Podcasts about news media bargaining code

Welcome to a midweek update from Unmade, on the morning after News Corp's main marketing-industry focused event of the year, D_Coded. Yesterday's big announcement was Tubi. Two months after announcing the sale of Foxtel, News Corp is back in the TV business.Also today, Enero's sinking share price hits the lowest point in more than a decade.News Corp Australia gets back into TV with TubiFor a while now, I've been puzzled by Tubi.It's the biggest asset in the extended News Corp universe not to have a presence in Australia. In the US, Tubi is a big deal. Its share of total TV viewing is nearly 2% and it's bigger than Peacock, Paramount+ and Max. In some quarters it's been bigger than Disney+.Actually, it's not entirely true to say that Tubi has not had a presence in Australia. Tubi has been here all along and repped by Foxtel Media. But it didn't receive much love, even as it built towards 1.3m active monthly users locally.When I interviewed Foxtel boss Patrick Delany this time last year, I told him I was surprised they were not doing more with Tubi.At the time, Delany argued that the reason for Tubi's success in the US is the fact that it's entirely free to its audience. While Australia's free to air networks are available over the airwaves, US viewers are used to paying for everything they watch via cable. So Tubi was a bigger point of difference, he argued.However, I suspect that was not the only reason. With Foxtel about to pass into the ownership of DAZN, Tubi now represents News Corp's seat back at the table of television. It didn't make sense for News Corp to go hard until the Foxtel deal was done.Tubi has a straightforward business model. There's no paid membership tier. It's pureplay FAST - free ad-supported streaming TV.That puts Tubi in the same space as 7plus, 9now, Tenplay, along with global players like Paramount's Pluto TV. And of course, with the FAST services being offered by the connected TV providers.Incidentally, Tubi lives within the other half of the Murdoch empire, Fox Corp. News Corp is effectively a local rep.In today's podcast I interview News Corp's executive chairman Michael Miller. He pushes back against my assumption that Tubi lacks premium content. And while it's true that Tubi has a deep archive, a look at the home page this morning reminds me of the experience of standing in the discount section of my local video store. They looked like blockbusters, but I just hadn't heard of them.(Titanic 2, anyone? Jack's back… and he's got a score to settle about the whole floating door episode.)Tubi's secret weapon is the world's favourite price point: free. There are plenty of Australians who can't or won't afford to pay for their streaming.And its not-so-secret weapon is the marketing firepower of News Corp. Would Kayo or Binge have grown without the company's cross promotion?In my conversation with Miller, he places Tubi as a “top three or four” marketing priority for the year.And News Corp is backing the push with an aggressive price point - a launch price of a $15cpm.Considering that's likely to be big brand advertising on the main lounge room screen, that's an aggressive price.By the way, in case you can't read the small print on the screen behind sales boss Barrett in the photo above, the price is for campaigns with a minimum spend of $20,000, running before June 30. And “independent measurement unavailable”.The rest of today's conversation with Miller spans the other announcements around D_Coded, including marketer-friendly expansions of its Intent Connect planning system, and the company's continuing efforts to make the concept of engaged reach a thing.Miller also makes it clear that News Corp still views the coming election and US trade war concerns as a delay, not an end to the News Media Bargaining Code framework. “We have been patient,” he says.Unmade Index fights off Trumpcession fears as Enero sinks to decade-long lowDespite an early selloff triggered by global concerns over a looming Trumpcession, the Unmade Index bounced back in later trading yesterday to finish flat.The biggest local weight on the Unmade Index, Nine, was lifted by its majority-owned real estate platform Domain. Nine was up by 1.3%, while Domain rose 1.8%.ARN Media was up by 4.9%, taking it back above a $200m market capitalisation.Among stocks moving in the other direction, print and marketing group IVE lost 8.6%, while Seven West Media lost 3.2% to land on its lowest point since January. Southern Cross Austereo was down by 3.6%.Enero Group, owner of ad agency BMF among others, slumped by 6.7% to land on its lowest share price in more than a decade.The Unmade Index ticked up by a fraction, rising by 0.09% to land on 551.2 points.Time to leave you to your Thursday. We'll be back with more tomorrow.Editing was courtesy of Abe's Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.We'll be back with more soonHave a great day.Toodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade + Mumbrellatim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Inanunsyo ng pamahalaang pederal ang planong pwersahin ang mga digital platform na magbayad sa mga publishers para sa mga Australian news content bilang bahagi ng bagong News Media Bargaining Code.

Janet Jukes joins Macca in the hosting seat this week. First guest up, Misha Ketchell, Editor The Conversation. Some of the topics discussed with Misha, New media funding & News... LEARN MORE The post Saturday, 14th, December, 2024: Misha Ketchell, Editor The Conversation, News Media Bargaining Code, Rupert Murdoch, etc. appeared first on Saturday Magazine.

