MASS MEDIA – AUSTRALIA

Nine dices up inherited events arm

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Original article by Lilly Vitorovich
The Australian – Page: 19 : 22-May-19

Sydney’s City2Surf race is among five sports events that the Ironman Group will acquire from Nine Entertainment in a deal worth $31m. Nine will retain about seven of the events that were previously part of Fairfax Media’s events business, including the Night Noodle Markets and Good Food Month. They will be integrated into Nine’s publishing division, while a number of smaller events will be discontinued. Chinese-owned Ironman Group manages more than 230 events in 53 countries.

CORPORATES
NINE ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY HOLDINGS LIMITED – ASX NEC, IRONMAN GROUP, FAIRFAX MEDIA LIMITED, WANDA GROUP, AUSTRALIAN COMMUNITY MEDIA, THORNEY INVESTMENT GROUP AUSTRALIA PTY LTD

ABC staff told to brace for cuts

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Original article by Andrew White
The Australian – Page: 7 : 21-May-19

ABC MD David Anderson has warned the public broadcaster’s employees that it will need to reduce costs by $14.6m in 2019-20 after the federal government failed to reverse its funding freeze in the April 2019 Budget. Anderson has reiterated that investing in content must be the ABC’s priority; he had previously indicated that jobs and services would need to be cut if the funding freeze remained in place. Labor had committed to scrapping the freeze if it won the federal election.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION, AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF COMMUNICATIONS AND THE ARTS, NEWS CORP AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, FOXTEL MANAGEMENT PTY LTD

Foxtel focus on satisfied subscribers

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Original article by Andrew White, Zoe Samios
The Australian – Page: 28 : 20-May-19

Foxtel’s recently-appointed chief product and strategy officer Alice Mascia has been recruited to help bolster its Kayo Sports and Foxtel Now streaming services and to help retain subscribers. Mascia says Foxtel is planning to introduce a loyalty scheme for customers, while customers who want to get a satellite set-top box for free when they get Foxtel installed are being asked to sign a 12-month contract; she says this should reduce customer churn. Foxtel’s churn rates increased to 17 per cent in the March quarter following a 11 per cent price rise in October, but they improved in April.

CORPORATES
FOXTEL MANAGEMENT PTY LTD, TELSTRA CORPORATION LIMITED – ASX TLS

Aunty takes ratings crown

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Original article by Zoe Samios, Lilly Vitorovich
The Australian – Page: 26 : 20-May-19

The ABC had the highest-rating federal election coverage on 18 May, with its audience peaking at 1.336 million – including 940,000 metropolitan viewers – from 8-9pm. The ABC News channel attracted an average metropolitan audience of 258,833, while some 300,000 people watched the public broadcaster’s election coverage via iview. Meanwhile, the Nine Network’s election coverage attracted some 450,000 metropolitan viewers, and pay-TV channel Sky News was watched by an average of 132,000 viewers.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION, NINE NETWORK AUSTRALIA LIMITED, SKY NEWS, SEVEN NETWORK LIMITED, TEN NETWORK HOLDINGS LIMITED, SPECIAL BROADCASTING SERVICE (SBS), RMIT UNIVERSITY

Google’s plea for defamation shield

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Original article by Nicola Berkovic
The Australian – Page: 4 : 14-May-19

Changes are needed to Australia’s defamation laws to ensure that there is more protection for public-interest journalism, according to the Centre for Media at the University of Technology, Sydney. It made its call in a submission to the current review into defamation laws, which is being led by New South Wales Attorney-General Mark Speakman. In its submission to the review, Google stated that there need to be more protection for search engines when they are being sued for defamation for enabling access to third-party content.

CORPORATES
UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, SYDNEY, GOOGLE AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION AND CONSUMER COMMISSION, FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Foxtel eyeing sport, programming costs

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Original article by Max Mason
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 17 : 14-May-19

Sports rights and associated production costs accounted for $800m of Foxtel’s $1.6bn expenditure on programming costs in 2018. The pay-TV group’s total operating expenditure for the calendar year was $2.56bn. Parent company News Corp has indicated that there is potential to reduce spending on "non-marquee" sports content, as well as non-sports programming costs. Foxtel is also reviewing the prices of its programming packages and has not ruled out an increase.

