Mumbrella live blog: Tuesday, March 18
This is Mumbrella’s live blog, your rolling news diary keeping you up to speed with the world of media and marketing. Refresh the page for the latest updates.
Top stories:
- AAMI signals end for Rhonda and Ketut after three years
- Dr Mumbo: L’Oreal’s blurred lines
- Answers for Adam: Will the ‘American Beauty’ bacon ad sell product?
- Dr Mumbo: Ten dominates TV ad spend – according to The Oz’s graphics team
- Ten and Seven head to court over veteran programmer John Stephens
- Seven has halted Deal or No Deal production to concentrate on Million Dollar Minute
- TV ratings: Secrets and Lies drops again
6:54pm – A terrifying image to leave you with tonight – Channel Seven News appears to be under attack from The Birds:
5:59pm – Mumbrella’s deputy editor Nic Christensen is the guest tweeter on the ABC’s Lateline tonight – so check in with him tonight from 10:30pm.
5:46pm – Seven and Ten are still at odds on John Stephens, the veteran programmer who is recovering from a hip operation according to the Australian Financial Review, with Seven issuing a statement saying he is their employee still, before Ten countered arguing he is expected to start at their Pyrmont offices on June 9.
4:42pm – There’s been something of a Twitter spat between, of all people, Khloe Kardashian and Seven’s breakfast show Sunrise after they accused her minders of pulling the plug on an interview when presenter Sam Armytage asked her about sister Kim’s baby North. Khloe fired back on Twitter:
2:13pm – L’Oreal has told its Facebook fans it doesn’t use Photoshop in its images – to mislead them. It does it for “aesthetical reasons”. And changes the shape of Megan Gale’s face.
1:25pm – AAMI executive manager Richard Riboni told Mumbrella fans of Rhonda and Ketut should not expect any more ads featuring the two characters with the ‘School reunion’ spot their last. He hinted the campaign ended due to the actors being ‘unavailable’. You can read his comments here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqbtR7gyYeI
1:21pm – The leaders of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance have voted to put in place new structure with a board appointed CEO in place of the current model of an elected federal secretary. The details here.
12:38pm – Fairfax Media has picked up on our story about Deal or No Deal being dropped by Channel Seven, quoting the host of the former gameshow, Andrew O’Keefe, who revealed the show had been dropped in a live Google hangout with Mumbrella. Normally we would link to the story published in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, but as Fairfax have not provided us with that courtesy, we thought we would do the same.
11:50am – There’s a decent debate kicking off on the Answers for Adam section today, where he asks whether the new Primo Bacon ad based on American Beauty will actually shift any bacon.
As “Phil” chimed in: “At a product level, it doesn’t really make me want to eat more bacon – in fact it probably does the opposite, but I doubt this ad is about raising sales of bacon, but rather gaining market share for Primo. So as a brand spot, it does a great job of raising awareness of Primo Small Goods as a pre packed supplier in a category where (I assume?!) a lot of people buy direct from the deli at the supermarket.”
11:12am – Wow. It looks like it’s the end of an era, with AAMI signalling its the end of the road for cult ad couple Rhonda and Ketut. They’re auctioning off her “brakefoot bling” – and you can take a trip down memory lane in our story here reliving one of the greatest love stories of modern times.
10:39am – Here’s a nugget for Game of Thrones fans out there (well the Sydney based ones anyway) – The Iron Throne will be in Martin Place tomorrow from 7:30am to 3:00pm as part of a marketing stunt for Foxtel ahead of the release of the first episode of season four on April 7.
You could also win the throne by joining a social media competition and posting a fan pic of yourself on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter using the hashtag #GoTfoxtel.
10:28am – TV ratings are in and it’s more bad news for Ten’s Secrets and Lies which has dropped more of its audience up against Love Child on Nine and Revenge on Seven. Ten got an 8.1 per cent share last night.
9:42am – Yesterday the IAB released a paper ahead of a town hall meeting tomorrow around what metrics should be used by publishers and media agencies going forward, after Mumbrella’s report on Friday they were advocating ditching page impressions. You can find the whole paper here.
9:02am – Remember that Primo bacon ad we ran on Friday? It’s been getting a lot of commentary on the site from readers, but today Adam Ferrier poses the question in his regular Answers for Adam section: Is it going to be effective in shifting units? Keep it clean people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CKIHR91ILE
8:29am – The ABC has apologised to News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt after he was painted as a racist during last Monday night’s Q&A, with Professor Marcia Langton saying he ha abused a colleague of hers with “racial slurs”. She later apologised during an interview on 2GB.
Bolt hit back in a blog posting last Wednesday saying he had been left “shattered” by the accusations, and unable to go to work on the Tuesday. Now the public broadcaster “apologised for broadcasting her remarks”.
8:21am – Here’s an early contender for gloomy headline of the day – News.com.au’s claims civilisation could collapse “within decades”. That should keep everyone motivated on a Tuesday morning.
8:05am – Welcome along. We’ll start with a good old legal stoush this morning, this time between Seven and Ten and the “veteran programmer” John Stephens, who signed to Ten just ten days ago, but has now elected to stay at Seven.
It’s promising to drag on for a while yet.