Nine Acting CEO Matt Stanton joins Chris to chat about the Federal Government's announcement of reforms to the News Media Bargaining Code framework, designed to support the future sustainability of Australian news media.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today: We analyse the big news that Omnicom is set to take over Interpublic Group in a giant deal which would remake the advertising industry; Should Nine sell its radio stations?; and is the government about to finally make up its mind about designating Meta?If you've been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:* A complimentary ticket to all of Unmade's events, including HumAIn, REmade, Unlock, and Compass , all returning in 2025.* Member-only content and our paywalled archives;* Your own copy of Media Unmade.Here comes IntercomNews broke last night of a deal which would remake the agency landscape. Omnicom is negotiating a takeover of Interpublic. It would create a new industry leader. We consider the global and local implications, and ask whetehr it will change the timeline for the replacement of Omnicom Media Group's outgoing CEO Peter Horgan.Also today, we discuss whether Nine should sell its radio network.And are we finally going to see movement from the government on its decision whether to designate Facebook owner Meta under the News Media Bargaining Code.Further reading: * Wall Street Journal: Advertising Firms Omnicom and Interpublic Nearing Merger That Would Reshape Industry* Madison & Wall: Omnicom-Interpublic M&A Report: Analysis and Considerations* Mi3: Kristiaan Kroon firming as successor to Omnicom Media Group CEO Peter Horgan* Unmade: The fateful eight: How Publicis, WPP, Omnicom, Dentsu, Havas, IPG, S4 Capital and Enero rank* Australian Financial Review: Exits, cuts and Smooth FM: Nine mulls future of 2GB, 3AW, 4BC and 6PR* The Australian: D-day on the horizon for Meta: Stephen Jones set to make a call on news media bargaining code* Capital Brief: Google renews news deal with Country Press Australia* Unmade: How Google bought the silence of Australia's media establishmentToday's episode features Tim Burrowes and Abe Udy.Editing was courtesy of Abe's Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.Time to leave you to start your week.We'll be back with more on Wednesday.Have a great dayToodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

With so much news about social media in Australia right now, I thought I'd wrap up the winter series by speaking with Professor Axel Bruns from the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology.In this episode we discuss whether anything can replace what was Twitter, Australia's News Media Bargaining Code and Meta refusing to pay for news content, age restrictions for social media, the arrest of Telegram's CEO Pavel Durov, and why filter bubbles really aren't a thing.Full podcast details and credits at:https://the9pmedict.com/edict/00229/Please consider supporting this podcast via the current crowdfunder:https://the9pmedict.com/spring2024If you miss the deadline of 19 September:https://the9pmedict.com/tip/https://skank.com.au/subscribe/

Welcome to Start the Week, our Monday scene-setter for the week ahead.In today's audio-led edition, rumblings about a tech tax get louder; clues from earnings season as Ooh Media's profits slip; and the ABC invites the Bruce Lehrmann defamation judge to host Media Watch.If you've been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:* Member-only pricing for our HumAIn and REmade (October 1) conferences;* A complimentary invitation to Unmade's Compass event (November);* Member-only content and our paywalled archives;* Your own copy of Media Unmade.Digital levy drumbeat get louder; Is this the week ARN tries yet again to capture SCA? ABC thinks out of the box for Media Watch Publishers smell money in the air, and they're launching a landgrab before the dollars drift to the ground. With the government dithering about whether to designate Meta under the News Media Bargaining Code, lifestyle publishers are arguing that what they do had a value too. If Meta or anyone else gets designated, they want to be allowed into the negotiations.Also today, we check in on earnings season with Ooh Media reporting a down half this morning, and ARN likely to update the market on its SCA takeover ambitions when it does its half yearly update on Thursday.And The Australian reveals that The ABC has been rebuffed in what would have been a wonderful casting move. It tried to interest Justice Michael Lee in replacing Paul Barry as Media Watch host. In a parallel universe it would have been a great idea.And it was the morning after Larry Emdur won the Gold Logie.Further reading:* The Guardian: The door to an Australian tech tax is clearly ajar. Can Labor make it happen?* Unmade: A digital levy for platforms now looks likely* Australian Financial Review: Lifestyle, culture websites argue for their slice of Meta's pie* The Australian: Financial markets say FTA advertising market won't improve until consumer confidence lifts* Unmade: Labor will do the TV industry a favour if it bans gambling ads* The Australian: Southern Cross Austereo takeover deal is pie in the sky – for now* The Australian: ABC's pitch for Federal Court judge Michael Lee to take Media Watch hot seat declinedToday's episode features Tim Burrowes and Abe Udy.Editing was courtesy of Abe's Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.Time to leave you to start your week. We'll be back with more tomorrow.Toodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmadetim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade, featuring an interview with the editorial and commercial leaders of The Australian recorded to mark its 60th birthday.Producing independent analysis of the media and marketing industry that goes beyond press releases takes time and resources. If you like what we do, you can support us by becoming a paying member. Become a member todayThe Australian's Gunn and Gray: Is radio the next frontier?; platform friends and foes; and AI optimismIf Meta stops sharing news on its platforms to beat the News Media Bargaining Code, it should be forced to leave Australia altogether, the executive leading News Corp's relationships with digital platforms argues.The comments from Nicholas Gray come during a podcast conversation with Unmade's Tim Burrowes. As part of the News Corp restructure, Gray has been given the expanded, dual role of MD and publisher of The Australian and the company's stable of prestige publishing arm, along with MD of tech platform partnerships.It comes as the industry waits on treasury minister Stephen Jones' decision whether to designate Meta under the News Media Bargaining Code rules. In 2021, Google (owned by Alphabet) and Facebook (owned by Meta), fended off designation by voluntarily striking deals with local publishers. In March. Meta said it would not renew its deals.If designation of Meta occurs, the company would be forced to go into binding arbitration with local companies that appear on the Australian Communications and Media Authority's register of eligible news businesses over how much it must pay each of them to feature their content.Facebook has indicated that it would prevent news links being shared, which would enable it to argue in arbitration that it would not need to pay the publishers.During the conversation Gray argues: “We hope the Assistant Treasurer designates. Obviously then, Meta have a decision.“They've threatened to turn off news as they have in Canada.“If they're designated and if they try to turn off news, we say that won't be enough.We prefer they didn't exit the market entirely, but if they're not prepared to pay for the news that's unquestionably an important part of their service, all of the research says that, and our data says that, then we don't think it's sustainable for them to operate in this market.The call that Meta should be prevented from operating in Australia altogether was first hinted at by News Corp's boss, executive chairman Michael Miller in his speech to the Australian Press Club last month. He called for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which created the bargaining code, to have “the power to ultimately block access to our country and our people if they refuse to play by our rules.”The interview with Gray and The Australian's editor-in-chief Michelle Gunn was timed for the 60th anniversary of The Australian, which celebrated the landmark over the weekend.During the conversation, Gunn is asked about previous reports The Australian is contemplating launching its own radio station, similar to The Times Radio in the UK. Gunn acknowledges that “live audio” is on the table.She says: “We are looking at our success in podcasting. I think it's an important tool for us to grow audience.