Business of Media
Budget 2022: ABC in the money but SBS misses out
The ABC has received a $83.7m sweetener from the federal government after it reversed Coalition cuts, but SBS will miss out, reports The Australian’s Sophie Elsworth.
The government is reinstalling annual indexation to the public broadcaster after it was scrapped by the previous government, but there are no new budget measures for SBS.
The budget also extends the funding terms for both the ABC and SBS, introducing five-year terms from July 1 next year.
The reinstatement of indexation – it was paused from 2019 through to 2022 – will see the ABC receive an additional $20m a year for the next four financial years. It will pocket an extra $21.4m in 2022-23, then $20.9m in each of the following three financial years, however the budget papers show ABC staffing levels are forecast to climb only slightly, from 4194 in 2021-22 to 4213 in 2022-23.
Warner Bros. Discovery flags up to $4.3 billion in restructuring costs
Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. said it expected to incur as much as $4.3 billion in pretax restructuring charges through 2024, the result of a cost-cutting effort following the combination earlier this year of Discovery Inc. and AT&T Inc.’s WarnerMedia unit, reports The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Flint.
The majority of the charges—between $2 billion and $2.5 billion—are tied to restructuring the company’s content operations, including writing down the value of some content and killing off projects that were in development, Warner Bros. Discovery said in a securities filing Monday. The company is expected to report third-quarter earnings Nov. 3.
New management at the company is trying to make good on a promise to Wall Street to find $3 billion in cost-savings through the combination of Discovery with WarnerMedia. The company is also wrestling with a heavy debt load. At the end of the second quarter, the company had debt of $53 billion.
Among the projects that have been scratched was a nearly completed Batgirl movie being made for HBO Max. A project from producer J.J. Abrams called Demimonde was also cut and is now being shopped elsewhere.
‘Who voted for you?’: what the papers say as Rishi Sunak prepares to become UK prime minister
Rishi Sunak’s victory in the Tory leadership contest and his imminent accession to the top of British politics leads the front page of every major newspaper in the UK on Tuesday, reports The Guardian’s Jonathan Yerushalmy.
The Guardian headlines “Unite or die – Sunak’s warning to Tory MPs”. Under a picture of Sunak receiving a hero’s welcome at the Conservative head office in London, the paper’s deputy political editor reports that he told MPs he would “put an end to the Conservative psychodrama” and “prioritise ‘policies not personalities’”.
The story also notes that “he will become the third Conservative prime minister in under two months and the fifth in six years.”
“He will also make history as the first Hindu to lead the country”.
Radio
Joe Hildebrand: FM radio is the Squid Game of the airways. Who will survive?
WHAT on earth is happening on FM radio these days? It’s got a higher death rate than Squid Game, reports News Corp’s Joe Hildebrand.
First Nova Drive’s top-rating Kate, Tim and Marty became Kate, Tim and Joel, and now there’s speculation that Kate Ritchie might leave, too.
If so, can they at least replace her with Kate Langbroek so they don’t have to change the letterheads again?
But that’s nothing compared with Nova’s Melbourne breakfast team, who just suddenly decided to quit en masse. It’s like the joint was bought by Patrick Stevedores.
And then there’s the question of where Carrie Bickmore might land now she’s left The Project.
Why Marty’s going nowhere in radio reshuffle
Marty Sheargold has opened up about his change in radio from drive to breakfast, saying he’s more content than ever after two decades on air, reports News Corp’s Jackie Epstein.
Sheargold, who was previously part of Kate, Tim and Marty on Nova alongside Kate Ritchie and Tim Blackwell, said fronting Triple M breakfast since January last year had transformed him as a performer.
“It’s so lovely to be in control of your own destiny from a content point of view,’’ he said.
“Working in a team it is about compromise but you do get to an age where you don’t have to sit in a meeting anymore.
“I have felt like a different person with Triple M. I feel like I’m maturing now 20 years into work. We were talking the other day about the 5,000 club and I reckon I’ve done about 4,200 shows with a bit of loose maths in 19 years on air.”
Television
Apple raises TV, music subscription fees for first time
Apple increased prices for its music and TV+ services for the first time, the latest tech consumer group to do so, in a move that risks giving rivals an edge in a fiercely competitive streaming industry, reports Nine Publishing’s Mark Gurman.
The company increased the price of Apple Music to $US10.99 ($17.40) a month from $US9.99 for individuals, effective immediately, citing rising licensing costs, making it more expensive than services from Spotify and Amazon.com.
Spotify surged as much as 9.4 per cent to $US97.07 in response to the news, its biggest intraday rally in almost three months.
With its video plan, TV+, Apple will continue to offer a lower price than companies like Netflix or Warner Bros Discovery, but that service has been slow to build as big a following as rival platforms. The price of Apple TV+ will climb to $US6.99 from $US4.99, and the standard Apple One bundle increases $US2 to $US16.95.
Global streaming is still growing, but starting to get squeezed
Just over a decade after Netflix created the international SVOD market — with the launch of regional versions of its streaming platform, first in Canada, then worldwide — the battle over the future of global streaming has entered a new phase, reports The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Roxborough.
According to an Oct. 12 report from Wall Street firm MoffettNathanson, streaming’s penetration in America has hit the saturation point for “nearly every individual service” with the exception of Peacock and Paramount+. If platforms are going to find new customers, they are going to have to come from outside the States. London-based researchers Ampere Analysis noted in a recent report that Netflix commissioned 130 new international first-run shows and 62 features between April and September of this year. Over the same period, Amazon greenlit 92 new shows and 23 features; Disney+, 45 shows and four feature films.
“The overall trend we see is for global platforms leveraging the advantages the international, non-U.S. production and markets bring,” says Ampere executive director Guy Bisson. “It’s a trend that is here to stay and is developing rapidly and strongly.”