F.Y.I.

Streem reveals that the ABC is the most influential broadcast interviewer

Real-time media monitoring company Streem has revealed the broadcast interviews most likely to make headlines, with the ABC coming out on top and Nine winning in the free-to-air race. Sky News, according to the numbers, also punches above its ratings weight.

The announcement:

The ABC is the nation’s most influential broadcast interviewer, while Sky News punches well above its ratings weight, and Nine is the dominant free-to-air player.

That’s according to journalists and news editors working on the country’s leading newspapers and news websites.

Here at Streem realtime media monitoring, we set out to investigate which broadcast networks produced the highest number of newsworthy interviews.

We used print and online media to gauge what was considered newsworthy, and examined more than one million print and online news articles produced during the first six months of 2019 to find quotes attributed to one of the major broadcasters.

ABC and Sky News came out on top, the latter narrowly ahead of Nine.

Nine did, however, have bragging rights among free-to-air TV where it was considerably ahead of archrival Seven, who trailed Macquarie radio in the top five.

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ABC’s place atop the list was probably to be expected given its national footprint and large number of stations across radio and television. Within ABC it was “ABC radio” that was the most frequently attributed, representing more than 50% of the mentions.

The influence of Sky News could not be underestimated, particularly when it comes to politics.

The top 10 people most quoted from both Sky News and ABC interviews were all political figures, unlike the other networks which had a heavy sports presence. The six-month study included both the federal and NSW election campaigns.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg were the two most quoted figures on ABC, ahead of six Labor MPs in the top 10.

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Meanwhile, on Sky News, eight of the top 10 most quoted figures were from the Coalition, with new leader Anthony Albanese the only Labor MP to make the list.

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The data does not reflect the number of appearances made on the networks, rather the number of print articles produced repeating their comments.

One interview might spawn dozens of news stories, while many other appearances will go unreported.

Particularly interesting was seeing which politicians use which broadcast networks to project their message out to a broader audience.

In the current saturated media environment, it’s not all about who is watching or listening in real-time, but the wider media impact of your interview.

Some people are particularly effective at using one interview to help set the wider news agenda.

In a possible reflection of their ultimate owners, The Australian was the newspaper most likely to quote Sky News, while The Sydney Morning Herald most frequently quoted Nine. But both networks had healthy quote counts from opposition-owned newspapers also.

Top of Nine’s most-quoted list were two of its highest paid rugby league presenters, NSW Origin coach Brad Fittler and Phil Gould.

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Similarly, AFL dominated Seven’s list with six of the top 10 quotemakers.

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The lack of gender diversity was stark. Only three women were among the 34 individuals who made the top 10 most-quoted list of one of the leading broadcasters: Tanya Plibersek on ABC, Pauline Hanson on Seven and Rugby Australia boss Raelene Castle on Nine.

Without delving further into the data, it’s hard to know if it’s a case of not enough women being interviewed in the first place, or not enough print editors judging their comments newsworthy. Most likely it’s a combination of both. Either way, it warrants some soul searching from both parties.

Source: Streem media release

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