CORPORATES
FOXTEL MANAGEMENT PTY LTD, NEWS CORP AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, NEWS CORPORATION – ASX NWS, KAYO SPORTS, AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE, NATIONAL RUGBY LEAGUE, RUGBY AUSTRALIA, FOOTBALL FEDERATION AUSTRALIA LIMITED, THE A LEAGUE PTY LTD, THE W LEAGUE, SOCCEROOS, TEN NETWORK HOLDINGS LIMITED

Over 15.7 million Australians read newspapers in print or online

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Original article by Roy Morgan
Market Research Update – Page: Online : 13-May-19

Roy Morgan has released the latest readership results for Australian newspapers, for the 12 months to March 2019. Over 15.7 million Australians aged 14+ (76.3%) now read or access newspapers in an average seven-day period via print or online, a fall of 2.2 per cent from a year ago. Although most leading newspapers had a decline in total cross-platform readership, ‘The Australian Financial Review’ increased its digital audience over the last year, up by 4.6 per cent to 1,469,000; ‘The Saturday Paper grew its total cross-platform audience by 16.7 per cent to 259,000. ‘The Sydney Morning Herald’ is still Australia’s most widely-read masthead, with a cross-platform audience of 4,043,000, down 5.3 per cent from a year ago. Meanwhile, ‘Good Weekend’ remains Australia’s most widely-read newspaper inserted magazine, with print readership of 1,006,000 (down 13.8 per cent over the last year).

CORPORATES
ROY MORGAN LIMITED

Pundits and pollies in a race to call it first

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Original article by Lilly Vitorovich, Zoe Samios
The Australian – Page: 23 & 25 : 13-May-19

Australia’s five free-to-air TV networks will provide live coverage of the federal election on 18 May. Data from OzTAM shows that 1.8 million people watched the 2016 election coverage on the ABC, Seven and Nine, after Ten opted against live coverage. Nunn Media MD Chris Walton notes that the 2019 election has attracted more interest than other recent elections, adding that the cost of providing live election coverage is not significant for the networks. Pay-TV company Sky News will also have live election coverage.

CORPORATES
OZTAM PTY LTD, AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION, SEVEN NETWORK LIMITED, NINE NETWORK AUSTRALIA LIMITED, TEN NETWORK HOLDINGS LIMITED, SPECIAL BROADCASTING SERVICE (SBS), SKY NEWS, NUNN MEDIA PTY LTD, AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY, LIBERAL PARTY OF AUSTRALIA

Bill Shorten warns News Corp against acting like a political party

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Original article by David Crowe
The Sydney Morning Herald – Page: Online : 13-May-19

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten claimed on 12 May that parts of News Corporation appear to be acting like political parties in their "campaigning against Labor" in the lead-up to the federal election. Shorten’s comments followed a recent controversial story about his mother in ‘The Daily Telegraph’. He said he has some sympathy for the threat that traditional media faces from social media companies, but that becoming more frenzied is not the solution to their problems. Shorten called on voters to reject the minor parties in the Senate.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY, NEWS CORPORATION – ASX NWS, ONE NATION PARTY, UNITED AUSTRALIA PARTY, AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION

Mentioned in dispatches: Shorten and Morrison share the coverage spoils

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Original article by Zoe Samios
The Australian – Page: 23 & 25 : 13-May-19

Analysis by Streem shows that Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has been mentioned in the metropolitan press some 25,693 times between 11 April and 9 May, while Prime Minister Scott Morrison was mentioned 24,195 times. Shorten was mentioned 10,042 times on metropolitan TV during this period, while Morrison rated 9,242 mentions. In contrast, Morrison has been mentioned 4,693 times online, compared with 4,628 times for Shorten.

CORPORATES
STREEM PTY LTD, AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET