Business of Media
News Corp sets snails pace on buyback
At its third-quarter earnings, Melbourne copyboy turned News Corp chief Robert Thomson twice told shareholders they would “soon hear the sound of buyback” booming through the market. But an exact month since News Corp’s $1.3 billion ($US1 billion) buyback plan was announced, some investors are wondering whether they need their hearing checked, reports AFR’s Myriam Robin.
Since then, a mere $US11.8 million ($16.3 million) of shares have been gobbled up by the media titan. A rate at which it would take News Corp another five years to exhaust its allocation.
Of course, it wouldn’t make sense for News Corp to blow through its money buying its shares at their peak.
Buybacks are open-ended to allow companies to pick their timing to best effect, though the discretion necessarily given has often enough meant buybacks are announced but barely executed.
Radio
Jonathan Brown, Tottie Goldsmith test positive to Covid
Jonathan Brown has confirmed he tested positive to Covid, along with his nine-year-old son, Jack, reports News Corp’s Jackie Epstein and Alice Coster.
The broadcaster and father of three said he started to feel unwell on Thursday, as revealed by Page 13 on Friday. He got his official Covid test result back on Saturday.
“I’m going to lift the curtain here,’’ Brown said on Monday morning from home on his Nova breakfast show, Chrissie, Sam and Browny.
“Thursday afternoon, I said to Sam (Pang), I was playing golf with him and I leant on him and said, ‘I think this is the end’.
“Pang will be my witness. I said to him in the carpark Thursday night, I said, ‘I’m feeling a bit crook, I’m not right’.
Erin Molan’s ex Sean Ogilvy pictured at William Tyrrell dig
Erin Molan’s homicide detectic ex Sean Ogilvy is taking a central role in efforts to uncover William Tyrell’s remains, reports News Corp’s Jonathon Moran.
The detective was spotted on Monday inspecting potential clues that had been dug out of the muddy bushland near the town of Kendall on the NSW mid north coast.
It is the first time Ogilvy has been pictured since he and 2 Day FM breakfast host Molan announced their split earlier this year.
Podcasting
Acast announces Bryce Crosswell as group sales lead, Victoria
Acast has expanded its operations in Australia, making its first Victoria-based hire and reinforcing its growing footprint in the region. Bryce Crosswell has been appointed group sales lead, Victoria, and will be based in Melbourne — responsible for spearheading growth in this market, working to help brands and agencies include podcasting in their audio marketing strategies.
Crosswell joins Acast from his previous role of group sales manager at JCDecaux, where he spent the past nine years forging his career in the out-of-home industry. Crosswell’s credibility, knowledge of the Australian media landscape, and the strength of the local relationships he has built throughout his career, offer the perfect fit as Acast moves to make a larger presence within the Victorian market.
Acast’s expansion into Victoria comes at a time of tremendous growth for the company, having just reported net sales growth of 89% for Q3-21, compared to Q3-20.
Television
Disability quota needed in TV ads to help employment, royal commission hears
Australia’s former disability discrimination commissioner has called for a television advertisement quota to shift attitudes and help lift the “abysmal” employment rate of people with a disability, reports SMH’s Dana Daniel.
“You can’t be what you can’t see, so we need to see people with disabilities employed in jobs,” Graeme Innes told the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability on Monday.
“We need to see people with disabilities on our television screens, in our advertising.”
Radio Stars have conflicting opinion on Matt Doran’s Adele drama
Weekend Sunrise co-host Matt Doran has apologised to Adele and says he’s “mortified” after he was suspended by Channel Seven over a disastrous interview with the superstar, reports News Corp’s Mibengé Nsenduluka.
KIIS radio star, Kyle Sandilands, defended Doran on the Kyle and Jackie O show on Monday morning.
“Why is everyone up in arms over this poor bastard? He’s the Weekend Sunrise guy. He’s not the normal go-to celebrity interviewer … he looks like a nice fella too,” Sandilands said.
Co-host Jackie ‘O’ Henderson agreed but noted, “The record company would have flown him over, they would’ve paid for it so I think the least he could do is ask a couple of questions about the reason you’re over there. I think it’s courteous Kyle.”
2GB radio’s Ray Hadley meanwhile labelled Doran a “blockhead” as he joined breakfast host Ben Fordham on air.
Fordham disagreed to the labelling of Doran as a “blockhead” while Hadley firmly finalised the topic.
“You and I differ on many things in relation to people who are blockheads,” Hadley said. “I am telling you, he is a blockhead.”
A tale of two Matt Dorans
ABC political reporter Matthew Doran, who has the same name as Seven’s own Matt Doran, took to Twitter today with a cheeky suggestion to “Go easy on me,” following the headlines surrounding an Adele interview, reports TV Tonight.
Seven’s Doran admitted he had not heard the singer’s album prior to interviewing her, which has drawn international headlines, but maintains he wasn’t aware he had been sent a link via email.
ABC’s Doran is a political reporter in the ABC’s Parliament House bureau, who joined the broadcaster in 2013.
On social media some mistook him for Seven’s Doran and let rip over his lack of research… only to be accused of the same themselves.
Entertainment
Netflix turns its attention to films it hopes everyone wants to see
Toward the end of “Red Notice,” Netflix’s flashiest and most expensive attempt to date at starting a film franchise, Ryan Reynolds descends into a cave to search for a bounty pilfered by Nazis. Adorned in khakis and a fedora, he whistles the theme to Raiders of the Lost Ark as he walks down the stairs. The director Rawson Thurber calls it “a tip of the cap to the greatest action-adventure film of all time,” reports The New York Times‘ Nicole Sperling.
That homage to the Indiana Jones movies also serves as something of an indicator of Netflix’s film aspirations, which have evolved over the years as its subscriber base has grown to 214 million and filmmaker resistance to its streaming-first model has waned. The company has shifted its priorities from being the place where big-name filmmakers bring passion projects that the studios find too risky. (Think Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, or Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman.) Now, the company is aiming straight for what the old-line studios do best: the PG-13, all-audience films that traditionally pack movie theaters, create a cultural moment and often transform into lucrative franchises.
In the next year, Netflix is releasing more than a handful of expensive, star-studded films intended to appeal to a wide audience, from filmmakers with a history of doing just that. Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) is directing Reynolds in the time-travel film The Adam Project. Francis Lawrence, the director behind The Hunger Games franchise, will see his fantasy-adventure Slumberland with Jason Momoa debut on the service next year. And Joe and Anthony Russo, the brother directing team behind The Avengers, will unveil the espionage thriller The Gray Man starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans.