Mumbrellacast

Today's Mumbrellacast has a slightly different format to usual. It features a conversation between Tim Burrowes and Josh Simons, the CEO of Vinyl Group. It's fair to say the two have had differences of opinion and have both written about them publicly. Simons suggested the pair try to find some common ground and this discussion unfolded in Mumbrella's office on Wednesday. This conversation was uploaded simultaneously to the podcast feeds for both Vinyl Group's Media Week and the Mumbrellacast. As you'll hear, a lot of ground is covered. Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. For more about how News Australia is thinking about the future of mobile news in Australia, click here.

This week on the Mumbrellacast, the MFW point their brooms at Dave Hughes, and we struggle to find a legitimate reason for the protesting - at least, not one that has anything to do with Hughesy. M&C Saatchi's local management takeover, announced just six weeks ago, has collapsed, and it seems that the entire Australian business may be done. This is a rapidly evolving story - read the latest on Mumbrella here. Elsewhere, News Corp held five upfronts in the last two weeks, and one of the main messages was that sports fandom doesn’t end with the siren, with post-game analysis, podcasts, online discussions, panel shows, and more being part of the overall sports media landscape. And will Albanese's proposed Digital Duty of Care laws end up with the local platform bosses all sharing a prison-cell? We'll admit it's unlikely, but thanks to the fine wording in the draft legislation, it's now at least possible. Eek! Get the latest episodes here. Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. For more about how News Australia is thinking about the future of mobile news in Australia, click here.

Irene Hulme and Tim Burrowes cover the news and the first questions that come to mind. Specifically, was this the plan all along, and now that Seven is firmly in control, what are the implications for the radio side of the business?

The sunshine returned to Sydney just in time for the start of upfronts season, with SBS, Foxtel, and News Corp all proudly displaying their various wares to media buyers during the week. The biggest news from SBS was confirmation that it had secured the FIFA World Cup for 2030, and locked down the Tour de France until that year as well. We also discuss its partnership with Ooh Media, and speculate wildly about former SBS boss/current Ooh Media boss James Taylor's involvement in the deal. Foxtel, meanwhile announced a few major name changes, a host of new in-stadium advertising opportunities, and declared its interest in sports above all else. We also discuss the latest run of dramas at M&C Saatchi, including the sport and entertainment head Jack Playfair resigning six months into the role, and the agency having to re-pitch for one of its big accounts. And because you demanded it politely, the Heated Quiz returns, to cap off the episode in chaotic style. See you at the upfronts! We'll be the ones staking out the canapé trays. Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. For more about how News Australia is thinking about the future of mobile news in Australia, click here.

Tim Burrowes and Irene Hulme take a deep dive into the legal morass of the ARN/Jackie Henderson lawsuit with lawyer Michael Byrnes. Byrnes, a partner at Swaab, explains ARN's newly revealed requirement to disclose any records of meetings between themselves and the activist group Mad Fucking Witches. Matters in the case are progressing rapidly - Kyle Sandilands was served a subpoena on air on Wednesday morning - and the hosts cover off key angles in this breaking news podcast.

In this interview edition of the Mumbrellacast, timed for release with News Corp's upfronts events, executive chair Michael Miller sits down with Mumbrella editorial director Hal Crawford to discuss the News Bargaining Incentive, doing deals with AI labs, and whether News' Australian mastheads have hit a subscription plateau. "I'm not going to preempt negotiations that haven't even started," Miller told Crawford of the NBI and the deals that News could possibly do with Meta, Google, Tiktok and Microsoft. "No one has said they are not going to play ball." "I think there's some assessment that is still being undertaken by those four companies, and that they are yet to determine how they want to proceed, and I understand that. But equally, the government or the legislation is that, deals need to be done by 31 of December or a charge will be made."

The first breaking news episode for Mumbrella. Tim Burrowes, Nathan Jolly and Irene Hulme unpack Survey 5 including a history making result, and a genuine debate over whether ARN Sydney had a good day or a bad one. More breaking news episodes are coming. Subscribe to Mumbrellacast and get each one in your feed the moment it drops.

