise public acknowledgement.
Ogilvy launches diagnostic tool
Ogilvy PR has also launched its Believability Diagnostic Tool, powered by WPP Open.
The tool uses Ogilvy’s seven-year Believability dataset and a behavioural science engine to analyse the gap between a brand’s marketing promises and operational reality.
According to Ogilvy, the tool is designed to help organisations identify where disbelief is forming before it becomes customer churn, reputational damage, or lost revenue.
The Ogilvy APAC 2026 Believability Index: The Power of Proof was conducted with YouGov. The study surveyed 7,176 adults across Australia, Hong Kong SAR, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mainland China, Singapore and the Philippines.
Fieldwork was conducted online from 22 April to 4 May 2026, with data weighted to represent national or online adult populations aged 18 and over in each market.
Leaving television to start a media business? My advice for Karl Stefanovic
By Ahron Young, former Sky News journalist and founder of Australia’s first streaming news network, Ticker News
Watching Piers Morgan’s interview with Karl Stefanovic on YouTube, I was really fascinated by their reflections and Piers’ lessons for the Aussie breakfast TV presenter on his journey after network television.
Now I’m not Karl, but you can clearly see the shock and uncertainty in his interview. I recognised that feeling. When I left my presenting and reporting role at Sky News after 13 years, I thankfully realised the opportunity ahead could be much more fulfilling than the job I’d left.
The fear of what came next had lingered in the back of my mind for a long time. The truth is, no job in the media ever feels completely safe. My managers were loyal to me, but television is a subjective business.
People will always champion your success, and others will hope you fail. That’s unfortunately the nature of our industry, and it’s something every broadcaster eventually learns to accept.
Ahron Young
Three years before I left, I asked one of my bosses a question that many people on television eventually ask.
“What comes next?”
He smiled and replied, “Ahron, I’ve never met anyone on television in their 30s who hasn’t asked that.”
I didn’t really want to spend the rest of my career jumping between networks. I had entertained an offer from another TV newsroom, but something about it felt flat.
I’d always wanted to build something, and this was my chance.
As journalists, we spend our careers questioning other people’s decisions. But I’ve always admired the people who simply decide to create. They build businesses, launch airlines, invent products and take risks.
Eventually, I realised it was time to stop just asking questions and start building.
The rise of streaming happened at the perfect time for me.
In my case, I launched Ticker with limited capital, no formal business plan and an overdose of optimism. I had to suspend the fear of failure. If Ticker were The Castle, the “vibe” would probably capture the original 2019 business model.
Seven years later, I’m still climbing the mountain, because the mountain has no peak.
The media industry has changed more in those seven years than it probably had in the previous twenty. As Piers and Karl noted in their interview, the barriers to entry have disappeared. Audiences are global but also fragmented. Technology is cheaper but making good, polished video content is still a skill. Distribution is easier but also complex. Most importantly, talented people no longer need permission from a television network to build an audience.
If I were starting at 19 again, would I seek a low-paying newsroom cadetship or launch my own YouTube channel?
Clearly Karl is serious about building something of his own, so if I can be so bold – let me share a couple of my own lessons:
Think globally from day one
Piers makes this point in his chat (on what appears to be a very nice yacht in Cannes). One of the biggest mistakes traditional broadcasters make is assuming their audience lives within the boundaries of a television licence area or within reach on a TV antenna.
That world is over. It’s been over for years, but no one wants to admit it.
Today, the audience could be in Sydney, Singapore, Dallas, New York or Dubai. They don’t care where your studio is. They care what you’re offering them.
The internet rewards expertise, authenticity and consistency. Not geography. After all, as humans we all face similar problems.
Build for the world, not your old audience. In the case of Ticker we went out early on looking for partners – not just YouTube – who could ensure we were on smart TVs around the world.
Today, Ticker is on Comcast/Xumo, NewsWorld, Samsung and LG and that helps us reach a business focused professional audience of more than 4 million people a month from around the world.
