Near the end of 2020, Nine Radio announced a raft of changes at its talk radio station 6PR. The key change was the announcement that mornings host Gareth Parker would move to the breakfast shift vacated by Steve Mills and Basil Zempilas, following Zempilas departing Nine Radio, with Mills moving to the afternoon shift.

60 Minutes journalist Liam Bartlett also re-joined 6PR as its new morning host with Oliver Peterson staying on drive, while Simon Beaumont was named to host a new Saturday/Sunday morning program.

A few weeks into the new line-up Mediaweek caught up with Gareth Parker about adjusting to an earlier start as the new breakfast host for 6PR.

“I am still very much getting used to the early alarm but it’s been good fun so far. Everything has been a bit unfamiliar because it’s a new show with new times and segments but fundamentally the task is the same, to connect to our listeners by putting on an informing and entertaining radio show,” said Parker.

“At the moment it’s just trying to get through each day, and we are still reviewing the show and tinkering with it and trying to get the balance right. Everyone is governed by the ratings so it’s important that it rates well.”

Talk radio isn’t new to Parker after hosting 6PR’s morning show since 2017 but admits that moving to the earlier slot has still taken an adjustment.

“A breakfast show on talk radio has more moving parts with an extra news bulletin each half-hour, daily segments, and the clock is watched a little bit more at breakfast which makes it more expansive.

“We are doing things that help people set up their day with traffic, weather, time calls amongst the other content we do such as interviews, talk topics, and the calls we take.”

Going from one host to two

Parker said that people at 6PR knew that change was coming after Macquarie Media became Nine Radio but was just focused on the morning show until he was asked to take over breakfast.

“We always knew that there was going to be change because Basil Zempilas was going to be leaving due to his decision to pursue the Lord Mayor opportunity. I took the view that I would worry about myself and our morning show. Then late last year Tom Malone and Greg Byrnes had the chat about what next year would look like and this is where it ended up.”

The new solo host breakfast format helmed by Parker broke away from the dual hosting style of the previous show. Both the shows previous hosts also enjoyed a long stint in breakfast with Zempilas spending over seven years on the show and Mills over 16, this meant there was always going to be a fair amount of change to the show.

“The nature of the show is different when you go from a two header to running a program on your own. Baz and Steve did a terrific doubleheader that was very entertaining and light, this is a slightly different show, we still need to keep the entertainment factor but with a deliberate strategy to bring a harder news edge to things.”

Nine Radio’s focus on going local

A big part of Nine Radio’s focus in creating new talk shows at its stations is being local, and Parker, who is a Perth lifer, thinks he fits that mold.

“I grew up here and lived my whole life here outside a few years in my 20s and would like to think I know how the place works, what makes it tick, and what is important to people.

“The lifeblood of talkback radio is that it is live and local, and we pride ourselves on the fact at 6PR that we are live and local. That is why our audience loves us when other radio stations go to national programming, at 6PR we are here in Perth.

Perth’s Major Stories in 2021

Parker took over breakfast at a time where there is plenty for him to talk about, but he said that the pandemic and the COVID-19 lockdown in Perth has been the dominant story that people care about 

“I don’t think people are excited about the election, it is useful to have for background but we haven’t focused on it at all and I think it’s a foregone conclusion who is going to win. The COVID lockdown that we’re going through was front of mind for our listeners.”

Writing for WAToday

Parker has been writing columns for over 10 years and recently concluded his long tenure at The West Australian before joining WAToday.

“My background is newspapers, and I started my career in journalism at The West Australian in 2004 and worked there until 2016. After I left The West, I still wrote a column for it and the Sunday Times which finished up at the end of last year, and I am thrilled to be able to continue writing columns.”

New data from Roy Morgan shows 8.6 million Australians now watch Broadcast Video on Demand (BVOD) services which include ABC iView, SBS On Demand, 7plus, 9Now and 10 Play, reports the research company.

Morgan estimates all five leading FTA BVOD services have grown significantly during 2020 as Australians endured a nation-wide lockdown from late March until early June and Victorians experienced a second, longer, lockdown soon after.

8.6 million Australians (40.6%) now view at least one of the BVOD services in an average four weeks and ABC iView is the clear market leader with 5.13 million viewers, up a large 2.12 million (+70.7%) from a year ago.

SBS On Demand is in a clear second place and now viewed by 4.08 million Australians in an average four weeks representing an increase of 1.49 million (+57.6%) from a year ago.

However, the fastest growth over the last year has been for the traditional commercial broadcasters Seven, Nine and 10 which have all more than doubled their viewership.