A fourth major player has entered Australia’s competitive media monitoring industry with today’s arrival of John Croll’s Truescope. Croll previously led the ASX giant Isentia, taking it through a 2010 sale to Quadrant Private Equity and 2014 ASX float. Isentia – which rebranded from Media Monitors in in 2012 – peaked with a near-$1bn market capitalisation before the misfiring acquisition of King Content in 2015 saw investment sentiment turn against the company, which was then acquired by Access Intelligence in 2021. Croll left Isentia in 2018. After a year off, he founded Truescope seven years ago, alongside former colleague Michael Bade. Truescope launched in Singapore, NZ and the US, and already has revenues of $15m. But it did not initially target Australia because of the relatively high cost of accessing copyrighted content. In this podcast, Croll said that client demand had let to the choice to open the doors in Australia today. He said: “I love this industry. I’ve been in it all my life.” Whereas Isentia had 1,200 staff, Croll said that advances in AI has allowed him to build similar capabilities with just 65 people. Truescope covers broadcast, print, digital and social media. Croll said: “We’re swimming in our own lane. We’re back. We know the industry very well. We know how to build fantastic media intelligence platforms.” Along with Isentia, the other key local media monitoring competitors are the locally founded Streem, which was sold to Cision in 2022 and Meltwater which is owned by private equity.

Welcome to the Mumbrellacast, where television assets might be written down, but they are never written off. This week, Nine presented a set of truly baffling financial results that didn't include its former radio division, Pedestrian or Domain, and pretended it had owned outdoor company QMS since the start of FY25 instead of for three months at the end of FY26. It also wrote down its television assets by a staggering $404m, suggesting they are suddenly worth less than half of what they once did. Also measuring the worth of television this week is the Video Futures Collective, which launched a new (well, forthcoming) TV ratings system that will measure advertiser reach across different platforms. As we explain, under the new system, if I see a Gatorade ad on Disney+, then on Netflix, then on my mobile while watching Kayo Sports, I would be counted as one human, rather than three separate humans (albeit one human with a large entertainment bill). They aren't doing public-facing TV ratings initially, nor are they measuring free-to-air TV, but interim CEO Toby Dewar hinted to Mumbrella that both might be coming soon. And to round out the episode, Tim talks to one of Australia’s most interesting tabloid exports, Breaker Media founder Lachlan Cartwright, ahead of his keynote at Mumbrella Publish next week.  Get the latest episodes here. Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio.

Welcome to the latest Mumbrellacast, scandal-free since 2023 (unless we missed something in the T&Cs). The biggest non-war, non-AI news at the moment is the Sydney Swans player controversy. We don't dwell on the details -- mainly because it is a developing story -- but instead look at what this scandal (and others like it) means for team and player sponsorships in sport in the future. With millions in gambling money soon to go south, and brands increasingly wary of controversy, might we see a situation where professional sporting leagues become underfunded due to brand reticence? Will this have a knock-on effect where it jeopardises sponsorship for underfunded Olympians? Brands and ambassadors usually have drum-tight contracts that allow the sponsor to pull out if the talent brings them into disrepute, but by then, the damage is often done. And while we are perusing iron-clad deals, Eleanor has been digging into the fine print of T&Cs, and what you actually own when you work with an agency. It turns out, it might not be a lot. Checking out the terms and conditions of working with a number of Australian digital agencies -- some of which have page counts that technically make them novellas -- shows that buried in the fine print are often provisions about who actually owns the assets brands pay good money to develop with the agency: landing pages, backlinks, creative assets, data, and even access to advertising accounts could all be owned by your agency. While we are taking on dodgy practices, media agencies are increasingly promising clients incredibly cheap advertising rates in order to win pitches, and the media owners are then left to make those rates work. Is this a race to the bottom, or a practice that has been going on since Triple M was only half-an-M? Finally, we listen to the new sonic logo created by audio branding firm Smith and Western, who were tasked with capturing the spirit of Australia in a three-second sound blast. It's a tall order, and we discuss whether they managed to capture the ineffable qualities of an entire nation in less time than it takes to squirt tomato sauce onto a bloody meat pie. And because we live in a democracy, we decide to have a go at creating our own sonic signature for this sea-girt nation -- with decidedly mixed results. Happy listening, cobber! Get the latest episodes here. Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio.