“Whether it takes the form of live audio or podcasts, and we're still looking at what the mix will be, and what form it will take.”On the same radio question, Gray adds: “We need to be in new places with our brand and our news reporting in the forms that people want to consume it, however they may, in order to develop them as potential subscribers down the track.”News Corp's global chair Lachlan Murdoch already owns radio stations in Australia through Nova Entertainment.The wide ranging conversation also covers the tough publishing environment; The Australian's increasing use of vertical video, lessons learned from failed youth brand The Oz, how AI will change journalism, and The Australian's battles with its rivals at Nine.How Unmade yesterday covered Rupert Murdoch's prediction that newspapers have no more than 15 years left in printThe Unmade Index rose again yesterday. Since the start of last week, our index of Australia's listed media and marketing stocks has risen on six of the last eight trading days.Yesterday saw the index lift by another 1.28%to 490.6 points.Of the locally headquartered media stocks, Seven West Media was the best performer, up by 2.78%.News Corp, dual listed in New York and Sydney, also had a good day, rising by 3.35%, to close at an all-time high market capitalisation of AU$24bn.Only three smaller stocks - Enero Group, The Market Ltd and Motio - bucked the trend and fell.Time to leave you to your Thursday.Today's podcast was edited by Abe's Audio.If you're interested in retail media, don't forget that earlybird tickets are now on sale for the next edition of REmade on October 1. And our call for entries for the REmade awards is now live.Have a great day.Toodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today, as Mamamia's new CEO Natalie Harvey steps up, she joins co-founder Jason Lavigne to discuss where the independent publisher goes from here. And further down in the post, the Unmade Index falls to a record low.Producing independent analysis of the media and marketing industry that goes beyond press releases takes time and resources. If you like what we do, you can support us by becoming a paying member. Upgrade today.Mamamia hits scale as Harvey takes the helmFor the best part of a decade, Natalie Harvey was one the best known faces of the business of TV advertising, rising to national sales director of Seven West Media. Earlier this year, she moved away from television to join Australia's largest (depending how you measure it) independent publishing house, Mamamia.This month Harvey stepped up from chief revenue officer to CEO. Jason Lavigne, who co-founded the business with his partner Mia Freedman more than 15 years ago, moves in to the new role of executive chairman.In today's podcast interview, Lavigne and Harvey discuss how the business has developed from a single blog to a 150-staff organisation with a powerful publishing platform, Australia's eighth biggest podcast publisher (ahead of the likes of Nine and Nova) and a thriving agency, Squad, which includes clients beyond its advertising roster. Along with growing subscriber revenue, short form video is Mamamia's latest development area.During the conversation, Lavigne signals a route to the “highly profitable” company hitting revenues of $50m (it's not there yet), and addresses the obvious question of whether his change of role is a prelude to an exit (he claims only 15% of his work is done).Meanwhile, Harvey makes the point that her move to Mamamia was about her own development and not a vote against TV in which she remains “a staunch believer”They also discuss how Mamamia has becoming increasingly purpose-driven, around its mission of making the world a better place for women and girls.The company is also leaning into AI, including “Sam” its new artificial voice available to create and articulate scripts for brands featuring in its podcasts. The podcast features Sam in action.Mamamia may be slightly less vulnerable than some publishers to the likely loss of traffic if Facebook is designated under the News Media Bargaining Code and removes news links from its platform. However, Lavigne concedes it will have an effect. During the conversation, he argues that the potential solution is for more effective taxation of platform revenue before the profits end up offshore.How we assessed Mamamia three years ago:It isn't too late to get a ticket to next week's HumAIn - our half-day deep dive into how AI is changing the media and marketing world. Check out the program here.Index slips by another 3%The Unmade Index slipped to another record low on Wednesday, losing 2.77% to land on 506.2 points.The fall in share prices was specific to the media and marketing sector, with the wider ASX All Ordinaries finishing almost flat yesterday.Much of the weight on the index came from the biggest locally listed stock (excluding News Corp which is dual listed in the US and Australia) Nine, which slumped by nearly 4%.Fellow TV company Seven West Media lost 2.4%, and Southern Cross Austereo lost more than 3%.Today's podcast was edited by our favourite people at Abe's Audio.Time to leave you to your Thursday. We'll be back with more tomorrow. I'll be keeping an eye on the ASX today. It's tipped to open down. There's a very real possibility that todayis the day where we hit the milsetone of The Unmade Index falling below 500 points, a loss of 50% sine it began. If so, I'll be reflecting on that threshold.Have a great day.Toodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmadetim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

The eSafety Commissioner could slap internet giants with multi-million-dollar fines if they don't get dangerous content under control. Find out more about The Front podcast here. You can read about this story and more on The Australian's website or on The Australian's app. This episode of The Front is presented by Claire Harvey, produced by Kristen Amiet and edited by Lia Tsamoglou. Original music is composed by Jasper Leak.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Meta's News Media Bargaining Code rug-pull lit up the media sector and has government, regulatory and lobbyist wheels spinning – some would say belatedly, given all the warning signals. Circa $70m in publisher cash - some argue it could be $100m - from Meta will no longer be on the table later this year, leaving Google the only game in town for a newsmedia sector already seriously pressured. Smaller publishers fear Meta pulling news from its feeds in Australia – as it did when Canada attempted to strong-arm the social media giant into paying news publishers – will lead to potentially existential audience and revenue hits. And there could bewidespread carnage if the Federal Treasurer ‘designates' Meta, as is probable, forcing the tech giant into an independent arbitration process which by law means it will have to pay what thearbitrator rules between one of two fixed bids from Meta and media companies. Many argue Meta's concerns for Australian designation means it will set international precedent for other countries to hunt billions more for newsmedia and lead to a full-scale exit of Facebook and Instagram in Australia rather than pay and trigger a costly global movement. Here's everything you need to know on a delicate power game in which a sovereign government can't blink against a global tech giant, leaving Meta few options but to exit Australia entirely if it chooses to break Australian law and not pay. The world's eyes are back on Australia - for bloodsport and money. And that's before the podcast panel gets to AI and IP rights and remuneration.         See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The big news publishers in Australia are in an almighty stand-off with Mark Zuckerberg and the tech giant he heads. Meta runs Facebook and has decided its users don't care for news content anymore and it doesn't want to pay for it. The Australian government now faces a choice; pursue Facebook and risk all news being blocked from the site, or let the funding deals currently in place with media companies come to an end, putting journalists' jobs in jeopardy.Today, is it game over for journalism when social media dumps news? Featured: Monica Attard, co-director of the centre for media transition at the University of Technology Sydney

