oOh!media has announced Brendon Cook has indicated his intention to step down as managing director & CEO and from the board during 2020.

Cook will remain as MD and CEO and on the board until the completion of a global executive search and will then work with the board to ensure an orderly and seamless transition to a new CEO.

As the founder of oOh!media, Cook will take up a non-executive consulting role to provide ongoing strategic advice after the successful transition to a new CEO.

oOh! chairman, Tony Faure, acknowledged Brendon’s exceptional contribution to the establishment, growth and success of the company over the past 30 years.

“Brendon has been a true pioneer of the out-of-home industry in Australia. Having founded oOh! in 1989, he has been an innovator and passionate industry leader.

“Brendon had the foresight to recognise the growth potential of digital and has been a powerful advocate for the development of new outdoor environments to capitalise on the rapid growth in media consumption habits away from home. He also led the development of new ways to measure the true value of the out of home segment.

“He has successfully led oOh!’s diversification strategy to build a data-centric, scalable multi- format business across billboards, retail, office buildings, street furniture, rail, universities, cafes and airports which leads the Australian and New Zealand markets. The Company is in good shape and has a strong and established management team.

“On behalf of the Board and the entire team at oOh!, I want to thank Brendon for his enormous commitment and dedication to building and leading our business over the past 30 years. We look forward to continuing to work with Brendon in his new role.”

Cook said: “I have been extremely fortunate to have worked with such a great team of people over the past 30 years. To have witnessed the company grow to the size and scale it is today is immensely satisfying and I am delighted I will continue to be part of the oOh! story to ensure it is well set up for the next stage of growth. With our integration now largely complete and a strong team in place, I believe now is the right time to make the transition.

“I look forward to continuing to be a supportive, long term shareholder providing strategic advice to the company once transition to new leadership is complete.”

The board has commenced a process with a leading global search firm to appoint a new managing director and CEO.

In celebration of her time at 10, Sully has shared with Mediaweek her thoughts on how news has changed over time, what it’s like working with a different owner, and the favourite stories she’s covered during her colourful career at the network.

At the very end of last year, Sully began hosting an extended 90-minute news bulletin from 5pm with reports on local/state-based news for the first hour and then national news for the last half hour. “It is still a trial,” said Sully. “We are quietly optimistic and confident that people don’t really want an hour of news at 6pm, and it’s the right lead into The Project. The newsroom is under the pump, but everyone is loving the opportunity.”

Sully explained how she’s seen a revolution of news across the board during her long career. The news offering to viewers is now very different to when she started. “People would watch the news and then go to bed, but now the way people access their news has changed so dramatically,” said Sully. “There are people overseas now engaging with Australian content too. People are engaged 24/7, so it’s no different when it comes to news and a 24-hour news cycle means you’re always on!”

Sully revealed it’s never been better at Network 10 than it is right now in terms of having a new owner. “I don’t think it’s a secret that 10’s gone through some rough chapters. However, now owned by a global giant in ViacomCBS, it’s been more than a breath of fresh air. There’s real stability. 

“It’s great to be a part of that bigger show and it’s wonderful to feel that stability and support.”

Sully is often remembered for when she reported one particular historical event – the September 11 tragedy – but Sully said there’s been a lot of other huge opportunities over the decades. “Princess Mary; The Royal Wedding; going to East Timor 10 years after independence; going to Borneo and releasing orangutans into the wild. The stories I’ve covered have been a diverse range of things. Also working on the Olympics, the Victorian Commonwealth Games in 1994, and co-hosting the Melbourne Cup coverage all those years ago. I’ve had incredible opportunities at 10 and I’m really grateful.”

The launch of news site 10 daily was just around 18 months ago, and Sully said they’re very proud with how well it’s doing. Sully is a contributing news editor at 10 daily. “We have a cracking team who are knocking it out of the park. We then of course have the podcast – Short Black – which is also doing incredibly well. The point of the podcast is to elevate powerful stories told by remarkable Australian women – I really enjoy it.”

Three major radio shows in three east coast metro markets started their radio year a week later than most of their counterparts yesterday.

Radio ratings for 2020 started on January 20, but for different reasons the breakfast shows at SEN 1116 in Melbourne, 2GB in Sydney and 4BC in Brisbane, and 97.3 in Brisbane didn’t have their A-teams returning until the day after Australia Day.

Alan Jones was reporting for work on his first day back from Bateman’s Bay on the NSW south coast. In his first break he pointed out he wanted to visit a bushfire zone to speak with the people impacted by the natural disaster.

Jones and his team had dinner with a number of people who lost their homes on the night before his first show.

Jones was at pains to point out he wanted to avoid the hysterical reaction he claimed that many were having to the bushfires. He was also keen to avoid blaming Prime Minister Scott Morrison for the government’s response or for taking a holiday at the wrong time.