Welcome to the latest episode of the Mumbrellacast, voted Australia's favourite sound. This week, we open by dissecting the last-minute changes to the News Bargaining Incentive, which made its long-awaited parliamentary debut today. It seems that former minister Peter Garrett unwittingly helped inform the bill, with his Midnight Oil lyric: "the rich get richer, the poor get the picture", as the big media giants look very likely to swallow up the majority of this tech-giant tax, while the smaller publishers will be force to fight it out for a few meta-scraps. Meanwhile, the Australian Association Press is dangerously close to needing to add a "powered by Google and Meta" tagline to its name, after it was guaranteed funding from the "incentive". As Tim notes during the podcast, the Albanese government seems to announce its policies first, waits to hear the cries of dissent and/or support, and then simply gives the loudest voice what they want. I guess that's what comes with living in a functioning shout-ocracy. While everyone is talking about ARN losing Kyle and Jackie, and SCA losing advertising dollars by buying a free-to-air TV network in a year that doesn't start with '19', the Sports Entertainment Group is quietly (at least for a bunch of sports commentators) becoming one of the most powerful radio companies in the country. This week they bought New Zealand's Mediaworks, which is the main player in the NZ radio world, and a company that Hal knows intimately, given he worked there for a number of years. This purchase is a big deal for the Australian media landscape, and we chat about why this is. Ikea Australia has gone viral this week, and it's not even because a dog ate an allen key and some sticks and then vomited out a Billy bookcase. No, it's due to a savvy Instagram post that played off the internet's obsession with Wicker man, known in certain online circles as the sexiest wood-based creature since those Lord Of The Rings trees. Ikea has a history of neatly glomming onto online trends, but this looks like its biggest viral success in recent memory. (Maybe Ikea can do a Dave Hughes post next, given he clearly has a few loose screws.) On Tuesday, SCA released its first results since the Voltron-like merging of Seven's TV and publishing business -- both of which shed advertising bucks over the past year -- and SCA's audio business, which continues to grow its advertising revenue. Hal spoke to SCA's CEO Rohan Lund a few hours after the results dropped, and found him to be a persuasive communicator. And, in keeping with Australian broadcasting law, we were unable to finish the show without bringing up Kyle Sandilands. We debate whether or not his shambolic new radio/video/podcast/broadcast hybrid will stand the test of time. Happy listening! Get the latest episodes here. Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio.

Welcome to the latest Mumbrellacast, not yet streaming live on Kick. And while we're on the topic of smooth segues, Melbourne-born, globally loved video game streaming platform Kick announced this week it will wade into the lucrative world of advertising. Given that Kick was built from the profits made from online casino Stake, which Kick's co-founders also launched, they seemingly understand the lure of easy money. Eleanor spoke to Kick head of growth and revenue Ryan Webb about the company's advertising play. This week Mumbrella ran an interesting opinion piece from Quiip agency's Larah Kennedy where she made the very good point that not every brand belongs on Reddit. (The same thing could be said for any social media platform; often the first time you become aware that a company even has a profile is when they get into hot water because a 19-year-old intern tweeted an offensive meme.) Kennedy writes that Reddit requires "heavy, active moderation and skilled community management". "If you venture into these spaces without investing in proper community governance, you open the floodgates to brand risk. Negative comments and controversy left to fester over a weekend can decimate years of painstaking brand building by Monday morning." Larah joins the podcast to explore this topic further. Also this week: the Albanese government announced it has finalised the News Bargaining Incentive legislation, and the changes it has made to the original draft have managed to upset both the major media companies -- who argue they were promised a larger slice of a larger pie -- and the smaller publishers, who argue the pie isn't being shared widely enough. Maybe Albo needs to wear his Joy Division shirt into parliament to distract the media... And we end the podcast with another heated quiz, in which nine audio stings (sound logos, jingles, whatever you wish to call them) are played, and we attempt to access long dormant recesses of our memory banks to recall which brands the stings are for. Here's a clue: Brian Eno's shortest-ever composition is featured here -- and Bowie had nothing to do with this one. Happy listening. Get the latest episodes here. Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio.