This week we look at Meta's decision to not renew its agreements under the News Media Bargaining Code. What will this mean for our newsroom and is there an alternative funding model? Our guest this week is Professor Peter Greste Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Start the Week, our Monday scene-setter for the week ahead.Today:* Free to air TV lobby goes to war with the pay TV lobby;* How the News Media Bargaining Code negotiations could go down next year;* OpenAI boardroom dramas and McLennan's Rugby Australia ousting;* Michael Miller rejects rumours he's leaving News Corp;* Mystery buyer snaps up a chunk of Southern Cross AustereoFurther reading:* The Guardian: Battle for the home screen: does the government really want to control Australian TVs?* Free TV Australia: Free For Everyone* ASTRA: Don't let the government control your TV* Unmade: How the ACCC is gearing up for AI and Meta battles* Unmade: 'A weaker media ecosystem': Why publishers are pessimistic about the next round of News Media Bargaining Code talks* Unmade: Sam out, man* Unmade: Catalano misses out* Sydney Morning Herald: Hamish McLennan ousted as Rugby Australia chairman after board vote* Australian Financial Review: News Corp Australia boss Michael Miller quashes rumours his time is upToday's episode features Tim Burrowes, Seja Al Zaidi and Abe Udy.Time to leave you to start your week.Editing was courtesy of Abe's Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.Message us: letters@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to Start the Week, our Monday scene-setter for the week ahead.STW: How Nine's pitch ranges from $500 self service ads to $12.5m Olympics sponsorship packagesToday:* Dissecting Nine's Upfronts promises, RTLX, and their AI offering;* News Corp warns of AI-induced job losses;* Rough seas ahead for publishers as News Media Bargaining Code negotiations restart;* Our program reveal for REMade next month;Today's episode feature Tim Burrowes, Seja Al Zaidi, Abe Udy and Cat McGinn.Further reading:* Unmade: Upfronts are always big and glitzy. Nine's was consequential too* The Australian: News Corp chief Robert Thomson predicts significant job losses due to the growing threat from AI* Australian Financial Review: Facebook traffic to news publishers has plummeted 50pc this year* Australian Financial Review: Nine banks on bumper Olympics advertising package spend* Australian Financial Review: Jim Chalmers' conflict of interest for the media bargaining code frayTime to leave you to start your week.Production was by Seja Al Zaidi with editing was courtesy of Abe's Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.Message us: letters@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade.Today's edition features an interview with Chris Janz, co-founder of Australia's biggest media launch of the year, Scire.In today's edition of The Unmakers, Chris Janz, co-founder of Scire, talks to Unmade's Tim Burrowes about the company's plans for its first publication, Capital Brief, which launches in around six weeks' time.Janz was previously chief digital and publishing officer of Nine, and in the running for the CEO vacancy which eventually went to Mike Sneesby in 2021. Earlier in his career, Janz edited News Corp's news.com.au, before moving into business, including digital publishing company Allure Media which was later acquired by Fairfax Media. He was also publisher of the short-lived HuffPo Australia.Janz, and Scire co-founder David Eisman, worked together on Fairfax's now celebrated Blue Team, who led a secret project which saved the company's newspapers, including The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age from exiting from print.Capital Brief will focus on business and, as Janz reveals in the interview, will put out its main newsletter in the afternoon, a new cadence compared to existing publications in the space.This week Scire revealed a raft of new journalist appointments including former Australian Financial Review banking specialist Andrew Cornell, who led ANZ Blue Notes, which was perhaps the biggest brand-funded corporate newsroom in the country. Wall Street Journal correspondent Philip Wen, Nine's departing foreign affairs and national security correspondent Anthony Galloway - who Janz says ‘understands how power really works' - and ex-Sydney Morning Herald and The Age economics correspondent Jennifer Duke, who will be based in Canberra, are among the other new arrivals.Others include Bronwen Clune covering startups; Jack Derwin covering markets and finance; Kate Burgess covering mining and energy; Laurel Henning covering the legal and regulatory beats; and Dan Van Boom covering technology.They'll all be led by Capital Brief's editor-in-chief, John McDuling, Nine's former national business editor, who was the first hire announced.Capital Brief is intended to appeal to ‘those people driving the new economy, the new Australia'. Janz says it'll be focused on what the ‘future of Australian business is all about'.“One of the challenges of business journalism sometimes is it can drift into just servicing the big end of town. We hear a lot about the ASX200, the ASX50.”“We're about looking at the broad spectrum of Australian business as it is today and looking forward.”Janz also discusses the investors behind the company, Shearwater Capital, and the rules of engagement if Scire journalists find themselves writing about the owners' investments.During his time at Nine, Janz was in the room for negotiations with Alphabet's Google and Facebook under the shadow of the News Media Bargaining Code. After leaving Nine, he then helped overseas publishers with similar negotiations.He has a pessimistic prediction for how the publishing environment will change when the previous deals expire. “The Meta renewals are up within the next 12-ish months. There's a real challenge ahead for people who've built parts of their business off the back of that revenue. When you have what might be $100m a year disappearing from the funding models through Meta withdrawing from the country… I think it is going to pose a challenge.”Today's podcast was recorded and edited at the Sydney studio of Abe's Audio the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.We'll be back with more tomorrow.Message us: letters@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Norway is number one the World Press Freedom Index, while Australia dropped 14 places in 2022 due in part to its highly concentrated media landscape. This webinar, the second of our special Nordic Talks webinar series, will explore how Norway's targeted ‘press support' subsidies could help Australia to achieve greater diversity in its highly concentrated media landscape and improve its protections for public interest journalism. And what can Norway learn from Australia's world-leading News Media Bargaining Code about regulating Big Tech platforms such as Google and Facebook? This is one of a five-part special series of Follow the Money presented by the Nordic Talks series, presented by the Nordic Policy Centre at the Australia Institute, with support from The Nordics, a project under The Nordic Council of Ministers. #NordicTalks #auspol The Australia Institute // @theausinstitute Guests: Professor Eli Skogerbø, Co-director of POLKOM – Center for the Study of Political Communication Dr Maria Rae, Senior Lecturer in Politics and Policy, Deakin University// @MariaRae17 Host: Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director, the Australia Institute // @ebony_bennett Producer: Jennifer Macey // @jennifermacey Edited by: Emily Perkins Theme Music: Pulse and Thrum; additional music by Blue Dot SessionsSupport Follow the Money: https://nb.australiainstitute.org.au/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade.Today's edition features the story of the first ten years of The Guardian Australia .Tim Burrowes talks to editor Lenore Taylor and managing director Dan Stinton about how The Guardian found its place within the Australian media establishment after arriving in May 2013.Using a loan from philanthropist Graeme Wood, the publication assembled a team of some of the country's best journalists, many of whom were refugees from Fairfax Media following the mass redundancies of 2012.Taylor says that the tenth anniversary has inspired a deluge of gratitude from readers in her inbox with many arguing that The Guardian has indeed fulfilled a “much needed” niche in Australia's media landscape.Stinton, who will shortly move to the Perth-based tech platform Health Engine after five years running the business side of the operation, explains the Guardian's funding model. The company's ‘diversified' revenue - which has almost tripled in the last three years - is generated through a combination of reader support (which has been a ‘rocketship' for the publication) and other philanthropic funding, digital advertising, and licensing revenue, via the News Media Bargaining Code.Taylor recalls former Fairfax Media boss Greg Hywood's dismissal of the launch, asserting that there would only ever be two Australian news brands that would matter - Fairfax and News Corp.The interview also covers some of the highlights of The Guardian's reporting, including