Roundup: Chauvin verdict, SMH celebrates 190 years, James Murdoch + more

James Murdoch

• Plus WPP AUNZ, MEAA withdraws support for Press Council, NZME fined, Nine’s Sydney TV transmission tower, ABC and London’s Sunday Times apologise, Under the Southern Stars, Golden Globes, SAS Australia

Business of Media

WPP AUNZ shareholders approve takeover bid by British parent

WPP AUNZ shareholders in Australia and New Zealand have approved a buyout of the company by WPP plc, with the British parent paying 70¢ a share for the 38.5 per cent of the ASX-listed company that it did not already own, reports AFR‘s Miranda Ward.

WPP AUNZ chairman Robert Mactier paid tribute to CEO Jens Monsees and the company’s senior leadership team “in delivering a transformation of our business model and company against the backdrop of the unprecedented challenges and uncertainties of the Covid-19 pandemic”.

“Transformation does not come without pain and the need to make tough decisions, particularly in a year like no other. Thank you to Jens and our senior leadership team and the many, many talented employees across our many disciplines,” Mactier said.

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MEAA to withdraw its support for the Australian Press Council

The nation’s media union has slammed the Australian Press Council, saying it’s “not fit for purpose”, and is withdrawing its long-running support, reports News Corp’s Sophie Elsworth.

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance is giving notice to leave the APC — the self-regulatory body for print media — after it said it had lost confidence it in to do its job.

MEAA federal president Marcus Strom said the union has contributed more than $1m in fees to the APC over the past decade but feedback from members was that it was not doing its job properly.

Under existing rules, the MEAA must give four years’ notice before departing the APC. This means it will be unable to leave the organisation under 2025.

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NZME fined $NZ100,000 for breaching stock exchange rules

New Zealand media company NZME has been fined NZ$80,000 ($74,245) for breaching stock exchange rules about the disclosure of information related to its attempt to buy rival business Stuff, reports AFR’s Miranda Ward.

The New Zealand Market Disciplinary Tribunal ruled NZME breached market rules by releasing incomplete announcements that would have moved its share price.

The tribunal concluded that NZME’s May 11, 2020 announcement gave the impression to the market that its proposal to acquire Stuff from Nine Entertainment (the owner of this masthead) was well advanced, implying that competition concerns were the only obstacle the deal faced.

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The precarious operation to demolish Nine’s Sydney TV transmission tower

The spindly television tower that has spiked the skyline of Sydney’s lower north shore for nearly six decades is not long for this world, with an intricate operation to dismantle it to begin within days, reports The SMH’s Megan Gorrey.

The demolition of Willoughby’s 233-metre TX Tower is another sign of progress in Sydney: the site, which symbolised a new era of technology when it was built in 1965, will be replaced by hundreds of apartments.

The structure, erected on the site of Nine Entertainment Co’s long-time Artarmon Road headquarters, was one of three built in the area in the 1950s and 60s to broadcast television.

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News Brands

‘Guilty, guilty, guilty’: world’s media react to Chauvin trial verdict

With intense international interest in the US trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, news organisations around the world had been live blogging the proceedings and were quick to reflect the ruling by the jury, reports The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont and Sam Jones.

Most reporting focused on two themes: a sense of relief in the US that the jury had delivered a verdict many judged correct and the question over what it meant for the future of the US’s fraught racial relations.

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ABC apologises for JobKeeper error

The ABC has been forced to correct reports it aired relating to JobKeeper claims made on behalf of fictitious employees, reports News Corp’s Sophie Elsworth.

The public broadcaster said reports that were published across its radio, television and online channels failed to make clear issues relating to JobKeeper payments made by employers trying to cheat the system.

The reports were aired and published on January 29 and have now been updated this week.

The correction said the reports, “did not make clear the ATO’s investigations into employers’ JobKeeper claims for potentially fictitious employees including prisoners and the dead were occurring at the application stage, prior to JobKeeper payments being made”.

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The SMH celebrates 190 years: How a cast of business moguls shaped Sydney

In 1838 a bankrupt English newspaper proprietor called John Fairfax arrived in Sydney, with his wife and four children, looking for a fresh start, reports Anne Hyland as part of the 190th anniversary celebrations for The Sydney Morning Herald.

Fairfax took a job as a librarian, making friends with other immigrants, among them businessman David Jones, who had just opened his first department store on George Street.

The modern city of Sydney was 50 years old and prospering on the back of its agricultural trade, especially wool. It was a city of opportunity as John Fairfax had hoped. Within three years of his arrival he became the co-owner of the Sydney Herald, which by then was the city’s dominant newspaper. In 1853, he would become the paper’s sole owner, and after returning to England to pay his creditors, he would begin building the foundations of a media empire and dynasty, John Fairfax & Sons, which would last over 150 years.

In the 1930s, the Herald faced intense competition from a rising media mogul Frank Packer who would launch The Australian Women’s Weekly and take control of The Daily Telegraph. At the time, the Telegraph, unlike the Herald, put news on its front page.

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After a special edition of The Sydney Morning Herald on Monday this week, the publication has been running stories about its achievements, the city it covers and its readers and writers all week.