That’s just our linear TV audience.
READ MORE: Karl Stefanovic fires back at Albanese over Tommy Robinson fallout
READ MORE: Karl Stefanovic exits Nine immediately over podcast conflict
Build a community, not just an audience
One of the biggest adjustments I had to make after leaving television was changing the way I thought about success in the media industry of the future.
In traditional TV, bigger almost always means more revenue. More viewers equals better ratings, bigger advertising deals and more influence. In that world, the most valuable audience is the one who can buy.
The creator economy doesn’t work quite like that.
Views still matter. They help people discover you and build influence.
What really matters is building a community that knows you, trusts you and keeps coming back. A loyal audience of 5,000 decision-makers who genuinely value your content can be far more powerful than two million anonymous viewers who can’t be monetised.
That’s because modern media is a two-lane highway.
On one side, you’re building a relationship with your audience. On the other side, you’re creating value for commercial partners who want to reach that community. They’re not simply buying views; they’re buying access.
At Ticker, I recognised that professionals aged 30-50 weren’t being served by the mainstream media. These are people with money and credit cards, who travel the world and are making key financial decisions.
They’re my friends and colleagues. They’ve lost interest in traditional media but they’re highly engaged and connected. That’s a niche, but a great niche that exists in every city globally.
Be authentic to your audience
This is an area that Karl won’t have a problem with but many others from mainstream media often do. One advantage creators have over traditional media is clarity and you don’t have to be everything to everyone.
In fact, trying to be usually guarantees you’ll become nothing to anyone.
For Ticker it took some time for us to become crystal clear about exactly who Ticker was built for, but then every decision became easier.
In my mind I have a really clear idea of who that person is. At Ticker we know that we’re targeting that business professional in their 30s or 40s who is interested in news, business and technology.
Be that specific. We knew what stories mattered. We knew how to present them. We knew which commercial partnerships made sense. And perhaps more importantly, we knew which ones didn’t.
Authenticity isn’t just good editorial policy. It’s good business and good strategy.
Ahron Young
Respect your critics but never let them define you
Again, I feel like this might come easier to Karl in his 2.0 era, especially in the wake of last week.
If you’re going to have opinions, people will disagree with them.
Don’t allow loud voices on social media to dictate your editorial direction but also listen if you think you might have erred.
The internet has made criticism louder than ever before, but it has also made audiences smarter.
Original ideas always beat louder opinions
Opinion has become one of the easiest forms of content to produce. Everyone has one, and they come for free.
The best media businesses combine strong opinions with journalism, thoughtful storytelling and commercially sustainable ideas.
Karl has spent decades proving he’s more than a presenter.
He’s a journalist, an interviewer and an entertainer – the triple threat.
Those strengths don’t disappear simply because the logo behind him changes.
Focus on quality
One of the biggest surprises for me has been how willing people are to support quality content. You must focus on quality.
I’ve watched a few of his Youtube podcast interviews where the primary camera is blurry and the sound is off. These things matter, just like they do in TV.
I noticed during his interview with Piers that Karl wore no make up while Piers did. They may seem trivial, but makeup departments exist for a reason. The look still matters.
It’s why Piers rents out the News studio in London, and Megyn Kelly has built her own home studio that could easily be Fox. If the audience is used to seeing you a certain way, don’t stray too far from that.
When you consistently provide value, build trust and genuinely help or entertain people, an audience will reward you. The same goes for commercial partners. They have expectations around quality.
If you create value and quality, opportunities follow. When we started Ticker, the idea of sponsors that major brands would come on board felt impossible. In the years since we’ve had a plethora of brands come on, do interviews, sponsor full shows and everything in between.
My final advice to Karl
Now, while both of us have worked in TV, Karl is a Gold Logie megastar who has become a category of his own.
One person who’s found that balance well is Piers Morgan. He has strong opinions, isn’t afraid to challenge guests and his own audience and understands how to create compelling content.
