Business of Media
Elon Musk admits X ‘may fail’ after glitch deletes Twitter photos
Elon Musk, the owner of the app formerly known as Twitter, has said the social media site “may fail”, after a glitch caused pictures posted before December 2014 to be deleted, reports The Guardian’s Hibaq Farah.
In a post on the site, renamed X, Musk said: “The sad truth is that there are no great ‘social networks’ right now.”
He added: “We may fail, as so many have predicted, but we will try our best to make there be at least one.”
Several users noticed the glitch, with the technologist Tom Coates among those pointing it out. Coates referred to the glitch as “epic vandalism by Musk” and suggested it could be a cost-saving exercise.
Ellen DeGeneres’ famous Oscars selfie from 2014 was also removed but later restored. The photo became the platform’s most retweeted photo ever, with more than 2m shares on the platform. Former US president Barack Obama’s viral tweet after his 2012 election win remained unaffected.
Why this CEO says free-to-air TV advertising stands to lose $500m
The chief executive of Australia’s largest out-of-home media company, ASX-listed oOh!media, says the decline of free-to-air TV can boost the billboard and digital screen advertising market by $500 million, reports Nine Publishing’s Sam Buckingham-Jones.
Cathy O’Connor said a market-wide downturn in the ad market had grown outdoor media’s share of the almost $9 billion media agency ad sector from 11.7 per cent in 2022 to 14 per cent so far this year.
Asked what the ceiling on the outdoor industry’s share would be, she said: “We think 18 to 20 per cent is a reasonable benchmark.
“We are starting to see out-of-home being viewed as a safe bet in terms of mass reach audiences which aren’t being fragmented.
“A couple of obvious points – the free-to-air TV market is three times the size of the out-of-home market. A little bit of disruption goes a long way there.”
OOh!media is one of Australia’s biggest listed media companies. Its market capitalisation is $780 million – about $280 million more than Seven West Media, the owner of Network Seven.
‘Embrace it or risk obsolescence’: how will AI jobs affect Hollywood?
Since actors joined writers on the picket line in July, the two guilds, on their first joint strike since 1960, have found a common locus of fear and frustration: the potential encroachment of artificial intelligence on their livelihoods, reports The Guardian’s Adrian Horton.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) warns of the possibility that generative AI – the type of machine-learning systems capable of creating text, images and video, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT – could allow studios, represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), to cut costs by forgoing the employment of human writers for AI-produced scripts. The Screen Actors Guild (Sag-Aftra) is concerned with the use of digital likenesses, particularly after Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the guild’s chief negotiator, said studios proposed to pay background actors for a day’s work to use their images in perpetuity. (The AMPTP has disputed this claim as a “mischaracterization”.)
All the while, entertainment companies, or tech conglomerates with entertainment divisions, have continued to expand their human staff tasked with the development, research or management of AI. Last month, Netflix made headlines for a job listing for an AI product manager with an annual salary somewhere between $300,000 and $900,000 (according to Sag-Aftra, 87% of the guild’s actors make less than $26,000 a year). A review of Disney’s job board by the Guardian found at least a dozen roles related to machine learning, several of them within its media & entertainment division. Tech companies such as Amazon and Apple have, of course, numerous open machine learning positions, with some specifically tied to entertainment (a Seattle-based AI role for Prime Video Personalization and Discovery offers, according to the listing, “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shape the future of TV for billions of viewers worldwide. We know our future success is inextricably tied to being a center of excellence in machine learning science and we invest in it.”).
Audio
3AW broadcaster Neil Mitchell hits back at claims he’s moving on from hosting his morning show, says ‘nobody has sacked me’
Melbourne radio broadcaster Neil Mitchell has hit back at numerous media reports claiming he could be replaced as 3AW’s mornings host and said management told him he can stay in the job until he reaches “100 or 120”, reports The Australian’s Sophie Elsworth.
During his show on Monday, Mitchell addressed the ongoing speculation that his hosting duties at the Nine Entertainment-owned station could be ending.
