Since Greg Byrnes joined Nine Radio (Macquarie Media at the time) in November of 2019 the company’s head of content has had an eventful tenure.

This has included the change to Nine Radio, the creation of a music-only formats with 2UE, Magic, 4BH and 6GT DAB+, and the launch of new breakfast shows at 2GB, 4BC, 3AW, and 6PR. And don’t forget the global pandemic either.

Mediaweek spoke with Byrnes about his return to talk radio and what to expect from the radio brands in 2021.

Byrnes said from day one that Nine Radio managing director Tom Malone had a clear idea where they wanted to take the company’s radio stations.

“Tom from the outset laid out a fairly clear path on what we were trying to do, which was taking talk radio into its next phase and attracting a new audience. And if you look at the radio figures then you can see that has occurred.”

Across the board, Nine Radio’s numbers were up in 2020 and Covid has played a part in the brand’s success. Byrnes said that with Covid, like with bushfires and elections, there is a need for trusted news and Nine’s local approach helped fill that need.

“The 24/7 nature of news and commentary nowadays means people are always on. The beauty of talk is that we are always on and we are always live.

“When something like Covid happens people swarm to trusted commentary and trusted discussion and want to be up to date, and that that is what we deliver.

“Covid has given us a wider audience, but what is encouraging is that they like what they have heard, and they have stuck around.”

Byrnes said now the goal is to build on the stations’ recent success by making sure they keep the traffic through operational excellence both commercially and editorially.

“Last year was about changing our line-ups and you always need to be very careful when you make a change. And now it is a matter of consolidating those changes this year and striving to be the best every day.”

When Byrnes said that 2020 was about change, he wasn’t kidding, with the stations making a wide range of programming decisions including a new breakfast team at every station and also new drive shows in Sydney and Brisbane. Byrnes has said that while it is early days in Perth, he has been happy with Sydney and Brisbane, and considers the results in Melbourne to be extraordinary.

“We need to be the flag bearers for our cities in each market.

“In Neil Breen (Brisbane) and Gareth Parker (Perth), they both have young families and have grown up in and love their cities. They are both connected and know what is going on.

“You also have the same thing with Ben Fordham in Sydney, and on the more mature side with Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft who both love their city.

A big part of Nine radio’s strategy since Byrnes joined was a focus on going local, but he is not opposed to networking in slots outside of breakfast and drive.

“In talk radio, the audience sees through it if you’re not genuine. We are not against networking, but it has to be for the right reasons and in the right dayparts. “

“Networking on particular programs like Ray Hadley and Neil Mitchell can work but breakfast and drive set you up for and close the day. To do that effectively it’s not just about what is going on in the world, but also up the street.”

When asked about following up a strong 2020, Byrnes said that 2021 is about consolidating the stations’ success with its new line-ups and continuing to improve.

“What happened last year is last year, and no one is sitting tight suggesting that we are fine – we are thinking about how do we take it to the next level?”

“There is going to be no let-up this year in the news cycle, so we need to keep delivering the best content on a day-to-day basis. We also need to make sure we deliver for clients which is crucial in commercial radio.”

Nine’s Music Stations

After spending over six years at 2UE as both the news director and program director, Byrnes was glad to be involved in reviving the brand. Byrnes said that while the talk brands are the main focus, the music stations play an important role and he is looking forward to the stations’ countdown of the greatest 500 songs of all time.

“It will be a listener vote and it always creates a great deal of discussion and concern, and gets a lot of noses out of joint.”

Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings and his co-CEO Ted Sarandos presented the results for Q4 and 2020 this week. The company posted a big subscriber increase and updated the market on content. If you think they are putting the brakes on commissioning Netflix originals – think again. It’s going to be hard to keep up with Netflix’s movie and TV releases again in 2021.

Highlights of Netflix letter to shareholders:

With 8.5m paid net additions in Q4, Netflix crossed the 200m paid memberships mark. For the full year, it added a record 37m paid memberships, achieved $25 billion in annual revenue (+24% year over year) and grew operating profit 76% to $4.6 billion. (All amounts in US$.)

Since the start of 2018, paid memberships have risen from 111m to 204m and average revenue per membership has grown from $9.88 to $11.02

We’ve made good progress growing our profitability with FY20 operating margin of 18% rising five percentage points over prior year. For FY21, we’re now targeting a 20% operating margin, up two percentage points from 2020 and higher than our previous 19% forecast, due to a more favourable revenue outlook.

As we said last quarter, we intend to continue to grow our operating margin each year at an average rate of three percentage points per year over any few-year period, but we anticipate some lumpiness. Some years we’ll be a little over (like in 2020), some years a little under (like in 2021), but we are trying to keep on an average three percentage points per year long-term trajectory.