The leader of the three is the Seven Network’s 7plus which is now viewed by 2.68 million Australians, an increase of 1.5 million (+125.8%) from a year ago.

Close behind is the Nine Entertainment Company’s 9Now which is viewed by 2.49 million Australians, up 1.25 million (+101%) on a year ago and Network 10’s 10 Play now viewed by 2.29 million Australians, up 1.41 million (+159.6%).

This new data comes from Roy Morgan Single Source consumer survey, derived from in-depth interviews with over 50,000 Australians each year.

Coinciding with the recent release of the Morgan survey data, is the OzTAM share data for summer. The OzTAM audience numbers reveal Seven took the crown in prime time with a total people network commercial summer share of 36.9%, ahead of Nine Network on 36.2% and Network 10 on 26.9%. Seven was also #1 in 16 to 39s and grew its audience share in that age group by 1.8 points over the summer months.

From 6.00am to midnight, Seven scored a total people commercial share of 40.3%, ahead of Nine on 35.8% and 10 on 23.9%, and ranked #1 in 25 to 54s and 16 to 39s.

Across the summer, 7plus was the #1 commercial free to air BVOD service, securing a share of 40.6%, ahead of 9Now on 40.2% and 10play on 19.2%. 7plus’ growth far outstripped the competition, growing viewership 49% year-on-year, compared to 35% for 10play and just 4% for 9Now.

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine (pictured below) says the lockdown during 2020 provided a big boost to subscription TV and this growth has also been experienced by their Free TV counterparts including ABC iView, SBS On Demand, 7plus, 9Now and 10 Play:

“Almost 8.6 million Australians are now watching at least one of the Video on Demand services offered by Australia’s Free-To-Air broadcasters the ABC, SBS and the leading commercial channels 7, 9 & 10 – growth of nearly 3.5 million (+66.7%) on 2019.

“This growth for Broadcast Video on Demand is faster (and larger) than experienced by subscription TV over the same period which was up 2.4 million (+16.2%) on 2019 to 17.3 million.

“It’s true that the overall audience for Subscription TV is about twice the size but the results over the last year show that Australians are increasingly discovering there are free alternatives to paying a monthly fee to providers such as Netflix, Foxtel, Stan, Amazon or Disney.”

Matt Stephens has been appointed Head of Client Engagement. He has more than 13 years in advertising sales and leadership positions in Television and media. He joins from SBS where he spent the last 6 years leading the NSW Sales Team across TV and Digital, including its BVOD platform. Before that he spent 4.5 years with MCN/Foxtel Media. 

He will be responsible for further driving the growth of Finecast and working with agencies and clients to drive understanding of the role of addressable TV to deliver results as part of a modern media strategy.

Georgina Fox (pictured) has been named as Head of Operations. She will be responsible for managing supply partnerships for Finecast and leading the operations team that implements all Addressable TV campaigns at GroupM.

Fox is transitioning to Finecast from GroupM where she was Publisher Partnerships and Supply Director managing all programmatic supply across video, display, audio, out of home and native, and was part of a number of digital innovation projects such as developing the first programmatic out of home supply marketplace in Australia, for GroupM.

Fox and Stephens will report to Finecast Managing Director Brett Poole and work closely with the Finecast leadership team including Liv Geen, Head of Client Services, who joined in 2020 from Mindshare, Tania David, Head of Marketing & Business Development and Dylan Dharmadasa, Head of Product.

Brett Poole, Finecast Managing Director, says: “Advertisers’ appetite for Addressable TV has accelerated in the past 12 months, as they discover the ability to reach television audiences in new ways using data and technology to target and measure.  It’s exciting to welcome new additions to the team as we continue to grow Finecast, the only dedicated addressable TV business within Australia, committed to advancing TV advertising experiences for Australian brands and viewers.

“With a zest for delivering client satisfaction and results through a consultative, partnership-led approach, Matt’s transition into the rapidly evolving world of Addressable TV is a natural partnership of skills and passion. Georgie’s track record at GroupM managing broadcast partnerships, supply and industry leading trading innovations, make her a fantastic addition to the team. I’m excited to drive another strong year of growth for addressable TV in Australia, delivering effective client campaigns and new industry-leading products.”

Finecast works with every major FTA broadcaster in Australia, meaning advertisers can plan across the entire BVOD ecosystem in one place. Thanks to the Finecast ID, which launched in 2020, advertisers, for the first time, can also measure and manage frequency and reach across BVOD through a single buying platform, which improves user experience and advertiser effectiveness.

Finecast is part of GroupM, the investment arm of WPP AUNZ, Australasia’s leading creative tech company. 

