Fairfax CEO hits back at News Corp, accuses it of ‘spreading lies’ and being ‘at war with itself’
Hywood
Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood has fired off an email to staff at the media company accusing rivals News Corp of spreading “lies” about the company, having “deep seated cultural problems” and being “at war with itself over it future”.
The email, sent this afternoon to staff, comes after a series of pieces in News’ The Australian in recent weeks attacking Fairfax, with editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell last week accusing Fairfax of “misleading advertisers” over their readership at the Mumbrella360 conference.
News Corp’s co-chairman Lachlan Murdoch also took aim at “competitors” at the conference saying they had “talked down” print, an accusation Hywood angrily denies in today’s email.
Simply brilliant. Just like that Carri Markson’s piece today on the Daily Mail. Amanda Meade, a senior and experienced journalist was very quick to debunk all of Carri’s myths on The Guardian’s website this afternoon. It’s time we all stood up to the bullies at Holt Street and stopped reading their schlock once and for all!
The great irony is that Greg Hywood is the one destroying Fairfax.
“Kick This Mob Out”. The way the Daily Telegraph’s circulation is declining we are taking their advice.
Good on you Greg Hywood. The bullies at Holt Street are insufferable and Linnell is right – obsessed with Fairfax.
Hywood is just as guilty of faking it as is Mitchell. Sadly these people are the ones accelerating the troubles on our news media. Neither has a clue about digital media.
“Why would Fairfax walk away from print? Over 75% of our revenues are print based. ”
Hywood desperately needs a reality check. Print? Seriously….
Brilliantly crafted. Need more of that Mr Hywood, stick up for Fairfax. Lacking leadership since Linnell left
Blistering note. Hywood and Catalano powerful combination.
Great – and long overdue – put down of the increasingly shrill and quite ridiculous propaganda spewing forth from News Corp. However I doubt the fairfax metros are as “robust ” and profitable as Mr Hywood makes out . The Australian has ( reluctantly) come out and revealed the state of its balance sheet ( ie it has been losing circa $30m pa). If the Fairfax metros are as robust as Mr Hywood suggests, then he should have no
Problem doing the same….
Linnell hasn’t left, he is messing around hyphening off heaters and holidays to pensioners until Hywood brings him back full time to run the publishing business.
Chris Mitchell is a protected species. If Lachlan doesn’t have the guts to move the business forward and remove geriatrics like him NEWS really is doomed. More advertorials spruiking the importance of extreme right wing odd balls.
Good note. Too often Fairfax lets the bilious rubbish coming out of Holt St go unchallenged. But let’s get real about the state of Fairfax. The only part of the Fairfax business that’s growing is Domain . Hence ongoing and increasingly damaging cuts – most recently, almost the entire fairfax photographic team.
@WHOH : Linnell has left ?
Hywood’s problem is that he has been very deliberately accelerating the decline of print with a message to advertisers that says very simply: we are getting out of this business. He has created no business profitability in digital and has done nothing to effect change in the product, which is getting worse.
My impression is that he’s poison for the talent, which may be an even bigger problem. It is certainly noticeable that staff no longer make any distinction between news and fairfax, which is a huge cultural shift.
Of course Hywood’s best asset in this relativity is Mitchell, who should not speak in public.
Linnell will be back. Hywood, Linnell, Catalano. Watch this space.
NEWS are hysterical. They are misguided and confused.
“As the quote in The Australian demonstrates, News Corp has only just started to understand and acknowledge the disruption caused to traditional news organisations. Necessary changes initiated by a previous CEO ground to a halt as the “old guard” saw him off.”
@ Bloz: Linnell should be back “to run the publishing business” very soon then since latest ratings show he’s not exactly setting the world alight in radio land. It does beg the question, though: Who is running the publishing business now? And why do we never hear from him/her — only Linnell and Hywood.
Mitchell – hysterical as he is – might have hit something on Fairfax digital subscribers. Fairfax are constantly discounting the packages – 50% off at the moment.
Argo – Hywood running publishing business the sales people tell me.
Hywood’s watch has seen the Age and others start to disappear up their own orifices, he’s allowed his journo’s and editors to alienate their key target audience. I hear the organisation is dysfunctional, they are outsourcing their daily production in India or some third world country, which is tantamount to throwing in the towel and a really good message to send to the Australian public (Your Australian newspapers brought to you from India) Revenue is their problem, they’re not reaching the people advertisers want to reach or certainly not enough of them to count. Poorly run, current management can’t resurrect the company; they need new energy and new blood if they’re to survive, first to go, Hywood.
