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Opinion | Features
Can sport save Ten?
First there was the Grand Prix. Next came the reported $500m bid for cricket rights, then Ten secured the 2014 winter Olympics. So, can sport save the ailing network? In a feature that first appeared in Encore, Nic Christensen investigates.The television sports rights bidding process is a bit like a game of poker.
Check, fold or bet. Those were the options for the Ten Network last week when it had to finalise its bid for the cricket rights.
Andy Lark: good for the marketing of marketing
I can still remember the first story I wrote about Andy Lark, when it emerged that he was to be the new chief marketing officer of CommBank.
It was immediately clear that Australia was about to meet an interesting marketer, one who blogged and tweeted and thanks to his time at Dell in the US was digitally savvy. Even two years ago, that was a big deal. The fact that he also had a stint in public relations gave him an absolutely intriguing background before he even arrived.
Storming the media barricades - advice for young journalists
This week Mumbrella’s Nic Christensen, who began his career four years ago, gave the keynote address to would-be journalists at the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance’s Student Day. This is an edited version of his speech.Good afternoon, I can remember distinctly the last time I was in this room.
It was 2009 and I was sitting where you are. I’d come to this event, a friend and myself — from memory we sat up the back — and I can remember at the time wondering if I’d ever get a job as a journalist.
It was only four years ago and then as now getting a job was ultra competitive but I’m not sure there was quite as much media ‘doom and gloom’ as there is now…
Paywalls will help fund campaigning journalism
In this guest post, News Limited’s group editorial director Campbell Reid responds to the views of ninemsn’s Hal Crawford that the company’s push into metered paywalls is about data rather than dollars.Hal Crawford is both right and wrong in his article which argued that our digital subscription plans are all about the data.
Fake it 'til you make it... as a features editor
Cosmo’s Kate Leaver tells us how to bluff it in her job in a feature that first appeared in Encore.What do you do, as a features editor?
Really, play with words and ideas all day. At any one time, we’re working across three issues of the mag – getting one on its way to the printers, pooling all the words together for another, and planning the issue after that. It’s busy but it’s a pretty magnificent process.
Savage counsel - JFDI
Hi Chris,I run a medium-sized agency that is doing pretty well. As the leader, I am finding my workload just seems to go up and up. I am struggling to stay motivated and particularly to tackle the bigger and tougher challenges I have to face every day. How do I keep up the energy when there just seems so much to do? How do you do it?
Productive, successful executives are those able to consistently tackle difficult and big challenges. It’s a constant struggle for me so I know how you feel. How do the successful leaders do it?
Q&A with Brett Clegg
Brett Clegg, group director – business media, Fairfax Media, in a Q&A that first appeared in Encore, on the journo who refuses to work with him – his wife.Who is the most powerful person in Australian media and why?
Hard to go past Rupert Murdoch. He controls the single largest and most diverse portfolio and is intent on leveraging its scale (and, of course, influence). He’s an innovator and his will to win is obvious to all.
The experiential experience
Anyone can throw up a tent in a high-traffic area and harass the general public, but what does it take to pull off an effective experiential event? In a piece that first appeared in Encore, Matt Smith investigates.A television commercial can easily be muted and ignored, but try ignoring a purring, squirming cat in your arms. That was the experience awaiting passers by in Sydney’s Martin Place in October last year when Mars Petcare built Whiskas Kitten Palace.
The News Limited paywall isn't about revenue. It's about data
In this guest post, ninemsn’s editor in chief Hal Crawford argues Fairfax Media and News Limited’s new paywalls won’t draw much revenue, but will generate data. And they’re late to the data party.When I first learned that ninemsn’s major digital competitors Fairfax and News Ltd were going to introduce paywalls across their mainstream properties, I was excited.
Every obstacle thrown in the way of their audiences is an opportunity. People hate friction and anything that makes life difficult on a rival site is a chance to get them on yours.
Is this the worst time to be a journalist?