its ‘Life on the Breadline' series which focused on Australians living in poverty, and the Snowden spying revelations. Taylor also points to the discovery of new writing talent including columnists like Van Badham and Greg Jericho.She also addresses the topic of transexual politics, which has divided the newsroom of The Guardian's head office in the UK.According to Ipsos, The Guardian is currently Australia's sixth biggest digital news brand.The podcast was recorded in The Guardian's Sydney studio and edited by Abe's Audio.The interview was recorded before yesterday's apology from The Guardian after staff in the UK office used the phrase “gone walkabout” to describe the launch.letters@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade.Today's edition features one of the big beasts of Australian media - a rare, full length interview with News Corp Australasia's executive chairman Michael Miller.It's not quite fair to describe Michael Miller as a News Corp lifer. He joined the organisation as a junior marketer in April 1992, but briefly left during the tumultuous reign of Kim Williams. During that short period, he ran APN News & Media (these days known as HT&E) as its shifted its centre of gravity from newspapers to radio. Miller was the man signing the cheques when the company's Australian Radio Network boldly poached Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson from Southern Cross Austereo, and remade the radio landscape.Miller came back to News Corp as executive chairman at the end of 2015. By that point, the worst of the newspaper industry's existential crisis was over, but the business model was far from certain.Since then the company - which publishes The Australian, the Herald Sun, The Courier Mail and The Telegraph news mastheads among many others - has proved the sceptics wrong by succeeding with paid subscriptions. Even as the company cuts 5% of its global workforce to navigate an uncertain economy, news publishing seems in a safer place. In today's conversation, Miller points out that last time Unmade's Tim Burrowes interviewed him on stage, back in 2018, the company had 420,000 subscribers. It's since passed 1m.The business model for news publishing was also boosted by the politically-driven News Media Bargaining Code, which forced Google and Facebook to strike deals with local publishers. Miller offers a warning for the consequences for the industry (and Facebook) if, as seems likely, Facebook's parent company Meta walks away from renewing its deals next year.And Miller points to the next battleground for payment - AI. In the same way that Google and Facebook were asked to pay to deliver content originated from news publishing, Miller says the same argument about ChatGPT is “inevitable” and imminent.The interview also tackles the polarising nature of News Corp's content, how it addresses advertisers boycotts led by the likes of Sleeping Giants and Mad F*****g Witches (“Don't give in to bullies”), and the evolution of its columnists.Miller also puts forward an argument for optimism in the most challenged journalism space: local news.Transcript of Michael Miller interview with Tim Burrowes:Tim Burrowes:My guest has arguably the biggest job in Australian media. Michael Miller is Executive Chairman of News Corp Australia, a role he's held since 2015. He's been with News Corp for most of his career, since joining the company's marketing team 30 years ago, next month. You'll know News Cook from its portfolio of metro news mastheads, including the Telegraph, the Courier Mail, and the Herald Sun for its national title, The Australian, for news website news.com.au, and for its TV news operation, Sky News Australia. The company also has majority stakes in Foxtel Group and in property platform REA Group. Michael Miller has had a front row as News Corp evolved from a newspaper company into something much more complicated.On Monday News Corp held its D_Coded event for digital marketers, which is one reason for the timing of this conversation. Now, Michael, the last time I interviewed you on the record was on stage at Mumbrella360, five years ago believe it or not. Now the title of the keynote you gave that day was Persuading Audiences and Customers to Pay and Stay. Even then, I'm not sure that the whole publishing world was convinced that subscribers could be the main means of funding newspapers. When Rupert Murdoch started the company on that path more than a decade ago now, many, many people predicted that it would not work. Yet here you are. Is it still about getting people to pay and stay?Michael Miller:It is, and many in the industry now have moved to a subscription, an audience funded model, and that whether it be a streamer, whether it be your local out of industry, you've got supermarkets. But particularly for us, I think back of five years ago in July of, I think it was 2018, we last spoke, Tim, we had about 420,000 subscribers. And on October last year we announced we'd just passed a million. And that when I reflect on five years ago, it was a question of, do we actually have a sustainable model for journalism? And today I can say far more confidently that we do, and that's a good thing for not just for media companies, but also for those who rely so much on them.Tim Burrowes:And I suppose one of the things we have seen the pendulum swinging even more so than during that conversation, was that move towards subscriber pays as opposed to advertiser pays. Has that pendulum reached as far as it will, do you think? Because I guess you almost have two constituencies really, don't you, the advertisers and the subscribers/readers?Michael Miller:Yeah, I've always described us traditionally as a business of a dual-sided marketplace where we are connecting those audiences with our journalism, with clients who want to engage in entrusted contextual environments. The pendulum is to continue to swing from being client dominated, to being far more consumer balanced. And a good business is diversified revenues, but also diversified audiences too. So I don't think that pendulum has stopped yet. It has had a good three, four years. It's still growing, but the fatigue that I think particularly news and information has seen over the past few years has definitely some to settle in and that it's now I think a challenge for all media companies to look at bundling partnerships and a more compelling value offer, which goes beyond just traditional news.Tim Burrowes:Well, before we speak more widely, I'd like to maybe talk about a couple of the announcements from this week, from D_Coded. I'll invite you to put your marketer hat back on and explain the total commerce proposition if you could please.Michael Miller:Yeah, total commerce has been something which we've been working towards now for a number of years and that we're in McKinsey estimate, this will be a $500 billion market globally, in the coming years ahead. And so from a News Corp perspective, total commerce refers to a suite of client solutions that integrates our content and commercial content with the ability to purchase at the lower end of the purchase funnel. And that it does connect using our data that we share with both Foxtel and REA, to connect clients more accurately through contextual content in an actual purchase of our sites. And that's something which we've been working on for a number of years.Tim Burrowes:And this I suppose is the really interesting thing that we are talking increasingly about, offsite strategies. Is that a signal of where media is going, or where News Corp is going?Michael Miller:I think it's something which we all media are going to. You think of the origins, we have mastheads in our portfolio called the Advertiser. And that commercial messages in trusted news environments is nothing new, that's been well established now for centuries. And this is an evolution of that and it's the latest of that, whereby our clients are asking us to get closer to their customers who are our consumers, and that we know we don't want to interrupt that environment that they're consuming their news in.And it's part of the reason we invested in companies like Medium Rare and the work they do with Australian Institute of Company Directors. It's Qantas, David Jones amongst many. It's the reason why we invested in Visual Domain, because a lot more of this content now is video and audio, and not just in print and pictorially. Well, it's why last year with D_Coded we announced shoppable video and vertical video and that the years we've been building up to this moment, whereby I think the market is now ready and accepting that it's total commerce that we can provide a solution from top end of funnel to the purchase at the bottom end.Tim Burrowes:And is this a conversation to mainly have with brands and