That’s the balance all need to aim for. Chasing views alone from people who agree with you is only picking one lane of the highway.
To build something that lasts, you need commercial partners who see value in your audience.
There’s something incredibly exciting about building something that belongs to you.
Yes, there will be days when you wonder why you ever left the comfort of a TV network job. But there will also be something television rarely gives you anymore: ownership.
Ownership of your ideas, ownership of your audience, ownership of your future. And also ownership of your mistakes.
Karl is an entertainer but he’s also an effective journalist.
Outrage can build an audience but it probably won’t pay the bills.
Because in today’s media landscape, trust and authenticity are the most valuable assets any broadcaster can own, and Karl has built a career on them.
Lyka puts dog poo centre field in AFL campaign
Lyka has partnered with Seven to bring dog health messaging into live AFL coverage, using dog poo as the unlikely centrepiece of a new national campaign.
The fresh dog food brand’s Poo on the Ground campaign launched on Thursday, 2 July, and will run across Seven’s live AFL broadcast for the rest of the home-and-away season.
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Produced in partnership with Seven, with media managed by Alchemy One, the campaign stars AFL personality Billy Brownless. In the spot, Brownless discovers a perfectly formed dog poo on the field before a red labrador runs onto the turf.
The creative is designed to make viewers question whether a dog has made its way onto the field. It uses football language around “performance”, “delivery” and “clean disposal” to connect the stunt back to dog health.
Campaign builds on Lyka’s poo strategy
The AFL work is part of Lyka’s broader Poo Glorious Poo platform, which centres on the role stool quality can play in tracking dog health.
The campaign is underpinned by a peer-reviewed study conducted by the University of Sydney and published in Frontiers. The research compared healthy dogs eating Lyka’s Chicken Bowl with dogs eating dry kibble.
The four-week study used a randomised crossover design with 23 healthy adult dogs across 18 breeds. Each dog received both diets across separate two-week feeding periods, with the dogs fed at home rather than in a controlled kennel environment.
According to Lyka, the study found dogs fed Lyka experienced visibly improved stool quality, greater gut microbiome diversity, steadier blood sugar levels and more favourable appetite-hormone responses compared with dogs fed kibble.
Taking the message into live sport
Cam Luby, Chief Marketing Officer at Lyka, said the brand wanted to use one of Australia’s biggest sporting platforms to make the topic hard to ignore.
“We knew that to get people talking about dog poo, we couldn’t be subtle about it,” Luby said.
“The AFL gives us one of the biggest stages in the country, and Poo on the Ground lets us own a moment that’s impossible to ignore. But the cheek and boldness only works because the science backs it up – better poo is one of the first things owners notice when they switch to Lyka, and now we get to prove it in front of millions.”
Luby said the aim was to create a genuine double take from AFL viewers.
“If we can get spectators to do a double take and genuinely wonder whether a dog poo has made its way onto an AFL field, and spark a conversation in the process, then we’ve achieved our goal,” he said.
Alchemy One backs the AFL placement
Joel Trethowan, Managing Director, Alchemy One, said the AFL audience made the campaign a strong fit for the brand’s message.
“The AFL season delivers some of the most engaged and attentive audiences in Australia,” Trethowan said.
“There aren’t many brands brave enough to build an AFL campaign around dog poo. But that’s exactly why it works. Lyka’s taken one of the country’s biggest sporting stages and given audiences something they won’t see coming, and won’t forget.”
The campaign will also extend to SCA’s Triple M AFL coverage. It will include 30-second in-broadcast spots and branded integrations during the network’s post-match MVP discussions for the rest of the regular season.
Lyka’s AFL campaign will run on Seven until September.
Top image: Billy Brownless in Lyka’s Poo on the Ground campaign
Tapt Media unifies direct sales under Luke Cahill
Luke Cahill has been promoted to Head of Direct Sales across Sydney and Melbourne at Tapt Media, effective 6 July.