“I don’t know everything that is going on, nor should I, I do know there will be changes ahead at 3AW but they are not finalised,” he told his listeners.
“Some of what was reported was right, much of it was wrong, I can assure you nobody has sacked me, nobody is trying to drive me out, quite the opposite in fact.
“Management has made it clear I can stay in the job until I reach 100 or 120 which is very tempting.”
In recent days there have been numerous reports that the 71-year-old could be moving on from his mornings slot and be replaced by drive presenter Tom Elliott.
Southern Cross boss banks on podcast power to steady the ship
Southern Cross Austereo is banking on its digital audio strategy to pay off in the long run, as the company’s newly minted CEO John Kelly perseveres with the turnaround of one of Australia’s best known media companies, reports Nine Publishing’s Calum Jaspan.
Kelly has had a baptism of fire as he fronted his maiden earnings call as CEO last week, announcing underwhelming full-year numbers and cutting dividends. The market wiped 10 per cent off the company’s share price on the back of the results.
ASX-listed Southern Cross, which houses the likes of Triple M and The Hit Network, has endured its most turbulent period under Kelly’s predecessor, Grant Blackley. However, Kelly has been an integral part of the company’s management, spending the last seven years as Blackley’s chief operating officer.
“Clearly I’ve been here, and I helped design the strategy,” he said. “So I believe in the strategy, that’s the first thing.”
“It’s early days, but, my take on the landscape is to be highly accountable to our shareholders and trying to improve outcomes for them.”
Television
Michael Rowland: “I want to smash Kochie’s record”
“I want to smash Kochie’s record,” Michael Rowland jests. Or is he being serious? Having completed 13 years as host of News Breakfast, there’s ‘only’ another 9 to go to eclipse David Koch’s 21 years at Sunrise, reports TV Tonight.
Rowland is clearly enjoying his role on ABC’s breakfast show alongside Lisa Millar. Maybe he is serious after all.
“I’m feeling probably the fittest I felt in a few years. You have peaks and troughs doing crazy hours, but I love the show. I’ve always told people ‘It’s the best job in broadcast TV.’ Case in point, on the one morning, last July, I got to interview the Prime Minister and Cate Blanchett within an hour or so of each other. What other show, what other outlet as a broadcast journalist offers you that chance? Along with a gazillion other stories on breaking news.
“I’m so lucky to be in this position. I’m loving it. Watch out Kochie, I’m coming for your record.”
Ok, point taken.
Sports Media
Free TV was considered a dinosaur. The Matildas have changed how we think about it
The ascent of the Matildas through the World Cup gave us many things. One was the warm feeling of the country coming together, transfixed by the plucky team’s progress. In an era defined by division and fragmentation in a range of areas, including the TV landscape, such unity had become a foreign feeling and it was a welcome one. It felt as if the nation gathered around a milestone event and then decamped to that metaphorical watercooler to share the excitement, reports Nine Publishing’s Debi Enker.
Another takeaway was the astronomical ratings as an 89.8 per cent share of the commercial broadcast audience tuned in for Australia’s semi-finals clash against England. An astonishing 7.13 million people watched it on Seven and 7Plus, and that estimate doesn’t include clubs, pubs and other public spaces, or those who turned to Optus Sport.
The figures predictably dropped for Australia’s clash against Sweden in the battle for third place, although the average audience of 3.38 million is substantial and significant: any sporting-code honcho or TV exec would be chuffed if their finals notched up such numbers. The gripping grand final between England and Spain capped off a stellar week for women’s sport and soccer with just over 3 million.
Woven into the victories of that week was the affirmation of the power, reach and accessibility of free TV. Over the past decade, a pervasive view of free-to-air (FTA) telly, almost a default position, has been to dismiss it as being a dinosaur, a relic of a bygone age. It’s been narrowly regarded as a creature inevitably doomed to extinction as an onslaught of bright and shiny new subscription services captured our devotion and our dollars. Yet that admittedly extraordinary week saw a demonstration of its fundamental role and value. Or, to repurpose the famed Mark Twain quote, illustrated that reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.