Content: 100m households watch The Crown, 72m see Midnight Sky

The big growth in streaming entertainment has led legacy competitors like Disney, WarnerMedia and Discovery to compete with us in new ways, which we’ve been expecting for many years. This is, in part, why we have been moving so quickly to grow and further strengthen our original content library across a wide range of genres and nations. Our fourth quarter slate highlights the breadth and diversity of our entertainment offering.

In scripted English language television, season four of the critically acclaimed The Crown was the biggest season so far and drove new watchers of prior seasons. In its first 28 days, more member households chose to watch season four of The Crown than each of the prior seasons, helping to grow the number of member households that have chosen to watch this series to over 100m since its initial launch. In late December, we released our first original series from Shonda Rhimes, Bridgerton. This title has proven immensely popular and we’ll have some exciting news about Bridgerton later this week.

Our largest original film of the quarter was The Midnight Sky, starring and directed by George Clooney; we estimate 72m member households will choose to watch this title in its first four weeks. In its first 28 days, 43m member households chose to watch our animated feature film Over the Moon (directed by legendary creator Glen Keane) with high levels of re-watching. We Can Be Heroes (directed by Robert Rodriguez) was another successful family film with a projected 53m member households choosing this title in its first four weeks.

The holiday movie slate also resonated with our members; in the first four weeks, 68m and 61m member households chose to watch Holidate (starring Emma Roberts) and The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two (starring Kurt Russell), respectively.

The first Portuguese language holiday film from Brazil, Just Another Christmas (starring Leandro Hassum), was also a big hit with 26m member households globally choosing to watch in the first 28 days of release.

We continue to ramp up our local original content slate. The top Netflix local titles this quarter include Barbarians (a historical action series from Germany that 37m member households globally chose to watch in the first four weeks), Sweet Home, our Korean language horror show (22m member households), Selena: The Series, which particularly resonated with members throughout Mexico and the US (25m member households globally), and Alice in Borderland, a sci-fi thriller from Japan (18m member households). While designed to be very impactful in the home country, we see many cases of our local originals traveling more broadly. For example, Lupin, an adrenalin-filled French language heist series released in early January, has hit #2 in our US Top 10 list and ranked #1 in dozens of other countries including Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Vietnam, the Philippines and many more. We project 70m member households will choose to watch Lupin in its first 28 days of release.

In addition to titles with big viewership, we also aspire to have hits that become part of the cultural zeitgeist. In 2020 alone, we had Tiger King, Bridgerton and The Queen’s Gambit. Not only did 62m member households choose to watch The Queen’s Gambit in its first 28 days (making this show our biggest limited series in Netflix history), but it ignited sales of chess sets and inspired the next generation of chess prodigies. In fact, Netflix series accounted for nine out of the 10 most searched shows globally in 2020, while our films represented two of the top 10.

With over 500 Netflix titles currently in post-production or preparing to launch on our service and plans to release at least one new original film every week in 2021 with extraordinary talent, we’re confident we’ll continue to have a great content offering for our members.

Competition: From YouTube to Discovery

It’s a great time to be a consumer of entertainment. There are a wealth of options ranging from linear TV to video gaming to user-generated content on YouTube and TikTok. We continue to work hard to grow our small share of screen time against these major competitors.

Discovery recently launched its streaming service. Disney+ is expanding in new countries and with more content. ViacomCBS will be unveiling its plans for Paramount+ in 2021. Combined with the launch of AppleTV+, WarnerMedia’s HBO Max, and NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming services, this signifies that these companies all recognise the future is streaming entertainment, a vision we have been working towards since inception.

Netflix strategy is simple: if we can continue to improve Netflix every day to better delight our members, we can be their first choice for streaming entertainment. This past year is a testament to this approach. Disney+ had a massive first year (87 million paid subscribers!) and we recorded the biggest year of paid membership growth in our history.

The new season of the multi-award-winning series, written by and starring Luke McGregor and Celia Pacquola will begin production in early 2021.

Having defeated the first agent that tried to encroach on McCallum Real Estate’s territory, Daniel (McGregor) and Emma (Pacquola) are content for things to go back to normal. But Barbara (Kris McQuade) isn’t, and she forces them to take on more responsibility for the business. Meanwhile, Daniel is regretting breaking up with the love of his life, and Emma finally gets what she’s always wanted – a Rosehaven-based nemesis. All in all, it’s business as usual.

The eight-part series continues to share Tasmania’s natural beauty, characters, and stories with the world. It also showcases the technical skill of those in Tasmania’s screen industry.

A Tasmanian crew will be behind Rosehaven’s fifth season with 37 local full-time crew, 16 local casuals, 25 local actors, and more than 50 extras. Six departments are completely staffed by locals, and ten departments have a Tasmanian at the head. Also, at least 17 ‘Rosehaven graduates’ will be in the crew – meaning, staff who had their first professional engagement or started as a trainee or attachment on the show will be promoted to a full-time role.

In a boost to a tourism sector battered by COVID-19, Rosehaven cast and crew will use at least 1,200 accommodation room nights in Hobart and surrounds during season five’s production.

Celia Pacquola and Luke McGregor said: “This is really exciting for us, and it hasn’t quite sunk in yet. In 2015 we knew we wanted to make a TV show, but we had no idea what to write about, and we were extremely worried no one would want to watch whatever we came up with. Now we’re getting to make a fifth season, we will allow our very self-deprecating comedian brains to feel a tiny amount of pride that we’ve made a good thing. But having written that, we already feel arrogant, so we take it back and apologise for getting a big head there for a second. Thank you to everyone who helped us get here, and a huge thank you to Tasmania for being such an awesome state to film in.”

Zenith will focus on leveraging the broadcaster’s first party data and provide martec support. 

Zenith takes on the account as of April 1, 2021, with the scope of work encompassing the SBS On Demand platform, SBS News and SBS Audio Language Content, as well as supporting key campaigns. SBS On Demand will premiere 160 hours of new drama every month this year including a selection of multilingual content. Meanwhile, the broadcaster’s key news and current affairs shows include Dateline, Insight, The Feed, and NITV’s The Point and Living Black.

Zenith currently holds SBS’ media strategy, planning and buying account. On the expanded remit, Zenith CEO, Nickie Scriven said: “SBS holds a unique place in the Australian media landscape through its ability to bring contemporary Australia together and connect with audiences like no other broadcaster. We are thrilled to extend our partnership with an organisation that understands the commercial power of purpose.”

Zenith Sydney General Manager, Jonny Cordony added: “I’d like to thank the team of specialists at Zenith for their hard work on the account, and the depth of knowledge, and digital and data expertise they bring to the SBS business. With nine million registered users on SBS On Demand and a record number of local and acquired programs in 2021, SBS continues to be a place for people to explore compelling and culturally-diverse entertainment and news.”

In 2020, Zenith Australia CEO Nickie Scriven appointed Elizabeth Baker to the role of national head of investment, moving from her existing responsibilities as Sydney head of investment. She also announced the promotion of Joshua Lee to the new role of national head of digital & data, elevated from his position as head of digital in Melbourne.

In this expanded role, Mummey will drive digital advertising at AccuWeather, encompassing technology, partnerships, and operations. He will be reporting to Steven R. Smith, AccuWeather President.

Mummey joined AccuWeather in 2001, and has since worked in various roles – including working posts within Sales, Research & Development, IT and Product, and most recently Vice President of Programmatic Sales & Operations. 

Mummey found success within these roles, and his diversity of experience across AccuWeather’s various lines of business led to both rapid advancement and his new position as Senior Vice President. With this new role, he is responsible for overseeing the underlying ad technology approach, ensuring the successful impact on direct sales, and achieving overall revenue goals.

“Steve has been a stalwart member of our dynamic team at AccuWeather, with a successful career spanning nearly two decades,” said AccuWeather President, Steven R. Smith. 

“I am pleased to see his purview expanded at AccuWeather, where he will continue to implement innovative strategies and vision to achieve our aggressive digital revenue goals and ensure we remain a leader in the industry and a highly sought-after partner throughout the marketplace.”

Speaking about his new role, Stephen Mummey said, “I am delighted to have been given the challenge of this new role and look forward to harnessing our core innovative strengths to drive revenue goals, build upon strong partnerships and seek new, impactful opportunities within our field.”

AccuWeather Inc. is based in Pennsylvania, USA, and works to provide commercial weather forecasting services globally.

Steven R. Smith ascended to the role of AccuWeather President in June 2019, after previously serving as President of AccuWeather’s Digital Media division. He started working full-time at AccuWeather in 1999 as a staff meteorologist, providing real-time weather consultation for clients in the media and commercial sectors.

I’m a Celebrity has continued to be king of the jungle when it comes to Summer TV ratings, with 10’s first tentpole show of the year having 630,000 metro viewers. This number is down from the 685,000 on Wednesday night but was still easily the top non-news program last night as 10 finished the #1 channel and network in under 50’s and all key demos.

The episode saw Colin and Alli dive deep into the Land Down Under trial, which saw them competing in opposing tunnels that were overrun with critters. With the pair collecting 13 stars eventuating into a McDonald’s feast.

The dinner could not have arrived on a better day, as a tense rice fiasco had unfolded when Dipper burnt the lunch and resulted in an unhappy Grant Denyer.

It has taken a hot minute but the BBL heated up last night with the first century of the season as Alex Carey led the Adelaide Strikers to a win over the Brisbane Heat as 384,000 tuned in for the run chase. While The Heat fell short Seven was able to win the night finishing #1 in both primary (17.6%) and network (26.3%) shares.

Nine devoted their Thursday night to a travel heavy schedule with Great Getaways and Race Across the World in its primary channels 7:30 and 8:30 slots. This led to a primary channel share of 14.4% and a network share of 22.7%.