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Mumbrella live blog: Wednesday, May 7

Welcome to Mumbrella’s live blog, the rolling media diary of what’s happening in Australia’s media and marketing industries. Refresh the page for more updates.

6.31pm Fairfax Media has issued the following statement:image

5:13pm – Brisbane Times staff are supporting their Fairfax colleagues who have gone out on strike (see 4:32pm), and are refusing to write any articles which are not specifically for the use of the Brisbane website. Their statement:

Brisbane Times strike statement

4:32pm – Fairfax workers have walked out on strike after this morning’s announcement there will be more redundancies. More here. Below are photographers from The Age whose jobs are under threat.

Fairfax strike Age photographer

3:33pm – Police have confirmed they have approached legal representatives of David Gyngell and James Packer over Sunday’s brawl, and suggested the watermarks on the first images released by News Corp made it difficult for officers to determine what was happening.

2.42pm – NSW police will hold a press conference at 3pm on the David Gyngell and James Packer brawl. Looks like the major TV networks will carry it live, that’s obviously not without irony for one of the networks.

Screen Shot 2014-05-07 at 2.42.23 PM2:14pm – Senior media writer Sally Jackson has left The Australian after 12-years on the media section, following former editor and colleague Nick Leys into the corporate affairs department at the ABC.

1:27pm – US publication AdWeek has crunched the numbers on which TV shows it expects to survive and which will die as we approach upfront season there. Seven could lose Intelligence, Nine looks set to wave goodbye to Simon Baker’s The Mentalist and Toni Collette’s series Hostages, although Ten could escape unscathed.

12:52pm – David Gaines, the former boss of Maxus in Australia, moved to the US at the end of last year to head up their planning function. In this piece he talks about why cross-channel planning there is more challenged than Australia, and setting fire to a woman’s pants.

12.15pm – Woolworths is promoting its online shopping service with a new spot exploring what its like to be an online customer in this new campaign by Droga5. Full story here. 

11.40am – The journalist’s union has just issued a statement denouncing the cuts at Fairfax, describing them as an “assault on the quality journalism” of the publisher.

“The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) says the latest round of redundancies at Fairfax Media’s metro daily newspapers represent an assault on the quality journalism that has been the hallmark of the group for more than a century,” says the statement. Full statement now in the story.

11.35am – Here is the full story on the proposed redundancies which could see as many as 70-80 positions go from Fairfax Media. There are also major changes to how the publisher uses images. Read the story and Allen Williams full email to staff here. 

11.13am Breaking news: more than 60 proposed redundancies at Fairfax across editorial production, lifestyle & photographic. Fairfax source telling us the staff are angry about the changes with one sources, referencing the recent AFR “world is fukt” front page saying “These changes are fukt – FUKT.”

10.49am – BBC Worldwide has promoted its head of business and legal affairs Fiona Lang to chief operation officer for Australia and New Zealand in a round of promotions across the regional team. Full story here.

10.15am – News Corp Australia is hosting the Young Lions print judging today. Our spies tell us there are 109 print entries this year which is up from 2013. You can see the judges hard at work below.

photo (2)10.01am – Last week we told you about how the Labor Party was trying to fund its own news service. Well they are now half way to doing so with more than 200 people signing on to be paid subscribers. Full story here.

9.37am – The TV ratings are now up with The Voice one again winning the Nine. House Rules and Masterchef posting reasonable ratings but Resurrection appears to be slowly dying with its audience down from 1.9m at launch to 713,000 last night. Read the story here. 

9.31am – Tourism Australia has launched  a new campaign continuing with its ‘There’s nothing like Australia’ positioning but shifting the focus to the food and drink the country has to offer. It is the first major work since Clemenger BBDO Sydney won creative duties nearly a year ago. See the video below and read the full story here.


9.20am – The TV Ratings are in and it looks like Masterchef has held with an audience of 847,000 down from 874,000 yesterday. More on this shortly.

9.10am – Ok so we reckon everyone is getting a little tired of Gyngell Packer story. So we’ll make this the last word from us and just point you to the Tele’s story on how to dress like a Boganaire. $400 Prada hat anyone?

Screen Shot 2014-05-07 at 9.15.22 AM

8.37am – Good Morning all. Today start with this fabulous contribution from the famous Tawainese animators who have done their own take on the Gyngell versus Packer brawl. Dr Mumbo has reviewed the factual inaccuracies, aka highlights. You can read about them here.

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