News

Mumbrella live blog: Wednesday, May 21

Welcome to Mumbrella’s live blog, the rolling diary of everything you need to know in media and marketing. Refresh the page for the latest updates.

Top stories:

3:34pm – It seems there’s a live blog for everything these days – The Guardian Australia is live blogging the student protests across the country against the budget. From smoke bombs being let off to people burning paper in saucepans, it’s all kicking off. Catch the blog here.

2:34pm – Happy birthday to…SmoothFM which turns two this week. How time flies. Anyway, thanks to Buble, Bogart and Mel Doyle for the afternoon sugar hit.

smoothfm cake

2:16pm  – Looking around the web, and here’s an example of an unfortunate incident of someone applying for a job with Buzzfeed. Unfortunately she was a photo editor on the AP newswire, and accidentally sent half her application letter out on a photo caption on the newswire. Oops. More here at Gawker.

1:48pm – Some Twitter tributes have been coming in for the soon-to-be defunct Wake Up, with its creator and first executive producer Adam Boland tweeting:

aadam boland wake up tweet

and Studio 10’s Joe Hildebrand added:

hildebrand wake up tweet

12:50pm – Ten has just issued  a statement confirming the cuts to Wake Up, early, morning and late news bulletins, with up to 150 staff affected and a voluntary redundancy round now started. Eyewitness News at 5pm will continue.

12:44pm  – Ten staff have been sent an email today telling them Wake Up and early, morning and late news bulletins have all been axed. See the full email from CEO Hamish McLennan here.

12:25pm  – It looks as though staff at Ten have been called into a meeting regarding the rumoured cuts to news and axing of breakfast show Wake Up. Stand by for an announcement.

12:11pm – Labor has been capitalising on the hard-hitting budget decisions splashing $80k on an attack ad campaign.

11:42am – Good on ya adland, aways ready to bring the crazy to TV shows. And When Love Comes to Town seems to be no exception, as Dr Mumbo found out last night.

11:04am – We’re not quite sure this is how Coles envisaged their big red hand being used when they invented it, as a barometer of consumer confidence for The Age to use:

Age big red hand front page

10:47am – In case you missed it yesterday we unveiled the shortlist for the Mumbrella Awards. See who the runners and riders are, and find out how to secure your place, here.

mumbrella-AWARDS-2014_purple

10:01am – TV ratings are in, and When Love Comes to Town had a strong launch for Nine last night, while 7Mate’s Bogan Hunters topped digital channels.

9:29am – And congratulations must go to Bondi Brawler David Gyngell, with the Nine Entertainment Co CEO’s wife Leila McKinnon giving birth to a baby girl in the early hours of this morning, their second child.

9:10am – Some breaking news this morning is another loss for Droga5 with appliance maker Sunbeam moving its business to The Works. More here.

8:22am – So there’s a new McDonald’s Happy Meal mascot. Anyone else think it’s a tad creepy? See some of the fallout on the SMH here.

McDonald's Happy

8:15am – In other news this morning Free TV chairman Harold Mitchell has come out swinging at Foxtel after the pay-TV provider said it had better content deals and hinted it didn’t think HbbTV would take off. Mitchell said it’s a matter of trust. See more in the AFR here.

8:00am – There has been a lot of speculation regarding the future of Ten’s Wake Up and cuts to its news divisions in some press in the past three days, with speculation in The Ausatralian this morning there will be an announcement on its future today. We’ll be first to bring you news of what’s happening, so stay tuned. Today’s Australian Financial Review speculates one of the three big US networks is looking at a strategic tie-up with the network (paywall).

7:50am – Morning all, and welcome along to Wednesday. Mumbrella has been busy already this morning, with content director Tim Burrowes on Ten’s Wake Up talking about the Joe Hockey suing Fairfax story. His “pocket chief” didn’t go unmentioned by presenter James Mathison either.

tim burrowes on wake up with pocket handkerchief

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