Business of Media
‘Maggot-ridden mind mould’: Murdoch lieutenant’s AI warning
One of Rupert Murdoch’s top lieutenants has warned that AI threatens a “tsunami” of job losses and could crush readers under a weight of “maggot-ridden mind mould”, reports The Telegraph’s James Titcomb.
News Corporation chief executive Robert Thomson told a conference in San Francisco that the rapid rise of artificial intelligence was “epochal”. Thomson said that AI will lead to a “tsunami” of job losses. “From 2008 to 2020, 57 per cent of newsroom jobs in the United States have been lost,” he said.
“We’re facing another wave, in this case, a tsunami potentially of job losses because of the impact of AI. And these are not just jobs lost, but it’s insight lost. And so it’s important that all media companies understand the impact, but also, it’s incumbent on the big AI players to understand their impact.”
Trump’s Truth Social challenge now is to get a deal done
Donald Trump’s media company is pushing to complete a lucrative deal to go public, but it faces pressure from a slowdown in growth and the former president’s return to mainstream social media, report The Wall Street Journal’s Amrith Ramkumar and Keach Hagey.
Truth Social’s parent company is trying to go public through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company. The transaction could value Trump Media & Technology Group at more than $1 billion and generate a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars. Trump would own about half the public company as its chairman.
Without a deal, Truth Social would likely have a tougher time raising cash as a private company while facing an increasingly competitive social-media landscape.
News Brands
How to pitch Gen Z? ABC pulls together a youth panel
The national broadcaster has appointed a panel of Gen Z journalists to guide it on the best ways to engage younger audiences, reports The Australian’s Joseph Lam.
The Australian understands that the panel, established earlier this month, includes several Gen Z journalists – a cohort born between 1997 and 2012 –whose job will involve telling ABC bosses what’s hot and what’s not for a younger crowd.
The push from the national broadcaster comes as not only media but tech companies and other industries have begun to fork out big sums on researching the next generation of workers to find out what makes them tick.
Television
Drew Barrymore criticised for bringing talk show back amid strike
Drew Barrymore is being criticised for her decision to bring back The Drew Barrymore Show for a fourth season in the midst of the ongoing Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strike, and faces a picket line outside the studio this week, reports News Publishing’s Nell Geraets.
The daytime CBS talk show, which is hosted by Barrymore (Charlie’s Angels, Never Been Kissed), will air on September 18. Barrymore argues it will be in accordance with the writers’ guild and SAG-AFTRA strike terms.
“I own this choice,” Barrymore, 48, wrote in an Instagram post on Monday. “We are in compliance with not discussing or promoting film and television that is struck of any kind. We launched live in a global pandemic. Our show was built for sensitive times and has only functioned through what the real world is going through in real time.”
Ramsay Street is back, but this is not the Neighbours you remember
Precisely one year before I visit the set of the soon-to-relaunch Neighbours, an actor tells me the Nunawading studios in which it was filmed had become “a ghost town … just seven people in the whole building”. But today, it’s heaving with hundreds of actors, crew and office staff; the queue for the lunchroom stretching down a corridor bearing cast portraits of Prisoner, Young Talent Time and other well-known programs filmed inside this 1960s orange brick monolith, reports Nine Publishing’s Michael Lallo.
Most of these people are here for Neighbours, a program whose return, after its controversial axing last year, seems almost as improbable as one of its presumed-to-be-dead characters making a shock reappearance on Ramsay Street in the fictional suburb of Erinsborough.
“It was the best plot twist ever,” says executive producer Jason Herbison, who began working on the series as a storyliner in 1992. Sitting in his green-walled office, adorned with Neighbours cast photos from various eras, Herbison explains the show’s axing in terms of simple economics: its UK broadcaster, Channel 5, wanted to divert more money into local programming.
Star news presenter Sandra Sully appears injured on air
Veteran 10 news presenter Sandra Sully has appeared on television with her hand heavily wrapped in a bandage, sparking concerns over a possible injury, reports News Corp’s Elena Couper.
The star journalist read the 5pm headlines for 10 News First on Monday with two of the fingers on her left hand concealed under a medical wrapping.
Network 10 confirmed Sully, one of the most recognisable faces on Australian television, had undergone surgery after being injured the week prior.
The Masked Singer Australia’s first 2023 contestant revealed as international star
WARNING: Masked Singer spoilers below.
The 2023 season of The Masked Singer started with a bang on Monday night, with an international celebrity unmasked as the first contestant was booted from the competition, reports News Corp’s Nick Bond.
See Also: Behind the Mask: Peeking into the top secret backend of The Masked Singer Australia
Following a performance of the Shawn Mendes song Stitches, the Crash Test Dummy was unmasked and revealed to be …
Brian Austin Green, US actor best known from Beverly Hills, 90210.