Lol.
Loved the phone hacking dig. Poor News Corp and its “journalists”. No credibility left.
Well done Greg Hywood. About time! News Corp want to get rid of all its competition and will do and say what it likes to get the job done.
Don’t stop now!
Why on Earth would the head of a major media company waste his or her breath on something as trifling as a pointless tit-for-tat with a rival outlet?
Because staff morale is at an all-time low.
How the mighty have fallen.
@ jamma: yes, Fairfax are dropping their pants on digital subscriptions, as you say. They got off to a great start on digital subscriptions, but the last audit figures showed that growth has slowed to a trickle (https://mumbrella.com.au/index.php?s=digital+subscriptions ). Presumably, as a result, their discounting of digital subscriptions is now much deeper than that of The Aus. Hardly the best way to build a loyal, quality audience. Having said that, it’s still good to see Fairfax wake up and fight back. For too long News Corpse have been able to come out with all sorts of propaganda re themselves and competitors without anyone challenging them.
Love the Fairfax Sycophants responses
^ Fairfax kills it in digital. They have more digital subscribers than all of the News Corp properties combined! And while the SMH is no.2 in news website rankings, the Australian and Daily Tele are not even in the top 10
@argo. Good pick up on the digital subscriptions. Their growth has dived. Why the discounting?
@ WANG: as opposed to the News Corpse sychophants, you mean?
Mitchell appears to have played back the tape this morning.Hywood really did not lay a glove on him and looks now to be the sitting duck. I suppose they will give Allen Williams a go next.
With credit to Fairfax, I do rate a large proportion of their editorial v News Corp’s, which, quite frankly, is about as credible as Bernie Madoff. Anyone who calls themselves a journalist (anyone), however works for News Corp is a fraud(.)
Mr Hywood actually said very plainly that from 2012 he gave print 3 to 5 years and planned accordingly to be digital only at that time. All his moves are consistent with that.
Unfortunately his plan did not include digital profitability or any prospect of same. So now he is skating around the facts.
IMO it is highly unlikely that his claims of consistent profit are true. Notably in that one product Mitchell cares about – the AFR – which has been butchered.
@ the Facts: Fairfax are certainly doing better than the other traditional publishers on digital, but I doubt their digital revenue comes close to replacing the revenue lost from print
@Facts are helpful: you’re almost certainly right re the AFR. Latest figures from Emma (the audit system endorsed by newspaper publishers) shows AFR’s print readership has dropped 22.9% in the last 10 months (!!), by far the biggest drop experienced by any newspaper. Goodness knows what their digital subscriptions are doing since they won’t release those figures. Obviously, not good.
@Argo: It was just a feeling. But the absence of digital numbers tells me that the AFR is seriously in trouble. It is also a reflection of the poor product focus of Fairfax. Its board is clearly useless, but it is amazing that Hywood has done nothing about the Herald and The Age editorial and seems to have deliberately pushed the Fin into the Oz situation (both editorially and financially).
Amusing to read in the Oz that Corbett is on the skids. If only the whole board and management were on the same slope. Fairfax really desperately needs someone with editorial value.
As a financial newspaper, The AFR “should” be the jewel amongst the Fairfax mastheads – a la the Wall St Journal, The Economist, the FT, all of which have built substantial businesses, including a healthy digital products/revenues. Instead, it appears to be sliding closer and closer to oblivion.
Check out the Roy Morgan vs EMMA news readership figures, hot off the press.
http://www.bandt.com.au/media/.....readership
http://www.bandt.com.au/media/.....per-brands
Maybe this will shed some light on things
Australia’s most read newspaper brand. SMH is Australia’s #1 newspaper brand reaching 5,653,000* people across print, website and app. * Roy Morgan Research average four week figures for the 12 months to March 2014
http://www.roymorgan.com/findi.....1406240527
Website visits:
SMH:
http://www.similarweb.com/website/smh.com.au
The Age:
http://www.similarweb.com/website/theage.com.au
The Australian:
http://www.similarweb.com/webs.....ian.com.au
Daily Tele:
http://www.similarweb.com/webs.....aph.com.au