With scores of redundancies in 2012 and a mass exodus of experienced journos, is this the worst time to be a journalist? In a feature that first appeared in Encore, Nic Christensen asks the question.In June last year a tsunami of redundancies began to sweep across Australia’s media landscape. They came in a series of waves and in the 12 months that followed, an estimated 1,200 journalists departed the mainstream media.
Are you a conscious leader?
As the advertising and marketing industry struggles to address the issue of rocketing rates of staff churn in their businesses, Slingshot CEO Simon Rutherford argues that today’s ‘conscious leaders’ should be more focussed on creating ‘staff wellness’ in order to deliver high performing teams and healthy profits.
A conscious leader believes the business has a greater responsibility towards the community it operates in. To ensure sustainable long-term profits, people must come first. Awareness, trust, authenticity, transparency, 100% responsibility, connection, compassion, and love: these are the tools of the conscious leader.
Suits: less popular than pest controllers
Advertising suits have a thankless job that is currently being eroded by the changing industry says Naren Sanghrajka in a piece that first appeared in Encore.Not in my wildest, craziest nightmares would I ever have thought I’d say this. But I’m going to. Being a bean counter is far more appealing than starting as a suit in advertising. There it is. I said it. I actually said those words.
Yes, it’s incredibly depressing. But it’s true.
An answer for Adam: What's the future for creatives?
Each fortnight, Adam Ferrier poses a question to the industry. This week, he asks about the future of the creative.
Who or what is a creative? It’s an old thought, but as I continue on my merry journey in advertising I wonder if there is a role for a ‘creative’ and if there is, what that role is?
In the world of film and TV there is not a ‘creative’. There is a director, a writer, a producer, a DOP and so on. From this mix the creativity happens. But no-one is charged with being ‘the creative’.
Australian films stand on their own merit
The argument that Australian audiences only embrace local films once they’ve picked up a gong at an international festival is inherently flawed says Lee Zachariah in a piece that first appeared in Encore.As much as we like to pretend that we collectively fulfil the world’s need for a country comprised entirely of laid-back, mellow beach dwellers, we do seem to get disproportionately excited when someone else mentions us. Our cool exterior drops away as our local news bulletins breathlessly report that CNN or the BBC or really anyone in one of the ‘real countries’ acknowledged our existence.
We feel detached from the world, and therefore crave its validation.
The vindication of Paul Fishlock
Wow.You may have noticed that not much went up on Mumbrella over the last couple of hours.
That’s because I’ve been reading the judge’s findings in Paul Fishlock’s case against The Campaign Palace.
I’d always known that agencyland can be a brutal place. But the picture of the cynical, ego-driven, unsentimental world that comes through in the findings of Justice John Sacker is something else. I recommend you take the time to read it yourself.
The reputation of Young & Rubicam’s global creative director Tony Granger certainly takes a battering in my view. The word “bully” is a hard one to come back from.
And former Campaign Palace CEO Mark Mackay comes across as someone you might think twice about either hiring or working for, based on the evidence presented. The judge calls him contemptuous of both Granger and Fishlock.
The humiliations of modern journalism
Back when I worked on papers, I asked my journos to do some pretty embarrassing things.
I once made a junior reporter spend a day in a cage with the local zoo’s new lemur.
I once made somebody spend April Fool’s Day standing in a shop window pretending to be a dummy.
I once made somebody stride through a rough south London high street in a kilt to mark the release of Braveheart.
But I never made anybody do this:
Still, I’m sure the public love the work of the Sunday Telegraph’s Jonathan Moran and Elle Halliwell and their not-at-all despearate attempt to get the attention of the visiting Ellen DeGeneres.
Here’s what the somewhat harsh punters say on YouTube:
Click to enlarge (and possibly be a little shocked)
I’m forced to conclude that new editor Mick Carroll must be a thoroughly terrifying man who it is impossible to say the word no to.
