Business of Media
Why the TV industry’s $450m streaming hopes are under threat
The great hope of Australia’s major free-to-air broadcast networks – a shift to selling ads to people watching through their own TV streaming apps – is threatened by privacy law changes they claim would undercut targeted advertising, reports Nine Publishing’s Sam Buckingham-Jones.
As part of an overhaul of the nation’s privacy laws, the government wants to broaden the definition of what counts as “personal information”, let people opt out of targeted advertising, and ask for consent before companies can trade that personal information.
In a submission to the government, Free TV, the lobby group representing Seven, Nine and 10, has argued these changes would torpedo the growing, $450 million trove of advertising revenue broadcasters made through targeted advertising in their apps last year. Targeted ads are those aimed at specific people because of their behaviour or certain characteristics such as age, gender or where they live.
“It is not an overstatement to say that, if fully implemented, the changes set out in the report threaten the ongoing existence of the [free-to-air] commercial television sector,” Free TV told the attorney-general.
Requiring viewers to sign in with an email address, the networks’ on-demand apps 9Now, 7plus and 10 Play have partially offset declining TV audiences while allowing more targeted advertising. All major networks have millions of email addresses for Australians.
Al Jaffee, inventive cartoonist at Mad Magazine, dies at 102
Al Jaffee, a cartoonist who folded in when the trend in magazine publishing was to fold out, thereby creating one of Mad magazine’s most recognizable and enduring features, died on Monday in Manhattan. He was 102, reports The New York Times’ Neil Genzlinger.
His death, at a hospital, was caused by multi-system organ failure, his granddaughter Fani Thomson said.
It was in 1964 that Jaffee created the Mad Fold-In, an illustration-with-text feature on the inside of the magazine’s back cover that seemed at first glance to deliver a straightforward message. When the page was folded in thirds, however, both illustration and text were transformed into something entirely different and unexpected, often with a liberal-leaning or authority-defying message.
For instance, the fold-in from the November 2001 issue asked, “What mind-altering experience is leaving more and more people out of touch with reality?” The unfolded illustration showed a crowd of people popping and snorting various substances. But when folded, the image transformed into the Fox News anchor desk.
Does TikTok really pose a national security risk for Australia?
Australia has become the last of the Five Eyes nations to ban viral video-app TikTok from government devices, and a tighter clampdown on social media, particularly those with Chinese ownership, is expected in the coming months, reports Nine Publishing’s Max Mason.
Governments around the world are scrutinising TikTok, which is owned by Chinese technology firm ByteDance. In some countries, such as the United States, TikTok could be banned entirely. Such a major shift would reverberate throughout the world.
A question would remain; would the Australian government follow its most powerful ally?
Here is why a viral video app is causing such a stir around the world.
See Also: Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus confirms TikTok ban on government devices
News Brands
Top 50 news websites in the world in March 2023: New York Times sees further large fall in visits
The New York Times saw one of the biggest year-on-year declines in traffic among the biggest news websites in the world in March, according to Press Gazette’s monthly ranking of global online traffic to English-language newsbrands, reports Press Gazette’s Aisha Majid.
Visits to the New York Times site fell 42% in March to 599.7 million, the biggest decline among the top ten news brands and the third biggest in Press Gazette’s top 50 list.
It was the second month in a row that the New York Times, which bought popular word game Wordle in January 2022, recorded a large year-on-year decline in traffic after a 27% drop in February. This follows a long period where it regularly appeared as the fastest-growing website in the world, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.
The New York Times’ decline in traffic may be at least in part reflective of declining interest in Wordle. The BBC recently reported on Google trends data indicating that interest in the viral word game is currently a third of the level at its peak.
None of the top ten largest sites grew in March, which may reflect a lower level of interest in news compared to March last year when audiences were keen to get regular updates on Russia’s newly-launched invasion of Ukraine.
The majority of the top ten sites saw declines of more than 20% year-on-year. The biggest falls after the New York Times were recorded by CNN (visits down 31% year-on-year), Google News (down 28%), Mail Online (24%) and the BBC (down 23%).
Television
Too soon? We need to talk about the great spoiler conundrum
Many huge questions arise in the wake of this week’s landmark episode of Succession – and none bigger, perhaps, than what exactly is the statute of limitation on spoilers, reports Nine Publishing’s Karl Quinn.
In the age of instant internet gratification, where television’s water cooler moments are shared globally regardless of broadcast times, should people wait a minute, an hour, 24 hours, a week before talking openly about what has happened? Is the onus on the person sharing to avoid spoiling, or on the person reading to avoid spoilers?
These, people, are the big questions of our age.
Annette Sharp: Kerri-Anne Kennerley wins no fans on I’m a Celebrity
Just when some of us were starting to suspect Kerri-Anne Kennerley had been quietly cryopreserved and entombed — along with Kerry Packer’s favourite pets — in the concrete foundations of the vast new residential development that now occupies Channel Nine’s old Willoughby studios lot, along came a desperate reality show casting exec with a chequebook and a honeyed pitch to entice her back onto the small screen, reports News Corp’s Annette Sharp.
It turns out Kennerley is still very much among the living and is still clamouring for public affection.
Her latest attempt at a TV comeback, on 10’s I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here, doesn’t appear to have enhanced 69-year-old Miss Kennerley’s popularity.
In fact, she may have blown herself up completely this week.
This self-detonation took place on Thursday after she refused to participate in a food trial and said no to eating a kudu testicle, a task that would have benefited the entire cast.
Alone part of “provocative with purpose” strategy for SBS
Alone Australia continues in weekly episodes but will conclude the season with a double episode later, reports TV Tonight.
SBS, which averaged 212,000 metro viewers across two episodes, before it shot up by 138% in Total TV numbers of 761,000.
“When you look at Alone, the success has been through SBS On Demand so that’s going to be the key area we’re looking at. I think some people will be waiting and binging and I think that’s where we’re really gonna see the big consumption,” Joseph Maxwell, Head of Unscripted SBS, tipped.
SBS also looks to other ways to measure a show’s impact.
Sports Media
‘If the IPL rises, we rise’: How Lachlan Murdoch was sold on cricket’s showbiz behemoth
When Manoj Badale was convincing Lachlan Murdoch to buy into the nascent Indian Premier League in 2008, he explained to Rupert’s son why this was not exactly a huge gamble, reports Nine Publishing’s Daniel Brettig.
“I remember saying to Lachlan the night before we bid, don’t think about this as buying a sports franchise, think about this as buying 6 or 7 per cent of the IPL,” said Badale, owner of the Rajasthan Royals, at the recent SportNxt conference in Melbourne.
“If the IPL rises, then we rise, if it doesn’t then we don’t. We’re co-investing with the BCCI [Board of Control for Cricket in India] and with some of the most powerful entities in India.”
Fifteen years later, having held ownership of the Royals through plenty of scrapes, but enormous revenue growth, Badale now sees ownership of an IPL club as something like that of a major film studio – only with greater benefits.