Jones was calling for instant grants of $300,000 for volunteers who had lost their homes without any red tape.

At SEN breakfast, hosts Garry Lyon and Tim Watson set the bar very high with a memorable first show for 2020. A bearded Garry Lyon said he hadn’t shaved since the end of the football season last September. The show covered the death of Kobe Bryant with interviews with SEN contributor Andrew Gaze and former breakfast show member Hamish McLachlan.

The highlight of the show was Tim Watson’s news about the person he called the next AFL media superstar – former Fremantle Docker’s coach Ross Lyon. Watson revealed that Nine has signed Lyon for his first job in the media as a panellist on the new Wednesday night edition of Footy Classified. The host of the new show will be Eddie McGuire. Putting the second edition of Footy Classified on a Wednesday moves it away from a head-to-head clash with Seven’s The Front Bar.

With some prodding from Lyon, Watson said it just might be possible that McGuire could also have the Monday Footy Classified hosting role in his sights. A job currently held by Watson and Lyon’s SEN boss Craig Hutchison.

At 97.3 breakfast Robin Bailey admitted there were no hard feelings about her return to ARN. “They came to me,” Bailey said of her return to radio who was sacked from the station during contract negotiations.

When one listener expressed concerns that Bailey may again be hurt by the cut-throat nature of the radio industry, Bailey replied: “I’ve been doing this for 30 years and sadly the awful cut-throat nature of this industry hasn’t changed in all that time but here’s how I look at it – five years ago being ‘walked’ from a station would have definitely been the worst thing that could happen, but then in my world some far more awful things occurred. Now I see life as the roller coaster it is and enjoy the ride for all its twists and turns. I truly believe things happen as they are meant to and there are stronger things at play, so I do my best with an open heart and believe that it will all be OK.”

See also:
Robin Bailey has returned home to 97.3FM breakfast

The feature film uses the inspirational story of Indigenous AFL legend Adam Goodes as the prism through which to tell a deeper and more powerful story about race, identity and belonging. The film unpicks the events of the 2013-15 AFL seasons and asks fundamental questions about the nature of racism and discrimination in Australia.

Walkley award-winning writer Stan Grant and BAFTA award-winning director Daniel Gordon joined forces to tell this remarkable story of one of the most decorated and celebrated players in AFL history.  

This powerful documentary has screened at several international film festivals, including Melbourne International Film Festival, Toronto, London, Telluride, and Hawaii. It has also won numerous awards including the Walkley Documentary Award, AACTA Award for Best Documentary, Best Feature Film Production and Feature Documentary Production of the Year at the 2019 Screen Producers Australia (SPA) Awards, MIFF 2019 People’s Choice Award Best Documentary, Audience Award Best Documentary Feature at the Hawaii International Film Festival, and the Student Choice Award at the Philadelphia Film Festival. The documentary was also nominated for Best Documentary Feature Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2019. In February the film will screen at FIFO (Festival International Du Film Documentaire Oceanien, Tahiti).

The Snapchat + Screen Australia initiative will initially provide up to two teams of filmmakers $15,000 AUD in development funding as well as an all-expenses-paid trip to Snapchat HQ in Los Angeles to workshop their concepts.

Screen Australia and Snapchat are seeking projects suitable for short-form, fictional series that are creatively outstanding, and able to be told in 10 episodes of up to 5 minutes per episode. Concepts can be of any scripted narrative genre.

Snap Original Two Sides created by Australian filmmaker Hannah Lehmann

The initiative’s intent is to encourage creators with a strong track record of producing compelling and distinctive content to create series that are specifically conceived to be produced for mobile. Applicant teams must consist of at least two people with the roles of writer, producer and director covered. All team members must be available to attend the workshop which will be held the week of 18 May 2020 in Los Angeles. After the development period is complete, the selected teams will then have the opportunity to apply for production funding from Screen Australia and Snapchat to make their series.

Online Investment Manager at Screen Australia, Lee Naimo said: “This is a remarkable opportunity for Australian content creators to make a project that has the ability to reach a massive global audience. We’re looking forward to receiving applications from creators with compelling scripted narratives that will take advantage of Snapchat’s format and present a bold concept suitable for 18 to 24 year olds.”

Erin Keating, Senior Development Manager of Snap Originals at Snap Inc. said: “We’re committed to creating opportunities for emerging creators not just in front of the camera, but behind the camera too. We’re thrilled to partner with Screen Australia and find new voices to bring Snapchatters more scripted shows made just for mobile.” 

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Top photo: Snap Original Two Sides created by Australian filmmaker Hannah Lehmann

Seven’s AFL Grand Final audience for 2019 was 2,939,000 national (metro 2,197,000, regional 742,000).