Even if he is a little deluded:
No, Mick. Kids everywhere are not doing the Down Under Dance.
Tim Burrowes
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Comments
15 Jan 13
11:25 am
well…humiliating is certainly the right word. And not just for the journos and outlets involved. for us all. -_-
15 Jan 13
11:33 am
It’s like Rolf Harris and Aerobics OzStyle gave birth to a drag queen. Horrific.
15 Jan 13
11:38 am
Finally my dancing style’s in vogue.
15 Jan 13
11:38 am
I couldn’t get past 30 seconds. I feel like I may throw up.
15 Jan 13
12:02 pm
I’ve been doing that at weddings for years…!!!! (And by that I mean totally humiliating myself.)
15 Jan 13
12:13 pm
At 2min54 – “we just want joey to come out and play” – is that a euphimism?
15 Jan 13
12:20 pm
Worst video since this god awful shitstorm. Oddly it also features a kangaroo. Perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogzjfJtg3TA
15 Jan 13
1:02 pm
Well if there was ever an argument for bringing back semi-automatics, there it is.
15 Jan 13
1:36 pm
Now this is Journalism! Good on ya Tele! We dont need no facts or news.
15 Jan 13
1:50 pm
1 like, 83 dislikes, sounds about right.
15 Jan 13
1:52 pm
Don’t drag North Bondi into this.
Gangam’s virility was in its simplicity – so this is a definite winner, oh…
And WHY does it send with a couple of bars of Auld Lang Syne?
15 Jan 13
1:53 pm
Arrrrrrrrrrrrr! I’m blushing, cringing and trying not to throw up my lunch watching this. Poor Ellen…
What is this desperate need to “welcome” a US talk show host in this embarrassing manner?
15 Jan 13
1:54 pm
And these are supposed to be journalists? Now that so many talented, seasoned writers have been made redundant is this what we’re going to be left with?
15 Jan 13
1:56 pm
Wow, everybody is so cynical and bitter in Australia. Why would Ellen, an openly gay woman, want to come to a country where a fun little tongue and cheek dance is greeted by a torrent of homophobic abuse that is celebrated and republished by a supposedly intelligent website like Mumbrella?
I know who the embarrassments to Australia are here, and it’s not the Daily Telegraph.
15 Jan 13
1:58 pm
THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! Good grief!!!!!!!
15 Jan 13
1:59 pm
Hmmm. Constructing ‘fizz’. A bit like the kid that gives himself his own nickname.
Also, is it okay to be heterosexual these days? Just checking…
15 Jan 13
2:04 pm
uhhh.. they are entertainment writers. They had no credibility to begin with.
15 Jan 13
2:05 pm
Surely the Tele does not need to give its staff more reasons to avoid doing any journalism. I mean, if these guys are there dancing like Priscilla Queen of the Kangaroos, who’s trawling for press releases to reprint as news?
15 Jan 13
2:14 pm
OH. My God. This made it past a brain storm??? Too hilarious- like an episode of Lowdown.
15 Jan 13
2:14 pm
If news organisations want to survive, there really needs to be a line drawn once and for all between journalism and other parts of the media pie like marketing, advertising and entertainment. The hybridisation of (especially) news and entertainment isn’t working, and it’s not growing audiences – but it is resulting in a loss of credibility. No wonder audiences aren’t taking journalism seriously anymore, and no wonder many people think anyone can be a journalist. I’m all for softer news, but come on.
15 Jan 13
2:17 pm
Tim, did you work at The Sun or The Mirror ?
15 Jan 13
2:40 pm
I’m very confused. Why!!!!
15 Jan 13
2:47 pm
What were they thinking? Awful idea. Is bad publicity better than no publicity?
15 Jan 13
3:21 pm
Blew the budget on that one. I was planning to return to Oz soon. Methinks I’ll stay in ‘Merica.
15 Jan 13
3:57 pm
Down Under Dance.
D.U.D.