An average audience of over 1.4 million watched the Sydney Sixers claim their third KFC BBL title over the Perth Scorchers on Saturday night across Seven, Foxtel and streaming services including Kayo. That represented a 15% increase on the BBL|09 Final and ranked as the fourth most-watched BBL game ever.

Cricket Australia reports the final capped a season that is now the most-watched on TV.

Record Fox Cricket audience for final across STV services

The BBL|10 Final between Sixers v Scorchers had an average audience of 442,000 across Foxtel Linear, Foxtel Go/Now and Kayo. The Foxtel linear audience was 346,000 with a further 96,000 watching on Kayo.

The final was the #1 game of BBL 10, well ahead of the next best game of the season achieved by game 12 Thunder v Scorchers with 376,000.

The Saturday final was 23% on last season’s final between the Sixers and Stars that had an audience of 360,000 across the Foxtel group.

The final was the #2 BBL Final on STV services of all time, behind the 2011/12 Final between the Scorchers and Sixers that had an average audience of 450,000.

It was the #3 BBL game of all time on subscription services (#1 is 2011/12 Game 2 Stars v Thunder with 478,000).

See also: Foxtel’s streaming growth – Kayo & Binge combined had 1.3m subscribers

Other BBL|10 data highlights

• The total audience of 44.82m across the 61-game tournament was the highest in league history – an increase of 5.9% across all platforms YOY, including linear TV growth of 1.4%.

• The total audience of 5.64m across the five-game Finals series was the highest in league history – an increase of 15% on last season.

• The average audience per match in BBL|10 was 735,000 across all platforms, ensuring the Big Bash League remains the most-watched sporting league in Australia on a per-game basis. The linear TV audience of 675,000 was 9,000 higher than BBL|09, while the streaming platform average of 60,000 per game represented 109% growth YOY.

• The most-watched BBL tournament was also the highest scoring from a first innings runs perspective. The 168.1 average first innings score (excluding abandoned and DLS affected matches) was up three runs on the previous benchmark of 165 set in BBL|06.

• In addition, the 643 sixes hit across the season were the most in the competition’s history, up 6.5% on BBL|09. This season also saw nine scores of 90+, the most in a single season.

Despite crowd restrictions, border closures and the need to stage the tournament in a bio-secure hub, a total of 522,140 fans attended matches across Covid-safe venues in seven states and territories.

Alistair Dobson, Cricket Australia’s head of Big Bash Leagues, said:

“The KFC BBL has the best fans in the country, and we are grateful to the record number of Australians who tuned in to watch our tenth season.

“Bringing joy to our fans was the driving force for everyone across the league and clubs all season and we thank every one of them, whether they watched on TV or a device, listened on radio or attended at the stadium. We trust they enjoyed the incredible action on display in KFC BBL|10 and we can’t wait to welcome them back next season, hopefully in a more relaxed public health environment.

“I would also like to take the opportunity to once again thank all state and territory governments, KFC BBL clubs including all players and staff, match officials, broadcast partners Seven, Foxtel, Kayo and SEN, commercial partners KFC, BKT, Toyota, Sanitarium, Bupa, venues and curators and our own people who made this extraordinary season happen. Your commitment to the success of the Big Bash in unprecedented times cannot be overstated.”

Decreased consumer demand for cosmetics and fragrances amid continued social distancing will restrain the recovery in beauty and personal luxury advertising to 1.7% in 2021, according to Zenith’s Business Intelligence – Beauty and Personal Luxury report. This is below the 4.4% growth rate for total adspend in the 11 key markets included in the report*. Beauty adspend will total US$7.5bn across these markets in 2021, and then rise to US$7.7bn in 2022, growing by 2.6%, compared to 4.5% for the market as a whole.

Beauty and personal luxury adspend fell roughly in line with the market in 2020. The sharp drop in spending on cosmetics and fragrances as people stopped meeting in person was mitigated by continued demand for both hair and skin care. With hairdressers and salons harder to reach, consumers took hair care into their own hands at home. Skin care, meanwhile, benefited from the heightened desire for health-enhancing products during the pandemic.

During the recovery, though, overall demand for beauty will not change much as consumers remain reluctant to return to their pre-pandemic habits, reducing sales of cosmetics and fragrances in particular. Most beauty and personal luxury brands will not raise budgets substantially, and will be more likely to redeploy spending from underperforming channels instead.