A key moment in Christian O'Connell's new book Unscript happened backstage at last year's ARN Upfront event in Sydney. As he explains in this podcast interview with Mumbrella's Tim Burrowes, it was a high pressure situation. O'Connell had decided to present to the audience without the safety net of the autocue. To increase the pressure, he was about to welcome to the stage the two people whose time slot he was about to take over in Sydney -- Amanda Keller and Brendan Jones, who had been the regular breakfast voices on the station for 20 years. An unnamed ARN executive adds to the tension further, telling O'Connell: "This really needs to go well." O'Connell, presenter of the Gold FM breakfast show, now networked across Melbourne and Sydney, has published his latest book, Unscript: The Radical Act of Being Yourself, which is the reason for today's interview. He discusses the progress of his push into Sydney, which began with the crucible of introducing himself to his new audience the morning after the Bondi Beach terror attack. When the UK-born broadcaster first introduced himself to his Melbourne audience in 2017, he needed to win over the sceptics. He says: "The backlash at the time felt like it would never end. Professional underdog - I want to get it on my business card. I've always felt an outside on commercial radio. I get a lot of power from that." O'Connell is going through the same process again, with his ratings so far down in Sydney, compared to his predecessors Jonesy and Amanda. He says: "I look back and there were early signs that it was working. I can feel it again. I can see it, I can sense it. You can feel [the listeners] coming over one by one - that's how you build it." He also discusses his evolving team, including Pete Deppeler, a refugee from The Kyle and Jackie O show on sister station Kiis, where he aptly played the role of show clown. O'Connell wasn't interested in what he dubs "the cartoon character". "His next evolution is as an adult," he says of Deppeler. "He's in his 40s and trying to do something different." O'Connell also pushes back against those who describe his evolving format as zoo radio.  He says: "I do see it as a campfire. My job is to light the fire. I'm always trying to make radio less like radio." And there's an intriguing hint about what comes next: "There's a couple of opportunities for next year that would involve me going beyond Australia - not leaving Australia, not leaving ARN; this would be with ARN -- but doing stuff that's bigger than just Australia. Get the latest episodes here. Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio.

Harvey Norman and Latitude Financial cop a $55m fine for misleading advertising Mutinex co-founder Henry Innis raises the alarm about how advertising measurement is influenced by who funds it. And we look  back on the Mumbrella Awards. Where did it all go right for Howatson+Company?

In this cross-post interview from the Spinoff's At Large podcast, Mumbrella's Hal Crawford speaks with Toby Manhire about the under-16s social media ban. Manhire is the NZ culture and news site's editor-at-large, and he wants to know whether the law is working, who's under investigation, and whether New Zealand should follow Australia's lead on the legislation.

Welcome to this week's Mumbrellacast, now available as a novella. This week has seen some major executive moves at the media companies. Nat Harvey went from Mamamia to Seven, former Seven revenue chief Kurt Burnette popped up at Vinyl Group, and Mia gave her son the good office.  Also, SCA presented its unique selling proposition to marketers at a mini-upfront delivered at breakfast-time with coffee and croissants; the bosses of News Corp, SBS, ABC, and Nine teamed up on stage at the Andrew Olle lecture to discuss the deals and battles with AI companies; and Mumbrella managed to help a creative get his Instagram account back after a dispute with Meta and FIFA, 'cos we're handy like that. Delivered piping hot, just like you ordered.  Get the latest episodes here. Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio.