marketers directly or via their agencies?Michael Miller:My observation is that sitting in many different parts of organizations and there's not a consistent location who owns this, because in some cases, a brand is still important in terms of that purchase decision and that sits in one part of a business. But then digital commerce sitting in another, social sometimes hits and that's your off platform audience, as we find in our business, is particularly important in terms of pushing people down into that purchase funnel. And I feel like there's some companies that don't have that end, that their cradle to grave processes are in place and they're still working through that, and to be fair, so have we. But I think that's what we now have got clarity on in terms of providing not just retailers, but insurance companies, in terms of FMCG goods directly, fashion, fast fashion, these are all areas and the Black Friday, Cyber Monday for us continues to double the past three years as a indicator of a consumer's propensity and willingness to pay.Tim Burrowes:One of the interesting things I took from the Total Commerce part of the announcement this week, and I accept this wasn't the central part at all, but you as an organization, you did talk a little bit about using AI as part of this process. Which I think is an interesting moment, because obviously since ChatGPT broke through and OpenAI broke through, it's the topic of the time. How are you thinking about AI's place within News Corp going forward?Michael Miller:We've been using AI for a number of years. It's not new to the category and not new to us as a company, in being able to be a newsroom assistant, in being able to quickly analyze audiences that are on our various sites. And so, Vidora is the brand we use. We use a reporting tool called Verity, which is world leading and publishers around the world are looking at what we've done in terms of understanding who is paying and who is staying and what they're reading prior, what they're reading post, demographically, geographically.It gives us a great insight in how we've changed our company in terms of allocation of reporters and staff, but also the rounds that we choose and where we see growth opportunities. We use AI in News Connect, which is in our seven year long data product which we've worked with other leading data brands, the banks, the cards, the retailers, to be able to provide over well, nearly 3000 different segments for different clients that are custom-made for them. And AI is a big part of our News Connect product. ChatGPT is another layer and it's exciting. I think it's here to stay. I don't think it's a fad, but it's early days as well, we need to understand how best to use it and how not to use it.Tim Burrowes:And do you see that conversation around using generative AI to create editorial content? Is that a Rubicon that must not be crossed or is there a place for it for the low value commoditized content? How are you thinking about that part? Because that must be the most sensitive part of the conversation about AI.Michael Miller:There's probably three layers that are top of mind for me at the moment. And as I say, this is still evolving, but attribution is important in journalism, that you're quoting the source, the person. But equally now, I think it's important for trusted media to declare if ChatGPT and generative AI is your source. So that's how I think about that in terms of first layer of journalism. I see it as being a newsroom assistant rather than being a journalist replacement, and based on historical information and comments and a variety of sources, and that it doesn't though, give you context to the current and any predictive despite its term, around what others may behave differently tomorrow.And so, that's the role of a journalist is to be inquisitive, is to be forward-thinking and is to be thinking around guidance too, how we should be thinking about events or issues socially in the future. And that I haven't seen yet, ChatGPT be able to meet that need. The third layer is how ChatGPT has been built and it's drawn in many different sources, primarily though trusted media brands and that again, we're in that situation where there's a business being built here, which is a user utilizing the content of others, not just trusted media brands, but without attribution and without payment. And I think that is a concern for the original creators who are not benefiting, but they're seeing their journalism or their hard work, they're cataloging benefited by others.Tim Burrowes:I first remember probably in something like 2008, 2009, Rupert Murdoch, your proprietor, talking fairly fiercely about the role that Google was playing in using news content to drive its search results and suggesting that it would be fair to receive a payment. And I, like many people at the time, thought that seemed a bit unrealistic, and yet it came to be. Have you yet got an evolved position on whether we've got the same principle at stake when it comes to generative AI? Is there a point when you would want the likes of Microsoft or other people who partner in OpenAI to be coming to the same sort of conversation that the News Media Bargaining Code conversation drove?Michael Miller:I think that those conversations are inevitable, if not going to be accelerated and that's not in dispute about where the content and advice is coming from and they're already asking for payment models from consumers and that's not right.Tim Burrowes:Now, in Scott Morrison as Treasurer and then Prime Minister, you had somebody who was very sympathetic to that argument. Do you yet have a sense of what the view of the current government is? I know it is very new and happening fast, so I don't know if you've got to that conversation yet.Michael Miller:The news bargaining code that was introduced 18 months ago, received bipartisan support and that I'd take that as being that they are supportive conceptually and of the principles behind the code. So it's not a conversation which we've had to have as we've had it probably two years plus prior, in that they've indicated their support. As now other countries around the world are following Australia's lead in looking at how they regulate in their own markets.Tim Burrowes:And do you think that will now extend to the conversation around AI as well, naturally, or is that a conversation that will need to be forced to make it happen?Michael Miller:I take partnership as approach. I would be wanting to have conversations with our potential users of our journalism as a first port. Going in with lawyers at a first meeting is never a great way to start any relationship. And so, I would prefer to be meeting with those and discussing what does a fair partnership look like. And I think that at the same time, a lot of the ChatGPT content that's generated isn't attributed either, and that would be a benefit I think to those organizations to hear that and see that as being part of the offer they make.Tim Burrowes:While we're talking about frenemies, you are getting into vertical video. That was another one of the announcements this week, which I guess gets one thinking about TikTok. Are they... It's unfair to call them the new kids now, but are they where the attention is beginning to swing towards now, as opposed to Facebook as the previous social media foe?Michael Miller:Their definitely video consumption is on the rise, that there is now, it's Reels for Facebook, it's Google Web Stories on that platform, and it's TikToks for TikTok. And so yes, as our content or journalism may be used on that platform, that's a conversation that as new platforms come to bear, I think the code need to consider those and that if we go back 10 years ago, back to the origins of even prior to Facebook in the 15 years ago, they've evolved greatly and that I think that the code needs to continue to evolve to counter for new entrants to the market, but also how their business models have changed in line with how consumers are changing. And the acceleration of video has been dramatic over the past few years and that's where TikTok has benefited to Facebook's expense. But as they are increasingly using the content of others, then that's a fair conversation to have.Tim Burrowes:Well, a couple of points of the last few years that I'd love to just get your perspective on, now that they're in the beginnings of the rear view mirror. Now the first one we have talked about already, which is the News Media Bargaining Code negotiations. How would the economics of news look now, if that process hadn't happened and Facebook and Google hadn't been nudged into making those deals in 2021 to pay the publishers, how would the landscape be now?Michael Miller:Oh, there'd be pressure on all media, not just news media who have