Better environments and ecommerce help digital compensate for declining reach of magazines and TV

Beauty and personal luxury brands spend much more of their budgets on magazines and TV than the average brand. Beauty, the quintessential category of appearance, thrives on its ability to create emotional connections through imagery in a high-quality environment. Zenith estimates that in 2020 beauty brands spent 18.3% of their budgets on magazines advertising, 4.3 times more than the average brand, and 42.2% on television, 1.6 times more than average. But while the effective reach of traditional media declines, consumers are turning to digital and social platforms in increasing numbers.

Globally, beauty and personal luxury brands have been relatively slow to adopt digital advertising, spending 34.1% of their budgets digitally in 2020, compared to 53.1% for the market as a whole. This is a result of the historic lack of premium digital environments that support the high-quality brand imagery that beauty and personal luxury brands need to convey. It is also due to the difficulty the beauty industry has had adapting to ecommerce, because consumers feel the need to sample and try on beauty products in person before committing to a specific product. According to Euromonitor International, 11.8% of beauty and personal luxury sales were through ecommerce in 2019, compared to 13.2% for the market as a whole.

However, technologies like video-on-demand and connected TV, and social platforms like Instagram and TikTok, are creating new premium environments that showcase beauty and personal luxury brands effectively. Brands have also greatly stepped up investment in their ecommerce offerings since the start of the pandemic as a matter of necessity, as bricks-and-mortar retail sales shrank. Digital channels are therefore becoming more valuable for both brand and performance advertising.

In Australia, as more and more interactions moved online in 2020, we saw the use of cosmetics decline, with 52% using cosmetics less than before the pandemic began, according to results from a ZenPoll conducted last week**. And while skin care remains of high importance, half of Australians have simplified their skin care routine and are investing more in their own self-care.

Zenith Australia’s Head of Strategic Insights, Kim Xavier, said: “Although many people had to resort to purchasing cosmetics and skin care products online through lockdown periods, the in-store experience of purchasing these products is still very important. While 55% are more likely to research beauty products online, only one in three are purchasing more of their beauty products online.

“This signals an opportunity for beauty brands to continue not just to accelerate their ecommerce strategies, but actually have a dual strategy focused on in-store engagement,  while also driving greater innovation in online experiences through new technologies.”

Zenith estimates that the global beauty category increased its spending on digital advertising 2.8% in 2020, despite the pandemic. This was twice the 1.4% growth rate of digital advertising across all categories, as beauty and personal luxury brands began to compensate for previous underinvestment. Zenith forecasts average growth of 5.9% a year in digital advertising between 2019 and 2022. Beauty and personal luxury adspend on all other media will decline over this period, by between 1.2% a year for TV and 12.4% a year for magazines. 

*The eleven markets included in this report are Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, which between them account for 59% of total global adspend. Beauty and personal luxury is defined as the combination of four sub-categories: cosmetics, fragrances, hair care and skin care.

**Zenith Australia GenPoll, carried out 3^rd February, 2021. Base n=317

Caitlin has previously held roles as Senior National Producer, Executive Producer, and Producer at Southern Cross Austereo.

Of the appointment ARN’s Chief Content Officer Duncan Campbell said, “Caitlin has a very genuine passion for radio and will be an invaluable asset to Jase & PJ in the Morning. Creatively she has some wonderful content ideas that will continue to deliver our listeners the unexpected, good hearted fun they’ve come to expect. We welcome her to the ARN family.”

Of her new role, Executive Producer of Jase & PJ in the Morning, Caitlin McArthur said, “I am beyond excited to be joining the Jase & PJ show as I’ve been an admirer for quite a while. They’re always up to something, so together with their chemistry on air and brilliant team behind them, this year is going to be a whole lot of whacky fun and I can’t wait to see where we take the show next.”

Last year it was announced that AFL premiership legend and Brownlow medallist Dane Swan was joining Jase & PJ’s show. The deal by ARN was negotiated with Liam Pickering’s Precision Sports Entertainment Group which represents Swan.

At the time Duncan Campbell said, “Dane will be a terrific addition to Jase & PJ in the Morning. His AFL knowledge and insights combined with that unique sense of humour of his and laid-back style means he’s a perfect fit for the show. He will create even more engaging local content for KIIS 101.1 breakfast listeners.”

In the final Melbourne survey results of 2020, KIIS’s station cume pushed back above 900,000 while breakfast cume also lifted – up 80,000 to 395,000. Breakfast share for Jase and PJ climbed, up 0.7 to 5.4%. The next radio survey results are due out March 11.

The Dry is continuing to make progress towards the top 10 for domestic films in Australia with its total now sitting at $16.20m after six weeks of release. The film needs to exceed the $21.76m made by Strictly Ballroom to make the top 10.

