Greg Hywood: Feud between News Corp and Fairfax is doing ‘a lot of damage’ to industry
(l-r) APN’s Ciaran Davis, News Corp’s Clarke, The West Australian’s Chris Warton, Newspaper Work’s Michael Miller and Fairfax’s Greg Hywood
Fairfax Media CEO Greg Hywood has taken a shot at rivals News Corp over the feud which has been simmering between the publishers, saying the newspaper industry is doing itself “a lot of damage” with the constant backbiting.
Speaking on the CEO panel at the Future Forum today Hywood cited the example of “a recent defamation case”, understood to be the case brought against Fairfax by Treasurer Joe Hockey, saying “the other publishers pile in and support the person who’s sued us.”
Following remarks from recently installed APN News & Media CEO Ciaran Davis on the need for the industry to work together earlier in the discussion Hywood added: “Taking up the point about working together, we cause ourselves a lot of damage by emphasising each others’ reductions in circulation, a lot of damage. We got ourselves past that.
“Now we’re starting to attack each other on each other’s relative quality because if there is a story that one publisher gets the other publisher says ‘it’s not a story’ and tries to undermine the credibility of that story.
“There’s also a level of mutual respect. Look at defamation law, we all have a common interest in defamation law, but now if someone sues us, and there’s been a high profile case recently, the other publishers pile in and support the person who’s sued us. What’s all that about?
“We’ve just got to be sensible and practical here, it’s all very well to say lets work together but we’ve actually got to get together and work it out.”
Clarke speaking on the CEO panel at today’s Future Forum event
Speaking to Mumbrella on the sidelines of the event News Corp Australia CEO Julian Clarke shot back at Hywood, saying: “That was the pot calling the kettle black.”
“I think generally speaking a criticism can be made,” he said when asked if it is fair game for publisher’s to attack their rivals in the ways highlighted by Hywood.
“It happens in the supermarket world, in the television world. When you get fierce competitors they do tend to be a little aggressive. There’s degrees of it.”
Clarke is stepping down from his role of News Corp CEO at the end of the year and will be replaced by COO Peter Tonagh.
When asked on the legacy he leaves behind Clarke quipped “Not much.”
“It’s been a terrific company to work for, I’ve enjoyed it. I retired once before and came back,” he said.
When asked if he’d return from retirement again, he was adamant retirement is for good this time saying “this is it”.
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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Is this the end of EMMA?
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Hi Go Figure,
I can’t help but notice you’re posting from an IP address associated with previous comments from Roy Morgan – anything to declare?
Cheers,
Alex – editor, Mumbrella
nice pick up Alex..
not posted from an IP address associated with anyone in particular
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The mainstream media is being pretty quiet today about the YouTube Fan Fest that has sold out the Sydney Entertainment Centre. It is tough for both Fairfax and News. I can remember an event that the SMH put on last year, whilst the rain didn’t help, it didn’t really get much traction.
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Maybe if Fairfax stopped its childish, costly war on anything conservative, it wouldn’t put itself in that position (Hockey).
Trying to blame News is a bit rich. Look in the mirror.
People can get their Left/Green news for free from the ABC. Why would they pay for Fairfax?
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Hywood is spot on – it’s utterly moronic, the way News and Fairfax continually denigrate each other .. as an advertiser who books ad units in both, it baffles me that they don’t seem to understand that their petty bitchiness simply hastens their demise because all advertisers know they’re fighting the same immutable digital forces..
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Yes you two need to stop fighting each other and just quietly go and continue to die in the corner.
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Polarising media content from left and right and national broadcaster is impacting all their ratings and readership.
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But this is nothing new. Even when both publishers were at their peak in the 1990s, there was rivalry. The decline of both has a lot to do with people finding news elsewhere, at far less cost.
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Hywood speeches are always amusing. He used to declare his certainty that Fairfax quality was the winner. Then he gutted the newsrooms. Now he seems to want Rupert to take his foot off his neck. The sad fact is that Hywood accelerated Fairfax weaknesses and spent far too much time hanging out with big shots, starting with Packer and working his way through. Now he’s realised that a) none of them like him and b) his job is on the line. Whatever, it’s all too late for Fairfax. He’s going to keep his Maserati and the rest of us are going to end up with just News Corp versions of the news.
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Except Fairfax’s latest financials show they are actually doing ok and have stabilised the metro division. News Corp, meanwhile, won’t even release the figures for their Australian papers. But we know they’re not pretty.
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@ TheFacts: Metro Division revenues increased 3% last year — but this was entirely driven by Domain, whose revenues grew by 45%. Take out Domain (and if it is spun out, that’s exactly what will happen) and financials around the Fairfax mastheads are not pretty. Might explain why Fairfax continue to lump DOmain into the Metro business for reporting purposes. To break it out — as news do with REA – would expose just how badly the rest of the publishing business is doing.
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It’s clear whose “facts” you’re pushing Factman. we both know that the financial performance of the core brands is crap. In fact teetering. We both know the core audience is shot and even once highly profitable monopolies like Newcastle and the AFR are dodos. Fact is the so called metro division is purely a real estate play that relies on estate agents ability to drive ads to a business they part own. You can call that stability if you like. But the Fairfax investor presentation shows that the growth bought through MMP was greater than the total improvement of metro. In other words Metro went backwards. Again.
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Interesting how Hywood sounds like Abbott: appealing to his competitors for some sort of party line spin to mask his own failure. Maserati Man is way overdue for a wake up call. But as others have said already, it’s too late to save us from becoming a one horse (News Corp) town.
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