Paper review: TV pay packets; how Stupid Stupid Man is being preserved for posterity and Telstra’s secret news project
For any journalist who writes about media and marketing, Monday mornings is the day where your heart beats just a little faster.
You see , it’s the day that both the Australian Financial Review and The Australian publish their weekly media and marketing sections.
It can lead to strange emotions: betrayal, when somebody you thought was your bestest contact in the whole world gives a story to Shoebridge; scorn when somebody covers a story you did ten days before; admiration when somebody breaks a great tale; cynicism when some media agency boss writes a column full of naked self interest (that one happens quite a lot).
Today though, it’s indifference. It’s official. It’s a Quiet News Day.
In the AFR, it’s all about television. Foxtel boss Kim Williams is talking up the pay TV provider’s new web site. Seven’s new digital channel has slipped back again to the third quarter. And Austar chief John Porter“is making an early bid for the highest-paid media executive in the land,” says the AFR’s Rear Window column. It flags up the fact that he picked up $5.2m for the year.
Still with television, the AFR attempts to judge how the market is doing. The headline says that “ad demandimproves after bloodbath”, while Neil Shoebridge states in the intro that the decline is “showing no sign of ending”.
The paper also reports that the STW Communications Group is looking to raise $16m to answer market concerns about its debt levels.
And Google boss Karim Temsamani talks down the closure of the company’s Melbourne sales office, saying it was because of a restructure, not the slowdown.
The Australian covers the launch of ticket site Posse.com, which incentivises music fans to promote shows to their fans.
And sister company News Digital Media is offering a new service where advertisers can buy single ad serve access to every unique viewer across the network. The First Impressions product is being priced at an aggressive CPM of $50 per 1000 viewers rather than News Ltd’s usual $10 per 1000, says the paper. Incidentally, NDM rival Fairfax Digital Mediais getting ready to unveil its behavioural targeting product, months behind News and Yahoo7, says the current print edition of AdNews.
Meanwhile, the National Film and Sound Archive is going to archive Foxtel’s Australian-produced shows. Along with documentaries such as Beyond Kokoda and Battle of Long Tan, future generations will one day be delighted to enjoy the likes of soft porn brothel drama Satisfaction, lads mag comedy Stupid Stupid Man and the not-entirely-appropriately-named Dangerous.
Also on the telly front, Ten’s made a big hiring, with former Nine presenter Hugh Rimington returning from CNN in Hong Kong as Ten’s senior political correspondent, says The Oz.
And mobile marketingis “the future of the coupon industry” argues OMD’s Rob Pyne in an opinion piece explaining why it can’t just be treated as another type of online marketing.
Agencies reducing staff hours to save money won’t be getting much sympathy from clients, says The Oz. It quotes the Australian Association of National Advertisers as saying that the savings should be passed on to clients.
And finally, what may turn out to be the biggest story of the day is on the back page of The Oz. Telstra is launching a secret squirrel online and mobile content division, says Amanda Meade. She reports “senior new media journalists have been approached to join a news and information division”.
Update: Or maybe not. Telstra’s Peter Habib this morning sent out the following Twitter message: “Glad to see #TheAustralian grossly behind the times: #BigPond has had a not-so-secret content division for years”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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