15 Jan 13
4:36 pm
Hi Joe,
No – various regional and local papers. Most of my tabloid behaviour was on the Crawley News.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
15 Jan 13
4:55 pm
I’ll take the lemur thanks.
15 Jan 13
4:57 pm
@ Christ. If a news station we’re to show images of a crime scene, does it mean they’re celebrating the crime? or encouraging the behaviour of the individual responsible? Mumbrella put a screen grab of the comments from YouTube and warned those clicking the image to read such comments that they may be a little shocked… I’d hardly call that “celebrating” the fact and I’m sure they don’t condone some of the sentiments Youtube’s users have shared.
The most concerning element of your comment however, was the fact you described the monstrosity we’ve all just witnessed as a “a fun little tongue and cheek dance”! I’d say its more of an insult to Ellen that Tele thought she’d even consider doing the “dance” when no self-respecting person in Australia would!
15 Jan 13
5:17 pm
That’s not J-Mo. It’s Kim-Bo. In disguise. Just showing how different he is from Harto and Col.
15 Jan 13
5:47 pm
Hi no but seriously, For the record, I added the “click to enlarge” message/ warning later.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
15 Jan 13
6:48 pm
From the ‘what was the insight that could have been the driver of this news-jacking attempt by the Daily Tele?’ part of my brain, it’s that Ellen does dance. Her shows feature dance segments with the audience, and I suspect they wanted to appeal to something she actually does.
From the ‘what the f*ck’ part of my brain, I watched the first 35 seconds. And suspect it won’t even get to her assistant let alone, Ellen. The tweet “kids everywhere doing the downunder dance” is akin to the “everyone wants to stop the trolls”. Which they claimed victory for, 2 days ago. Not sure of the validity of either?
Anyway, nice news-jacking attempt. By a news outlet.
Oh. btw DT, our roads are crumbling, kids can’t get access to mental health professionals and there are 141 fires burning around the State.
15 Jan 13
7:22 pm
@no but seriously.
Should YouTube (Google) have a responsibility to keep their comments threads clean? Lets face it, if a print magazine, or a tv programme was aired where every other comment was full of swear words, siting prejudices (racism, homophobia, sexism etc) surely they are allowing this content to be published on their network and therefore should be responsible for keeping it socially acceptable for the public?
How does it work? Can a magazine publisher publish a magazine in Australia that is homophobic, or would it be banned?
(Sorry a little off topic and not relating entirely to this video…..)
As for the video – how awful.
15 Jan 13
8:01 pm
Good point Karalee, I never even made the connection with Ellen dancing and, well, whatever the other three were doing. And poor old Elle, reinforcing that commercial radio stereotype of the gurning blonde sidekick with nothing to do except be impressed by how ‘funny’ the blokes are…
16 Jan 13
8:25 am
Karalee, I think that the fires et al were in the paper that day as well…story backfired, so what…I’m sure even Tim B had some misfires in his day…
16 Jan 13
9:32 am
And this is what newspaper journalism has come to in the 21st century. Roll on the demise of newspapers.
16 Jan 13
10:08 am
This made me cringe so much it hurt. What were they thinking…
kudos @karalee’s comments, spot on lady!!
16 Jan 13
6:35 pm
This looks like a complete waste of time. I must spend the next five minutes watching it intently so i can log my opinion about this very important media event on a website.
17 Jan 13
12:58 pm
Speaking of uppercut, can someone give me one for watching this?
17 Jan 13
1:28 pm
I AM IN PAIN
17 Jan 13
1:39 pm
Help, give me the great Ganghan style with Psy quickly, so i can forget this Aussie disaster
19 Jan 13
11:45 am
Can’t be worse journalism than running a fake ANZ press release without one checking phonecall.
24 Jan 13
6:33 pm
It’s disappointing to see the hateful and homophobic YouTube comments given an airing here, under the tongue-in-cheek line “somewhat harsh,” after you have railed against the misogyny on the Zoo facebook page.