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See also: The Sydney Morning Herald celebrates its 190th anniversary

London’s Sunday Times apologises for appearing to trivialise Prince Philip racism

The Sunday Times has apologised after it printed a front-page story that appeared to make light of Prince Philip’s racist comments about Chinese people, amid growing concern about anti-Asian attitudes in society, reports The Guardian.

The newspaper sent Christina Lamb, its chief foreign correspondent, to file a dispatch from the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral at Windsor on Saturday. In her article she wrote: “Prince Philip was the longest-serving royal consort in British history – an often crotchety figure, offending people with gaffes about slitty eyes, even if secretly we rather enjoyed them.”

In response to the front page a group of east Asian journalists and campaigners published an open letter and attracted 17,000 signatures to a petition demanding a retraction.

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Entertainment

Under the Southern Stars festival organisers cancel 2021 concert series over COVID-19 fears

A major Sydney music festival has been cancelled for the second year in a row, with the organisers slamming the government’s “mismanagement of the Covid-19 situation” in an angry statement, reports News Corp’s Anthony Piovesan.

Under the Southern Stars festival co-ordinators announced on Wednesday the concert series, set to feature Cheap Trick, Bush and Stone Temple Pilots around Australia in April and May, would be postponed until 2022 to “protect” patrons, artists and crews during the ongoing pandemic.

“We are as upset about this as you are!” the statement on its website began.

“Given the disappointingly slow rollout of the vaccine by the government, there is no confidence that we can keep all safe and proceed as planned at our festivals this May.

“The continuing mismanagement of the Covid-19 situation at all levels of government has led to numerous inconsistencies and ongoing broken promises by officials that ultimately affect the safety of our patrons, artists and our crews, both domestic and international.”

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Golden Globes crisis deepens as former president expelled and advisers resign

The crisis-plagued Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the body that organises the Golden Globes, has expelled Philip Berk, its former president who sparked widespread outrage by sharing an anti-Black Lives Matter article that described the movement as a “racist hate group”, reports The Guardian’s Andrew Pulver.

In a brief statement, the HFPA said: “Effective immediately, Phil Berk is no longer a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.” The HFPA’s move follows outspoken criticism from NBC, the TV network that broadcasts and pays for the Golden Globes, which called for Berk’s expulsion. “NBC strongly condemns Phil Berk’s actions … [and] swift action on this front is an essential element for NBC to move forward with the HFPA and the Golden Globes.”

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Sony films will move to Disney after Netflix window expires

Sony Pictures’ upcoming theatrical slate, and much of its library, are headed to Disney’s streaming and TV platforms, reports The Hollywood Reporter‘s Aaron Couch.

The new deal, which covers Sony’s 2022-26 theatrical slate, will bring the films to Disney-owned streaming services Disney+ and Hulu, as well as to Disney’s linear TV networks, including ABC, Disney Channels, Freeform, FX and National Geographic.

The deal comes weeks after Netflix and Sony inked a massive pact for Sony’s films to go to the streaming service for their first-pay-windows, which usually come 18 months after a film hits theaters. Once that window expires, the new Disney deal will see Sony’s titles hit Disney platforms for their Pay 2 windows.

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Television

More than 18 million tuned in for the Chauvin verdict.

More than 18 million people tuned in to cable and broadcast networks for the reading of the verdict in the Derek Chauvin murder trial on Tuesday, a huge viewership total for a late afternoon, according to preliminary data from Nielsen, reports The New York Times’ John Koblin.

An average of four million people watched CNN from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., more than double the number of viewers the network drew the previous day in the same time slot, according to Nielsen. Another four million watched on ABC, and 3.4 million saw it on Fox News. MSNBC and CBS each had about three million viewers.

NBC’s viewership totals were not yet available, which means the verdict was likely seen on television by an audience of more than 20 million. And because Nielsen’s numbers do not include people who watched the proceedings on their phones or laptops, the total number of people who watched was certainly even bigger than that.

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Streaming wars enter rebundling phase: James Murdoch

James Murdoch, the former CEO of 21st Century Fox, says the streaming wars must enter a reaggregation phase as not all media companies will be able to be profitable with a direct-to-consumer model, reports AFR’s Miranda Ward.

The media scion said as streaming services have scaled and grown, they have had to create a bundled offering to compete and offer consumers better bang for their buck.

“Netflix is, in and of itself, a bundle of services – a kids service, a movie service, a serialised television service, and so forth,” Murdoch told APOS, Asia’s leading media summit on Tuesday, citing Disney+ as another example of an aggregated bundle with its Marvel, Lucas Films, National Geographic, and Disney content.

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New base for SAS Australia

SAS Australia appears to have a new base for Season Two if reports are correct, reports TV Tonight.

Daily Mail Australia has snapped photos of a site in the Blue Mountains, around 50km west from Sydney.

“Epic photos appear to show a huge building for the celebrities to reside in, and fields as far as the eye can see for gruelling endurance challenges to take place,” it claims.

“A large tarmac area with a stage was also visible – a place where lead trainer Ant Middleton has been known to torment recruits in the past.”

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