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Mumbrella live blog: Thursday, February 27

This is Mumbrella’s live blog, keeping you up to speed with everything happening in the world of media and marketing. Refresh the page for latest posts.

Top stories:

7.10pm – WPP has posted a $3.1bn profit with Australia considered to be amongst the drivers of growth.

5.55pm – Paul Ramsay has sold his stake in Seven affiliate Prime Media. Full story here.

4.44pm – Melbourne music station Kiss FM has dropped the fight for its name with the Australian Radio Network over its rebranded Kiis station. Full details are here. 

4.20pm – The Australian’s Darren Davidson is quoting Nine CEO David Gyngell who says he is glad he didn’t win the Schapelle Corby interview. You can read the full story here. 

4.00pm – The Walkley Foundation has been tweeting about its campaign to free Peter Greste, the Australian journalist imprisoned in Cairo, along with is his colleagues. Today the MEAA were in Martin Place campaigning for their release.

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Screen Shot 2014-02-27 at 3.58.53 PM3.25pm – Interested in how some of the measurement metrics work? Check out our Mumbrella Media Metrics Masterclass on March 10

3.00pm – Some interesting comments on our Drinkwise campaign story.

Some love the campaign: “It’s bloody brilliant. Has made me think twice about my ways.”

While others are more critical: “I think this is incredibly insensitive timing for the ad to be released with the deaths from ‘alcohol-related’ crime etc.”

Tell us what you think here.

2.30pm – Breaking news James Ashby has won his appeal in his sexual harassment case against Peter Slipper. It will be interesting to see how the Daily Telegraph reports this story tomorrow. 

1:47pm – Apologies for the radio silence, it’s been a busy last hour. Here’s what we’ve posted:

 

12:41pm – We love receiving you opinion pieces but have to turn a lot away. So we’ve put together a guide to how you can write the best pieces and improve your chances of success in geting them on the Mumbrella site.

secret cinema12:30pm – World Movies is bringing its Secret Cinema event back this year at a place “no-one has ever set foot”. Sounds intriguing. There’s more here.

11:54am – Exciting times to be at News Corp’s Holt Street offices this morning, with a fire drill clearing the campus. At least it’s not raining (too hard) in Sydney thins morning.

11:40am – Well-travelled creative Andy Pilkington has washed up at The Works as its creative strategy director. He’s previously been at Naked, 303Lowe and Moon Communications, but stayed less than a year at each.  

11:23am –  More on #mangogate (see 10:21am) which is doing good business on social media strangely, and this tweet doing the rounds from Guardian joruno Oliver Millman:

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11:15amThe Daily Telegraph has hit back angrily after a ruling by the Australian Press Council it didn’t give enough prominence to a court case against Peter Slipper being dismissed. It also

Paul Bradbury Headshot sml10:47am – Whybin\TBWA has promoted it Sydney boss Paul Bradbury to its CEO across Australia and New Zealand, on the back of three impressive years for the agency, which has been one of the great turnaround stories of recent years for Australian creativity.

10:21am– One of the most bizarre marketing campaigns of the year keeps rolling on, with Nando’s taking the giant mango it “nicked” froma  small town on a road trip. It’s popped up in Federation Square in Melbourne this morning, with a giant lime an the hashtag #mangogate.

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9:59amNine Entertainment Co’s first results since it floated are in, and show strong growth in profits and earnings, especially around TV and events, although digital EBITDA has slipped. See more here.

9:46am  JWT’s publicity blitz continues with with a win on The Smith Family account after a competitive pitch. Don’t forget to check out the FYI section on Mumbrella for all those little nuggets of information like this.

9:29am – TV ratings are coming in, and Nine’s debut of Inside Story made a decent impact last night, getting more than a million viewers. However, The Biggest Loser posted just 319,000, its lowest ratings yet.

9:19am – The AFR is reporting that Adidas will stop selling World Cup products that use sex appeal to promote host Brazil following a formal complaint from the government. The announcement was made just hours after Brazil’s tourism board released a statement condemning some T-shirts being sold on the company’s website, the most notably of which read ‘Lookin’ to Score’ with a woman in a bikini in front of the world ‘Brazil’ and an image of the Sugar Loaf mountain in the background.

The AFR reported the tourism board said the Brazilian government is “vehemently” against anything that “links Brazil’s image to sex appeal”.

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NOVA Entertainment logo

8:31am – Late yesterday afternoon DMG Radio announced it was changing its name to Nova Entertainment, shedding the final ties with the Daily Mail Group, and stressing the fact it is a multi-channel operation now. CEO Cathy O’Connor also had a bit to say about how she thought the new radio ratings would fall in a couple of weeks time. Check out the story here.

8:10am – Interesting yarn in the Australian financial review today around Sky News, with boss Angelos Frangopoulos (try saying that three ties fast) saying he’d like the station to be on Freeview. In the UK the namesake channel is already on the equivalent of the Freeview digital system and rates quite well. Could it open up the floodgates for more channels to hop the gap between pay and free TV?

7:59am  In case you missed the news which broke late yesterday afternoon Ten has refinanced its debt facility, and it has bene underwritten by Lachlan Murdoch, James Packer and Bruce Gordon. More in The Australian here.

7:53am– Morning all, looks like another interesting day is on the cards for us all here at Mumbrella House. Highlights will include the first interim results from the newly floated Nine Entertainment Company, and we’ll get a sense of how Seven Group Holdings are faring up this year (they own a big chunk of Seven West Media).

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