When Mumbrella sat down with the outgoing and incoming bosses of women’s media network Mamamia — Nat Harvey and Luca Lavigne, respectively — we were relishing asking the obvious question: how is a 28-year-old qualified to run a business? It turns out 28-year-olds, like all people, come in different configurations. As he explained in the interview, Lavigne is living at an accelerated pace. Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio.

Welcome to the Mumbrellacast, now completely created with AI, auto-tune, monosodium glutamate, agent orange, and Styrofoam. This week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (or a very convincing robotic replacement) visited Sydney University where he announced he will establish an official Office of AI, which will be tasked with AI-related legislation, drafting new copyright protections, and basically saving the nation from digital invaders. Elsewhere on the podcast, we discuss how and why the most-played song on Australian radio over the past few weeks was (reportedly) created using AI; Vinne Schifferstein Vidal joins us to argue that agencies should not be selling AI platforms as a point of difference; and the heated debate is back -- and has very little to do with AI. We start the episode with Vinne's very solid argument that agencies are investing millions in AI platforms and marketing them as a competitive advantage … but there's a major hitch. She speaks with Hal Crawford about an issue that goes to the heart of agency strategy. And we remain on the absolute cutting-edge with news that '80s pop star Madonna has released her latest album, and she's back on the top of the Australian charts! But instead of one of her new tunes making waves, it's been a heavily AI-assisted dance cover of her 1989 hit Like A Prayer, released into the world by Brisbane DJ Josh Fawaz, that has captured the attention of Australian commercial radio. The belated 2026 answer to Madonna's prayer was blasted close to 2,000 times within a fortnight, and played more in that period than any other song released by human, robot, or animal. The song's success, and its embrace by Australian radio, has caused quite the furor, with many angry torch-bearers calling for AI-created content to either be disclosed, completely banned, or something in-between Lauren Joyce, who was previously the content boss at ARN, ignores all the controversy, and looks ahead to a future where AI-created songs will simply become another genre of music -- much like jazz, techno, rock, pop, or shoegaze-infused-dream-pop-plunderphonic-hauntology. And even though we managed to sort out most of the AI issues facing the country during the first few minutes of this podcast, Anthony Albanese also threw around a few solutions this week. To quote our PM: "Australian writers, musicians, artists and journalists must retain ownership and control of their work. Our laws will spell that out, plain as day." Like most political speeches, it seemed declarative, but didn't offer too much of substance. Plus, don't our copyright laws already cover copyright? Anyway, we get right into all of that. And to round out this bumper episode, we finally settle the old-age question: Can media companies be really good at more than one medium? Recently we’ve seen audio network SCA and TV network Seven merge and then tussle for power at the top, Nine sold its talkback radio division and bought a bunch of billboards, and radio network ARN started hosting singles cruises, pop gigs, and short-lived Friday arvo knock-off drinks with Eddie, Karl, and caller seven from Rooty Hill. So, can it be done? Tim and Hal battle it out primary-school-debate-style, a winner is declared, and next week should see some major media group mergers, or demergers -- depending on how convincing the respective arguments were. Happy listening! Get the latest episodes here. Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio.