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Cahill, who was previously Group Business Director and led the Melbourne direct sales division, will take commercial responsibility for both major metropolitan markets.
The expanded role brings Tapt Media’s Sydney and Melbourne direct sales teams under one structure. The company said the move is designed to streamline its commercial strategy and support direct advertiser growth across its audio and digital network.
A unified direct sales remit
The appointment follows a strong 12 months for Tapt Media’s Melbourne operation under Cahill’s leadership.
In the new role, Cahill will focus on applying that momentum to the Sydney market, while expanding partnerships with direct clients across live streaming and digital audio.
Brian Gallagher, Chief Sales Officer at Tapt Media, said: “Luke has driven exceptional growth in Melbourne through sharp commercial instincts and strong team leadership. Bringing our Sydney and Melbourne direct teams under his purview ensures we have a unified, high-energy approach to delivering results for our commercial partners.”
Cahill said the broader audio market was creating new opportunities for advertisers.
“We’ve seen phenomenal success in Melbourne by focusing on deep, results-driven relationships that look past traditional transactional selling. Audio and live streaming are sitting in a real sweet spot right now,” he said.
“I’m looking forward to working closely with the Sydney team to scale what we’ve built in Melbourne and unlock new opportunities for our advertisers.”
Think HQ and CultureVerse launch bowel screening push
Think HQ and its multicultural division CultureVerse have launched a two-year national community engagement program to encourage more Australians to use bowel cancer screening kits.
The program, delivered in partnership with the Australian Government, will roll out more than 50 events across 2026 and 2027. It began last week with its first live activation in Adelaide.
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The initiative is designed to address a major behaviour-change challenge. Around six million free bowel screening kits are mailed to eligible Australians each year, but about two million remain unused.
A community-first strategy
Rather than using a short-term roadshow model, Think HQ and CultureVerse are building a program around community partnerships, pop-up experiences and trusted local voices.
The agency said the approach is designed to reduce stigma, procrastination and anxiety around bowel cancer screening.
The program includes three community engagement formats:
- The Loo Post Flagship Activations: An immersive walk-through experience showing the screening process from receiving the kit to returning it.
- Catch it Early Cafés: Local café pop-ups designed to create informal, stigma-free conversations about bowel cancer screening.
- Community Conversations: Smaller events delivered through community gatherings and cultural festivals, supported by local leaders and bilingual community figures.
Think HQ has also partnered with First Nations specialist agency Winangali to co-design and deliver a culturally safe engagement program for First Nations communities across Australia.
Building trust through local voices
Jen Sharpe, Founder and Managing Director of Think HQ, said the program was built to create longer-term behaviour change.
“If you want to create genuine, lasting behaviour change, you can’t just drive a branded truck into a town for a day and leave. We intentionally rejected the traditional roadshow format.
“Instead, we are building a sustained, two-year ecosystem of activities embedded within communities. By partnering with local champions and organisations who already hold the community’s trust, we are ensuring this work leaves a real legacy.”
Jess Billimoria, Chief Audiences Officer at CultureVerse, said the Community Conversations format was designed to create safer spaces for discussion.
“Our ‘Community Conversations’ are designed for intimacy and safety, complementing broader campaign channels to deepen trust and engagement.
“By taking these conversations directly into trusted community settings and working with bilingual community figures, we can help break down the taboos and cultural barriers that have historically kept screening rates low in some multicultural communities.”
Supporting the national campaign
Think HQ has also partnered with the Australian Government and Cancer Council Australia to support the national bowel cancer screening campaign, Bowel Cancer Waits for No One.
CultureVerse is leading the targeted multicultural campaign delivery.
The client is the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. The Think HQ team includes Sharpe, Sarah Wood, Jessica Billimoria, Georgie Oatts, Nickie Flambouras, Hasret Mehmedali, Blake Mason, Hannah Seeckts, Wellison D’Assuncao, Josella Bray, Zoe Mamo and Jamie Pond.