However, The Dry isn’t the only local film enjoying success in Australia at the moment with the top five also featuring Penguin Bloom and High Ground. This is the second week in a row that the Australian box office has featured three Aussie films in the top five, as local films continue to benefit from the lack of international releases. 

The only new entry to the top five this week is the horror film Wrong Turn which took the place of The Croods: A New Age which has made $20.25m over the last seven weeks, making it the second highest grossing film since cinemas re-opened behind only Wonder Woman 1984.

Overall, the Australian box office had a steep decline of 29% after making a total of $5.12m.

#1 The Dry $1,186,792

One of the strongest performing local films in a number of years, The Dry continues to power forward with another 1m+ week after averaging $2,954 on 386 screens.

#2 Penguin Bloom $729,629

The drama starring Naomi Watts and Andrew Lincoln has spent a third straight week in the top two with its total now sitting at $5.15m. The film averaged $2,209 on 328 screens.

#3 The Marksman $417,644

The Liam Neeson action flick has a total of $2.60m over the last three weeks and averaged $1,631 on 256 screens this past weekend.

#4 High Ground $404,428

The meat pie western completes the trilogy of Aussie films in the top five and has made $1.51m over the last two weeks. Over the weekend the film averaged $1,671 on 242 screens.

#5 Wrong Turn $367,454

The only new entry to the top five this week made an average of $2,500 on 147 screens.

• Ratings Bombshell: Seven wins night despite first night of Aus Open
• Home and Away #1 non-news program of the night
• The Amazing Race Australia continues upwards trend

Primetime News
Seven News 1,051,000 (6 pm)/1,041,000 (6:30 pm)
Nine News is 846,000 (6 pm)/879,000 (6:30 pm)
ABC News 719,000
10 News First 371,000(5 pm)/249,000 (6pm)
SBS World News 177,000 (6:30 pm)/154,000 (7 pm)

Daily current affairs
The Project 296,000 (6:30 pm)/522,000 (7 pm)
The Drum 151,000 

Breakfast TV
Sunrise 264,000
Today 203,000
News Breakfast 187,000

Late Night News
ABC Late News 101,000
World News Late 40,000

Nine had to wait a little longer than usual to serve up its premier sporting event of the Summer but the Australian Open finally aired its first night of play last night with Nick Kyrgios cruising to a comfortable win while also generating headlines at the same time.

The Australian Open’s evening session had 486,000 viewers which was down on the 538,000 that it had last year. 

The match between Kyrgios and Frederico Ferrira Silva saw the audience peak with an audience of 1.09m (metro: 772,000 reg: 318,000). The average audience through the match was 797,000 (metro: 605,000 reg: 193,000).

Seven managed a narrow win over Nine last night in both primary (19.0%) and network shares (28.7%) off the back of Homey and Away with 587,000 viewers which was the top entertainment program last night.

Holey Moley had 528,000 which was the lowest amount of metro viewers that the show has had since its February 1 launch. 

Monday, February 1: 983,000 
Tuesday, February 2: 737,000
Wednesday, February 3: 543,000
Sunday, February 7: 629,000
Monday, February 8: 528,000

In the episode, Jayden Lawson and his signature pink putter flew through the course and landed a trip to the Grand Final for a chance to win $100,000 on Greg Norman’s Tomb of Nefer-Tee-Tee.

Jayden Lawson

Holey Moley was followed by 9-1-1 (325,000) and The Rookie (189,000).

10 is continuing to build momentum for its 7:30 program The Amazing Race Australia after posting a season-high number of viewers for the second night in a row. 558,000 tuned in as The Parents, Shane and Deb sadly withdrew from the competition due to a pre-existing knee injury was giving Shane grief following the Road Block challenge on Magnetic Island. The Amazing Race Australia was also #1 in all key demos last night.

The Amazing Race was followed by the return of Hughesy We Have a Problem with  264,000 as David Hughes was joined by regulars Nazeem Hussain and Becky Lucas alongside long time radio stablemate Kate Langbroek and comedy stalwart Ross Noble. The show also featured zooms from international guests Carole Baskin and Gary Busey.

Later on 10 Sam Neil was on The Graham Norton Show with 129,000 and was up against stiff competition in… Sam Neil hosting The Pacific: In the Wake of Captain Cook.

ABC dished up its Monday current affairs line up with 7:30 (533,000), the return of Australian Story (443,000), Four Corners (514,000), and Media Watch (489,000) followed by The Pacific: In the Wake of Captain Cook with Sam Neil with 326,000.

Super Bowl LV

On Seven the Super Bowl had 279,000 with 319,000 tuning in for the half time show while ESPN had 107,000 viewers.