not just got commercial agreements, but partnerships now in place. Arguably there's been an investment made, as I say, that could be both in kind or in cash, depending on the different arrangements that are there, which has enabled some of those companies that are now seeing some headwinds to create. For me, I feel how they reinvested in the arrangement they've come to, to accelerate the growth of their digital business. And that's probably the approach I've thought of at News Corp, is that this isn't about a bottom line return to shareholder moment, it's about an opportunity to reinvest in a digital future. And that is now when I think of the core, it's a digital core and that's been the opportunity of those arrangements, have now created. And so, how would it look? I think it would look a lot barer. I think I'd be concerned that we would have less players and that is not good for the consumer ultimately, but for Australian media more broadly.Tim Burrowes:There is some speculation that when Facebook's agreements start coming up for renewal next year, they seem to have far less appetite to renew perhaps than the Google News initiative does or Google and Alphabet more generally. How do the economics change for you if Facebook and their parent company, Meta, don't come back to the table next year?Michael Miller:Should that be a decision they make, it would impact the ability to reinvest and that's how I consider it. I can't talk for others, but that would be disappointment. I don't think it'd be good for their business either, to be frank. I think that we refer, for News Corp to combined Google and Facebook, we sent 2.9 billion referrals last year and that is value to them and a large proportion of their total referrals come from news media companies and that I see it particularly as they think through video and how they respond, and we produce 80 reels a week for them, which is the largest exercise of a type in the world. There is definitely value which those trusted brands give to their platforms. So I don't think it's good business for either, but it wouldn't be good business if they were to walk away and whether they're, I'm not sure how they detangle their relationship with their audience without the use of news. I don't know technically how they achieved that either.Tim Burrowes:Now I suppose another key moment over the last five years or so, we look back at 2020, when all publishers, including News Corp had to make some big decisions as the pandemic kicked in. You pretty much got out of the print business for local newspapers. That's nearly three years ago now, it's just flying by. When you look back on that period now, was this just an acceleration of something that was inevitable or was there anything that could have changed that story and changed that trajectory do you think?Michael Miller:I think it was an acceleration of the inevitable, that we had seen for the decade prior that local newspapers had predominantly, or had been funded wholly by client dollars, they were your car yard, they were your shopping malls, they were your local job markets. They were the swap meets, they were the tenders. Council stopped advertising, council notices they disappeared. A lot of the key major advertisers in communities that relied on local foot traffic moved to social platforms. They moved to the portals of CarsGuide, realestate.com.au, and that there wasn't a model to fund those.The uncertainty of the pandemic meant that most of those businesses were unable to trade and that we didn't know how long that would last for. And so, we made the conclusion that those dollars that had already started to drain and they're accelerated at the start of the pandemic, were not going to come back. And that to transition them to still be digital models, not printed as well, was something which we had seen occur in other markets around the world. And it pains me because I'm a print lover and someone who's grown up on it, but it equally got accepted that our audiences had moved digitally, our clients had moved digitally, and that you weren't able to hold onto the old, you had to plan for the new.Tim Burrowes:I'm also a print lover, grew up in local newspapers, started delivering the local paper when I was 13 years old. So I'm very much from the campus of supportive of local news. I struggle to see models emerge that really help fund the local journalism that used to happen everywhere of a reporter in every courtroom, a reporter in every council meeting, a reporter arriving at the cop shop every day to see what was going on. I'd love to hear some reasons for optimism about that sort of journalism being funded at that granular, local level in the future. Are you seeing signs at all?Michael Miller:No, and that is the big revelation and that I think we were one the first companies in the world to see the value of hyper-local news. In the past three years we have launched 24 new mastheads in areas where we previously did not have a print publication. What people subscribe for, what's that moment where they say, "I'm going to start paying for...", is a local reason. It is court reports, it is tender applications, it's developments that are happening around the corner. It is local crime, it's the local football footy team. So as I said, we've invested in 24 new publications in high consumption areas.We've also started a local sports streaming service. This year we will broadcast 2,300 local, national, and state sports games which become part of your masthead. And the benefit for those organizations is that we continue to report upon those as part of your local masthead, and that's what people initially pay for. What they stay for is quite different. What they stay for is network news. It's news about the latest diet, it's the post-COVID travel trends. It's the advice around superannuation. So the combination of hyper-local and network is, what is the beauty that we're seeing and we're not the only one seeing that around the world, but I think we were the first to see the benefit of the void that had been left for hyper-local news that people need, and they have particularly needed that the past three years.Tim Burrowes:Well, you mentioned a little bit earlier your view on partnerships, which it does strike me that News Corp is a less insular company than it was once seen. Few examples came to mind for me, last August you signed a deal withv Ooh Media to deliver news across their screen network, Seven West Media's Perth newspapers tap into News Corp resources, HT&E, which you ran for a while when it was APN News & Media. That's partly owned by News Corp, about 13% or something. How do you think about how, as one of the I suppose two big beasts, about how the company should act within that commercial media ecosystem?Michael Miller:I sometimes feel that some days I'm going to sit opposite a company and compete. Some days I'm going to sit next to them and compliment. We print and we distribute the Nine and the ACM publications. Increasingly our audience is off platform, 72% of our audience does not come directly to our mastheads. So the majority of it is coming to us from seeing a Ooh Media screen. It's seeing us on Insta, Facebook, on a search result and that increasingly we need to look at those off platform top of funnel, and that's part of the reason why we see audience growth coming from.Because with those more greater eyeballs becomes greater familiarity of the brands and the content than journalism that we produce and they're more likely to become a news.com.au audience, which become part of our total commerce solution, or they hopefully become a subscriber over the longer term. And so, that's where partnerships become and every partnership is different. I wish there was just a simple cookie cutter model approach, but people have different ambitions and drivers to their own business and that you mentioned Seven West, I've mentioned a lot of media companies already in this conversation who we do work with, and that probably our growth will come from taking shares to those who are not based in this country rather than those traditional competitors that we all grew up with.Tim Burrowes:Now in your stint at APN, you got some exposure to the outdoor advertising sector. Let's talk the potential for mergers and acquisitions. Would it make sense for News Corp to own a QMS or an Ooh Media or somebody like that do you think?Michael Miller:It would be inconsistent with our, I suppose past mandate. We're a content company. My experience from out-of-home in Australia is that Australia is one of the leaders in the world in terms of out-of-home technology and those companies are predominantly landlord and they're leasing from landlords and selling their leased assets to clients. They're not curating content and