Mumbrella live blog: Monday, March 17
This is Mumbrella’s live blog, a rolling diary of everything you need to know in media and marketing today. Refresh the page for the latest updates.
Top stories:
- Feature: What does the future hold for Mitchell & Partners?
- Mumbrella video hangout with Weekend Sunrise presenters Monique Wright and Andrew O’Keefe live at 3:45pm.
- Dentsu Aegis rebrands Mitchell & Partners Brisbane as Carat making agency $1bn business
- Ikea loses chief marketer Rebecca Darley
- Opinion: PR’s PR problem – all image and no substance
- The Monuments Men tops box office
5:26pm – The ABC is set to screen its Australian Story featuring breakfast TV guru Adam Boland next Monday night – and it promises to be a revealing insight into what has been a rollercoaster few months for him. Here’s a couple of the quotes we can expect to see.
5:21pm – The box office figures are in for the weekend and new film The Monuments Men, which has something of an all star cast, took $2.3m on its opening weekend, outstripping the new 300 movie and Need for Speed.
5:00pm – Some people will do anything for technology. Meet the man who claims to be being monitored by between 300-700 devices at any one time. He claims it’s helped him learn meditation amongst other things. Courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald, via Mashable.
3:10pm – A Singaporean blog is getting something of a kicking on social media for posting this spoof ad making fun of the Malaysian Airlines missing plane, according to Mumbrella Asia. Featuring the lines “Lose yourself on a journey of epic proportions” and “Wherever you go no one will ever know” it’s been slammed for being, well, pretty insensitive.
2.03pm – The majority of industry workers ‘lack digital competence’ claims a new report. Read story here.
1.35pm – Ikea marketing boss Rebecca Darley has stepped down with the company now looking for a replacement. Full story here.
1.30pm – Last week Mumbrella’s deputy editor Nic Christensen went to Melbourne to sit down with the leadership team from Mitchell & Partners and talk about the future of the agency which now has only $300m in billings. You can read his in depth feature on the agency and its future here.
1:06pm – Channel Nine has launched live local breakfast news bulletins in Perth, full details here.
1:02pm – VCCP, the creative agency behind the comparethemarket.com.au campaigns, has said there will be a larger amount of new localised content in the future. Comparethemarket.com.au has launched the latest instalment in its compare the meerkat campaign urging consumers to compare insurance options prior to the health insurance price increase from April 1. You can see the campaign here.
12:31pm – John Butterworth, former boss of the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association has launched digital consulting business Orchestrate and signed a unique partnership with the industry body. Details here.
12:28pm – Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance has welcomed the decision of the WA Supreme Court to force mining magnate Gina Rinehart to pay the costs incurred by Fairfax journalist Adele Feguson in a legal battle over her sources. The full story here.
11:51am – We’ve made our first major announcement for Mumbrella360 – Lachlan Murdoch is to appear on stage at the conference in a one-on-one conversation with GroupM boss John Steedman. All the details here.
11:04am – Don’t forget to check out the FYI section on the site. There you will find the news Sean Taylor has been appointed to the newly created position of group CEO for Ogilvy’s operations in Melbourne, and entries now being open for the Australian Commercial Radio Awards and how to enter.
10:37am – This afternoon we’re hosting a live hangout with the hosts of Weekend Sunrise Andrew O’Keefe and Monique Wright. They’ll be on the sofa fielding questions about all aspects of their job, and you can leave questions on the page here and with the hashtag #askweekendsunrise on Twitter.
10:10am – In case you missed it overnight the integration of Dentsu Aegis in Australia has taken another step forward today with the company renaming Mitchell & Partners Brisbane as Carat. CEO Simon Ryan says it is now a $1bn agency in terms of billings.
9:48am – Seven did not screen My Kitchen Rules in Adelaide last night due to the AFL robbing it of around 150,000 viewers. Meanwhile Ten’s decision to move So You Think You Can Dance to a Thursday night from now on appears to have come as a surprise to many viewers, with a surge of comments overnight on the story from last week on this site.
9:15am – Last night’s TV ratings are coming in and it’s good news for Ten, as the Melbourne Grand Prix picked up 1.3m viewers, and the channel managed a 10.7 per cent share for the day. Meanwhile The Block ytrounced My Kitchen Rules in the 6.30pm blockbuster battle with 1.5m viewers to 1.3m for Seven’s series.
8:43am – Some breaking news this morning, as the managing director of Macquarie Radio Network Robert Lowenthal has resigned. See the story here.
8:31- We’re all getting very excited about CommsCon on Thursday, and we’ve just announced the last two speakers. Chris Savage, COO of the STW group, and Tom Burton, the ACMA executive manager for Gov 2.0, stakeholder engagement and communications, will join the CommsCon Question Time panel along with Stuart Gregor of Liquid Ideas and Kat Thomas of One Green Bean. For the full lineup see the story here.
8:24- Catch-up TV apps have seen a rise in viewers and News.com.au has retained its place as the most read news site in Australia, according to the latest numbers from Nielsen. Read the full report of the February data here.
8:14 – Morning all, welcome along. It’s a beautiful Monday morning here in Sydney and things are looking up for Channel Ten.
According to a story in the Financial Review, the struggling network is expected to achieve a 24 per cent share of the $2.6 billion metro ad market, confounding marketing expectations, when SMI data is revealed today.
Ten has struggled with its ratings of late, however advertising is expected to have been boosted by its coverage of the Winter Games in Sochi and by media buyers concerned about the prospect of runaway dominance by Seven and Nine, the AFR reports.
