The Mediaweek 100 was launched in November 2021, and created debate within the industry about people ranked too high, too low, people who shouldn’t be on it and others who missed out.
The media executives on this list control the purse strings for the content that Australians, and many people around the world, consume each year. They are largely not the people who make the shows or write the stories and scripts, yet they make the decisions about what we all get to consume.
The list includes a diverse group of executives from “old media” proprietors through to the challengers who continue to grow their businesses.
While this list is not as diverse as it should be, the face of Australian media is changing and we look forward to the list evolving over coming years.
The Mediaweek 100 will be a “live list” in that we shall update it when people change roles, companies merge or new disruptors arrive.
Australian media’s most powerful people – 100-81
Australian media’s most powerful people – 80-61
Australian media’s most powerful people – 60-41
Australian media’s most powerful people – 40-21
Australian media’s most powerful people – 20-1
Dec 6: Corporate roll call: Digging into the Mediaweek 100 and who missed out?
By James Manning
It’s been a few days since we started publishing the Mediaweek 100. The idea for the list was to celebrate and rank the people who make the big decisions about the media content Australians, and a significant international audience, consume.
Big media: Why so many News Corp execs?
One fact that was very evident from even a cursory look at the Mediaweek 100 was the prominence of News Corp Australia executives. (Disclaimer: A major Mediaweek advertiser.) Those executives ranged from the founder Rupert Murdoch, no longer an Australian citizen or resident. But that didn’t rule him out of our calculations. The rest of the News Corp 16 entries included people from all parts of the media group from Sky News to Fox Sports to Foxtel Media to news.com.au.
Only one other company made it to double figures – there were 10 people from all parts of Nine Entertainment Co.
And just one other company had more than five entries (Seven Group/Seven West Media with seven) and only seven other companies had more than one entry.
The 10 companies with multiple entries accounted for 52 people on the Mediaweek 100.
That means there were around 50 companies with a single entry. (The number is not exact because there were 108 people in total on our list because of dual entries and some people work across several media companies.)
Mediaweek 100: Who missed out?
Plenty of people missed the list. The roll call of people and media companies who are missing from the list is very impressive. So much so that we are toying with an expanded Mediaweek 200 to celebrate a very impressive number of entries from 101 to 200!
Look at some of these brands and businesses – all with great leaders (in no particular order):
Spotify, Beyond, ESPN, NEP, Easy Tiger, Private Media, Hoodlum, VMO, WTFN, mamamia, Jungle, acast, Nielsen, IAB Australia, Roy Morgan, Pinterest, GfK, Whooskaa, Snap, OzTAM and many more.
Dec 7: Mediaweek 100: Agency heads and regulators plus list by sex and title
By James Manning
In our final examination of the make-up of the Mediaweek 100 list, today we look at the breakdown by sex and title.
We also look at the people who might be just too important to make our ranking.
It’s a man’s world
Media management has been a man’s world…but not completely. Although our list is 75% male, the stats are changing and we’d like to think by even next year the percentage could be substantially lower.
There certainly seems room for more sharing of power near the top of our chart. There were four women in the MW100 Top 20, and just one in the Top 10.
There was then only seven women in the Top 40 with the percentage creeping higher across the remaining 60 placings – 20 of them women.
Mediaweek 100: Rank and sector
No surprise that our list is dominated by Chief Executive Officers. That title meant an instant entry for many (but not all!), while bigger companies got a few representatives.
See also: Corporate roll call –Digging into the Mediaweek 100 and who missed out?
Too big for Mediaweek 100? The Regulators
Although they don’t directly wield media power, this quartet has an enormous influence on the sector and anybody on the Mediaweek 100 would make themselves immediately available to a call from this quartet.
Scott Morrison, Prime Minister
Paul Fletcher, Communications Minister
Josh Frydenberg, Treasurer
Rod Sims, ACCC Chairman
Media Agency Chiefs
These are arguably the five most important people when it comes to overall management and responsibility of investment in media products.
For more see forthcoming Investment 100: Media Buyers & Sellers.
Omnicom, Peter Horgan
WPP Andrew Scott, COO
(Interim leader while a replacement for Jens Monsees is recruited)
IPG Mediabrands, Mark Coad
Dentsu, Angela Tangas
Publicis, Mike Rebelo
What about out of home?
The outdoor sector doesn’t produce media, but they provide advertisers with big audiences and among those advertisers are many of Australia’s big media groups. This list might not be as hands-on as their key team members, but they sit at the top of the tree.
Barclay Nettlefold, QMS
Cathy O’Connor, oOh!media
Steve O’Connor, JCDecaux
Chris Tyquin, goa
Mike Tyquin, Cartology
Brad Bishopp, Bishopp
Coming in 2022
• Investment 100: Media Buyers & Sellers
• Political Influence
• Media Talent Time
• Sports Media Allstars