Welcome to the latest episode of the Mumbrellacast, where we quiz the PM on his predilection for Aussie popettes. Actually, we discuss Telstra's biggest PR disaster since the hazy, lazy days of 2018; look at Oztam's decision to take the official TV ratings measurement system to tender after a quarter-century with Nielsen; debate whether the NRL deal is worth the $5.3 billion being paid; and take a look at new commercials from Square, Mazda, and Mutti. This week, Ben Willee from Spinach joins us, and we resist the urge to delve into why his initials contain more syllables than his entire name. "Don't spin a story that you think will make us feel happy.” That's Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine's advice for Telstra's marketing folk, who failed to communicate promptly or properly after this week's catastrophic network outage. For a few dystopic hours on Wednesday morning, phone and internet access was unavailable to 25 million Telstra-connected devices around the country, which meant that many small businesses couldn't process card payments, trains ground to a halt, cars were locked in garages that were locked behind gates, traffic lights failed, people couldn't Uber, Milkrun, or make prank triple-zero calls, and Duolingo streaks were absolutely decimated. As Donald Trump sagely/stupidly pointed out a few weeks back, in the modern age "everything is computer". We all bemoan the control that Meta and Google wield in the information age, but Telstra are our real overlords, and they have been brainwashing us with catchy whistled Bee Gees tunes. After all, you can't google Google without internet access ... Speaking of internet access, Australia's TV ratings system has long been criticised for using outdated methodology in an increasingly data-rich world. How is it that overseas tech giants know our blood types, religious beliefs, and what Spice Girl we prefer (Geri) from our search histories, yet Oztam (a joint venture between Ten, Seven, and Nine) can't get a realistic read on how many Australians watch Home and Away at 7pm? Questions like this may be the reason Oztam is now looking for a new partner to drive its rating system, after 25 years with Nielsen. Legendary media analyst Steve Allen explains why this decision is long overdue. Now, to sports news. This week, the National Rugby League managed to squeeze an incredible $5.3 billion from Nine, Foxtel, and Sky NZ for the broadcast rights to the competition until 2034. Mathematically speaking, this equates to "a long time" that the networks are on the hook, and with gambling advertising money possibly drying up -- if you think it could never happen, remember the NRL used to be called the Winfield Cup -- Tim Burrowes and BW debate whether or not the deal was worth it. And to close out another bumper episode of the Mumbrellacast, we play some advertising, which is usually your cue to hit the 15-second skip button, but in this case the ads are part of the show. We review the latest campaigns from Square (starring Naomi Watts), Mutti (starring Sam Kerr), and Mazda (starring a choir with Californian-cult vibes). Simple, yeah? Okay, that's enough reading for you today - happy listening! Get the latest episodes here. Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio.

Welcome to the latest Mumbrellacast, where unfortunately Karl Stefanovic won't be joining us this week. Instead, we'll make do with the freshest five-piece since Jackson 5: Abe Udy, Tim Burrowes, Eleanor Dickinson, Nathan Jolly, and Lauren Joyce. If you were wondering why you kept tripping over discarded calculators on your way to work this week, it's because Tuesday marked the end of the financial year -- which means Mumbrella can reveal the winners and losers on the Unmade Index, a Tim Burrowes invention which tracks all the publicly listed media and marketing companies on the stock exchange, and cruelly bundles them into judgmental groups based solely on their performance over the year. Despicable! Anyway, we chat about that. Tim Duggan co-founded pop culture website Junkee way back when Tiktok was still a Kesha song. This week, he fronted the National Press Club and took a club to the national press, arguing that the entire Australian media ecosystem needs to be protected with tax offsets, social media payments, AI royalties, and government ad money if it is ever going to move off the endangered list and onto the undangered list (not a direct quote). And this week, former Kyle and Jackie O boss Duncan Campbell did a media tour to promote his new single "It Wasn't Me ft. Shaggy", appearing on the Game Changers Radio and the Quarter Hour podcasts where he spoke freely about his time as a professional Kyle-wrangler -- and distanced himself from the 10-year contract and the decision to network the show into Melbourne. Lauren was Duncan's successor and adds more insider-baseball context to some of his comments -- before putting on a pair of debating gloves and duking it out with a remote Hal Crawford in this week's heated debate (cue sting)!!! Based on some of Duncan's comments about ARN management's tendency to handle Kyle with baby mitts, Hal and Lauren debate whether or not "on-air talent should be managed with a firm hand". Hal takes the affirmative, Lauren rebuts like the prodigious year-six third-speaker debating champ that she was/is, and everybody listening is the real winner. Enjoy!