Because of a bigger regional crowd, the first State of Origin clash has bragging rights for the biggest 2019 audience with 3,090,000 (metro 2,060,000, regional 1,030,000).

Despite the size of the audience, it was the first time an AFL Grand Final TV audience had fallen below 3,000,000 national viewers.

The match on Seven between Richmond and GWS was called by Seven sports veteran Bruce McAvaney and Seven’s Brian Taylor.

Seven will be back covering football in February with the start of the AFLW and then the special Bushfire Relief State of Origin clash on February 28 in Melbourne.

Runners-up in the category were Australian Open on Nine, for their first year as broadcaster, and Tour de France on SBS, the home of the cycling event for more than 30 years.

Mediaweek readers have voted the platform #1 for news coverage, also appreciating the fact it remains a free site. All three placegetters this year didn’t have a paywall.

The most recent was the announcement this week of a new daily podcast presented by news.com.au journalists Andrew Bucklow (Bucky) and Bronte Coy.

See also
News.com.au launches new weekday podcast series From the Newsroom

News.com.au set a new audience record for Australia in November 2019, reaching a unique audience of over 11 million for the first time in the news and current events category.

The audience growth that month was fired by its biggest day on record in November for the Melbourne Cup 2019 with a daily unique audience of 2.66 million.

News.com.au delivered the biggest digital news audience in the country over the federal election period with a monthly audience of 10.3 million for May 2019.

The platform ran a series of campaigns including a mental health and wellbeing campaign – Let’s Make Some Noise: Anxiety – during Mental Health Month to raise awareness about anxiety and highlight the true cost to employers, the community, families and sufferers.

Another 2019 campaign, this time in collaboration with the Hobart Mercury, was the campaign Let Her Speak which resulted in the Tasmanian attorney general agreeing to change the law preventing victims of rape from identifying themselves.

Helping fuel the record user numbers across the year was a site redesign and relaunch across desktop and mobile, and a new mobile app was launched.

Runners-up in the category for 2019 were Guardian Australia and ABC News.

The two films that had the greatest chance at cracking the top five were the new releases A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood which made $880,393, and Like a Boss which made $809,265.

Overall the Australian box office made $17.34m this weekend which was a 31% decline.

#1 Bad Boys For Life $3.49m

The third film in the Bad Boys franchise has continued its strong start with a second week on top of the Australian box office making an average of $9,421 on 371 screens, bringing its total to $11.09m.

#2 Dolittle $2.23m

In its second week of release, the latest rendition of Dr. Dolittle films based on the novel The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle has moved up to the #2 spot bringing its total to $7.46m after making an average of $6,742 on 331 screens.

#3 1917 $2.09m

The Sam Mendes directed war film has brought its total to $13.82m after another strong week, making an average of $7,548 on 277 screens.

#4 Jumanji: The Next Level $1.37m

The boxing day hit has continued to generate revenue five weeks after its release with its total now sitting at a very strong $43.61m. The film made an average of $4,336 on 318 this past weekend.

#5 Bombshell $912,051

The film based on the real-life sex scandal at Fox News has spent a second week in the top five as it averaged $4,203 on 217 screens.

While Nine wasn’t able to generate Nick Kyrgios numbers it has continued its strong Australian Open ratings run with Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer’s matches both peaking at over 1.5m national viewers with the highest rated Australian being Ash Barty’s quarter-final win with 1.03m national viewers tuning in.

For the night the tennis averaged 893,000 metro viewers which helped power Nine to a primary share of 27.7% while the Nine Network had 36.7% for the night.

While on Seven, the top rated non-news program of the night was the reliable Home and Away with 600,000, while Seven also aired the first episode of the new season of First Dates Australia which had 352,000 metro viewers. For the night Seven had a primary channel share of 13.9% and a network share of 21.9%.

10 has continued to produce strong 7:30 time slot numbers with the summer scheduling of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! which added some spice to the show with a double elimination that saw Dr. Chris Brown and Julia Morris announce that Myf Warhurst and Ryan Gallagher were the next two celebrities to leave the jungle. The double trouble elimination saw 1.11 million viewers nationally and 825,000 metro city viewers tune in, while the regular episode received 1.01 million viewers nationally and 728,000 metro city viewers, this helped 10 to a primary channel share of 13.9% and 19.9% network share.

On the ABC the highest rated non-news show was a repeat of Griff’s Great Australian Rail Trip which did a metro audience of 437,000. For the night the ABC did a primary TV share of 9.7% while its network share was 14.2%.

The most-watched show on SBS was a UK episode of Who Do You Think You Are? that featured Boy George with 202,000. The public broadcaster had a primary TV share of 4.0% with a network share of 7.2%.