Mumbrella live blog: Friday, February 21
This is Mumbrella’s live blog, a rolling diary of everything you need to know to keep up to speed with what’s happening. Refresh the page regularly for the latest news.
Highlights: WWI centenary logo labeled ‘clip art’ | Mumbrella’s Hangout with The Checkout | BBC looking for native ad partners in Australia | Macquarie Radio sees profits drained by Smart Radio |TV ratings: The Biggest Loser falls, The Block wins and Sherlock gets time shifted result | Woodstock Bourbon focuses on barrel rolling | New chief marketer for ANZ | Ray Hadley’s wife withdraws AVO lodged against him
9.08pm – Here’s the final ever broadsheet front page of the Sydney Morning Herald, just shared on the SMH’s Facebook page. The paper, along with The Age, will be compact everyday from here on.
6:24pm – That’s (nearly) all from us for this week folks, and it’s certainly been an interesting one! We hope Kim Wilson will have her fabric samples back in order by Monday. Meanwhile look out for a couple of big announcements popping up on Mumbrella over the weekend.
Remember tickets are available for the Media Metrics Masterclass on Monday, March 10, featuring new radio ratings providers Gfk and a host of other top speakers. Click here to see who is speaking and how you can get your tickets.
4.50pm – Update on the Ray Hadley AVO story. NSW Police have confirmed to Mumbrella that Hadley’s wife has this afternoon withdrawn the application. You can read the story here.
4.23pm – Some late breaking news The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Radio 2GB host Ray Hadley and his son are facing apprehended violence applications lodged by Hadley’s wife Suzanne.
4.16pm – As far as PR disasters go Chevron appear to have sparked a media storm by offering a town in the US pizzas and a two litre drink to apologise for one of their fracking wells exploding. Well done Chevron.
3:30pm – The Mumbrella Asia weekly wrap-up has just dropped with this little doozy under quote of the week:
An email from a marketing executive based in Australia, who has Asia Pacific in her job title.
“Can you let me know what APAC is? I’m unfamiliar with it/them.”
2:56pm – What do you make of these logos to commemorate the centenary for World War One? One is the Aussie version, and the other is the NZ effort. Some interesting thoughts on both.
1.20pm – The phones are starting to ring at Mumbrella House as the deadline looms for entering the CommsCon Awards for the best in PR and communications. (To answer the most common question: Yes, you can have a deadline extension, but only until Monday lunchtime.)
1.12pm – In other public relations industry body PRIA has set a date for its next board meeting after much of its national board resigned last week. You can read the story about the new board members here.
1.09pm – A couple of marketer stories around today. ANZ has a new CMO Carolyn Bendall while the bank’s former marketing boss Karen Donaldson is off to Coles to run marketing for their financial services division. In other news former iinet CMO Wendy Walker is off to media agency Mindshare in a regional role, as chief growth officer.
12:35pm – Dr Mumbo is trying to figure out if the cover of the latest edition of AdNews is a veiled message to either the internet or their readers…
11:49am – 2DayFM have the latest on the Modern Family groping story (see 8:36am), and a picture of the victim Sarah Hyland being led from filming on Bondi Beach this morning flanked by police.
Source: 2DayFM Twitter
11:28am – Revenues for Macquarie Radio Network have dropped despite the dominance of 2GB in Sydney, with the company admitting the Smart Radio network is struggling.
Bolt
10:58am – This should make a fascinating interview. One of Australia’s most opinionated men Andrew Bolt will be interviewed on ABC News 24’s One Plus One tonight. His big confession:
“Yes, absolutely. I doubt myself, whether I’m right, whether I’m being nice enough, whether I’ve got my facts there, whether what I write is of interest…”
10:55am – The new campaign from Woodstock Bourbon by CumminsRoss takes a quirky look at the art of barrel rolling. It’s one way to reposition the brand.
10:37am – Staying with the world of journalism a petition has sprung up on Change.org demanding journalists are given access to the Manus Island detention centre. The calls come after unrest on the island and reports journos are being kept a long way from the centre. See the petition here.
10:22am – The Sydney Morning Herald’s morning news director Marcus Strom has tweeted the team is busy getting the final broadsheet Saturday paper ready to hit the presses today, after the company decided to turn it to a compact edition:
10:05am – Nine’s decision to delay the showing of Sherlock and put it on later in the evening may have hit the live audiences for the detective drama but it looks healthier on time shifted viewing. Meanwhile The Biggest Loser sees even more skinny numbers as Ten comes fourth again. Full ratings story is here.
9:35am – The BBC is looking for commercial partners as it looks to launch native advertising offering on its Australian facing websites. You can get all the details here.
9:14am – The TV ratings are in, and it’s a solid start for ABC1’s The Checkout, which pulled an audience of 716,000 for series two according to OzTam’s overnight figures. Yesterday we held a hangout with Julian Morrow and Kate Browne from the show yesterday. You can see them talking about the new series, and their ambition to have a lawsuit in every territory in Australia, here.
8.44am – Joe Hildebrand has, he confides to his audience, a special talent for making people smile.
8.39am – Studio 10 is riffing on Seven Morning Show rival Larry Emdur. “There’s a council law that once Larry Emdur’s name is on something it has to stay in it forever,” co-host Joe Hildebrand tells the audience. Speaking of the audience, executive producer Rob McKnight seems to have swapped the control room for the front row, where he’s sitting next to infomercials host Jono Coleman.
Comedian Dan Ilic, who started a crowdfunding campaign this week, is the guest host. Promises to be irreverent.
8:36am – It seems one of the younger stars of US sitcom Modern Family has been groped overnight at a Qantas reception for the cast, over in Australia filming for the hit show. Sarah Hyland, who plays Haley Dunphy, tweeted:
8:21am – Shares in Fairfax finished yesterday up 20 per cent overnight after its improved profit announcement. However, The Oz ‘s daily Fairfax bash this morning has Gina Rinehart’s spokesman for Hancock Prospecting blasting the company as ‘glacial’, despite the 14.9 per cent shareholder being “happy that the share price has gone up today, who wouldn’t be”.
8:09am – Let’s do the media wrap-up thing. First off the mark is a four-day-old yarn in The Australian about The Guardian in the UK wrongly outing Patrick Stewart (that’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek to you) as gay, when he’s not. It is a media story Jim – but relevant to Australia…?
In fairness, his Twitter feed after the story is genius:
8:05am – Morning all, it’s flipping Friday, where did the week go? Plenty happening in the world today, we’ll give you a media wrap-up, and a few bits to make you chuckle through Friday.