that's why we see companies like media partnering with us for content. Now I don't see us as the potential out-of-home player, because it's not our core skillset set. Don't never say never, but I'd say that our skills are in content creation, curation and amplification, and that I'd much prefer to stay in those areas that we'd lead in and not necessarily venture into those that others do better at.Tim Burrowes:What do you expect to see happening in M&A and in the wider market this year or going forward? Are you expecting to see much occur?Michael Miller:I would expect that most companies will focus on their core. For us, that's a digital core. And I worry less about revenue lines, more about cost lines, and managing your cost base. I think we're still seeing, where does the post-COVID bounce settle on its recline and that there may be opportunities that emerge, particularly with some of the tech businesses that are looking now more stretched as the valuations and models are showing signs of strain and that we're not convinced yet that some of them are as sustainable as what they were looking 12 months ago. So our priority is definitely on that. We're seeing good growth in our core digital business and that we need to ensure that the great work that our print teams are doing maximized in terms of that digital transition.Tim Burrowes:I'm glad you mentioned that wider outlook now, it is matter of public record that News Corp is currently cutting 5% of jobs globally. Now you were running News Corp's New South Wales operation back in 2012 when the local newspaper industry had what felt at the time it's near death moment. How does this year feel compared to that?Michael Miller:I feel that this year is far more certain than 2012, a decade ago. I think the industry was uncertain about the paths that, and not just those in news media, but more broadly we had the multi-channels, we saw the start of Netflix globally, and we now have that it's disrupted linear TV viewing. We're starting to see the next wave of programmatic and couponing and digital advertising. That's when I'd say Google and Facebook, or now Meta, we're really starting to take solidified a position as a ad business. I was reminded earlier that there was the double-click purchase by Google, the impact that had on the ad tech market. And so, you were starting to see the digitalization back in 2012 of out-of-home and that we were all very uncertain about where the client dollars would go and where we would have a consumer base that were prepared to pay.And that I'm going to get the year wrong, but it's around that time that the iPad launched and there was a sudden moment of, this is how people are going to consume print. It's all going to be digital, but it's going to look like... It takes time for consumers to change their habits and we see them early adopt in Australia, second fastest in the world after Norway here. But do we stay with that habit? Not always, but sometimes we do. So you got to be a fast follower, or sometimes, other times you got to lead. But yeah, this feels very different to 2012. I think we as an industry should be more confident about what our business models are.Tim Burrowes:I suppose at the same time, any media organization is expecting a tough few months. I wonder, how do you balance communicating honestly with your staff about the challenges ahead and the jobs that might need to go as a result of that, versus finding a way of offering a vision for an optimistic future for journalism?Michael Miller:We often hear the announcements in the people who are unfortunately leaving companies. We advertised on digital and in print on Monday for last week, of new cadets to join the company. We have skills in audio that we didn't have 10 years ago, skills in video, skills in data, and that there are new people who are bringing a great talent to our journalistic, it says proposition and offering to consumers, and that you got to balance that out and times and that a lot of our plans are already in place around the recent announcement. You've got to be honest with your teams and say that sadly there will be some people who will leave and some people who will be redeployed, and some people who may choose to leave additionally. And we've seen that happen as well. But I think the past few years has maybe masked what was going on below the surface and we're now having to deal with that in larger numbers, not just at News Corp, but at all media companies, not just in Australia.Tim Burrowes:Now I keep referring back to the conversation we had on stage at Mumbrella360, the getting audiences and customers to pay and stay presentation. Now during that News Corp's content can polarize and that has long been the criticism of News Corp, that your editors pursue agendas. We've seen the rise and I think maybe the fading of campaign groups like Stop Funding Hate or Sleeping Giants. Their method I suppose, is to try to persuade advertisers to stay off certain platforms. That's been a big challenge I think for Sky News Australia. Now you must have developed a playbook for advertisers by now. What is the approach when these moments arise?Michael Miller:I wish there was a playbook, Tim, and that we could just roll out the... Every issue has different layers, different perspectives, and you're dealing often with different people. In terms of, first of all, the activists and the sleeping giants, the mad Witches. And others, yes, we went through a period of time when they worried, a number of clients out there, not just about News Corp content, although we were primary, and Sky News. They were activists who were trying to impact change to their own agendas. The good clients, the good companies were the ones that wanted to have a conversation and to understand the concerns both of the activist groups, but also get to the facts around what they were hearing. And again, in many cases there was misinformation which ultimately undermined the position of those activist groups to achieve their outcome.And that misinformation has been their downfall, and that we've worked through that in having honest conversations. There were a small number of clients that jumped, that they responded due to the fear of what they could be trending online. And I've seen that happen from time to time. But on mass, I'd say the majority of our clients who are targeted are still with us and that a key message that I would say is, don't give into bullies. In terms of then, other critic groups are former prime ministers and political polarization.I think they've got their own views and not always defend their views to their ability to have a view. That's what free speech is about. I don't need to agree with them. But ultimately, as we saw through a parliamentary inquiry that the impact of that, their concerns were not found to be of the magnitudes of which they were expressing and didn't receive the support ultimately that they had wanted. I think it comes back to if we need to make changes, if we need to evolve as an organization based on the feedback we're receiving, we got to take that on board. But additionally, we're not the type of organization that are going to respond to those intimidations and the agendas of others and that we've seen that come from, let's say minority groups. But that hasn't been a concern that I currently and luckily dealing with, but no doubt it's just around the corner.Tim Burrowes:Do you think you have evolved as an organization though, when it comes to the polarizing type of content?Michael Miller:I think we're always evolving. I think that the market has moved a lot as well. We've been through a phase over the past five years that opinion-based journalism is really on the back of social media, where we could all express an opinion and we were driven to hear others' opinion, but then we got swamped by, what is opinion, what is fact. And that has being part of the news fatigue and the opinion fatigue, which we've been drowned out by. And if anything a part of that evolution is a return to trusted, fact-based reporting and presentation and that it's clearly sourced, clearly attributed and presented as, this is fact and this is opinion. And the separation of the two I think is now a benefit of those media companies that follow that approach. And so, you're always evolving. In terms of some of the areas that we've been criticized on.We constantly reflect on the views of, not so much the views that may differ to particular columnists and I. We have a broad church of columnists and people within the organization and that it's important that we are always encouraging new voices to be... And not just our own, but opinion writers to be expressing views which are maybe contrary. And then I look at the voice today and we've got a Chris Kenny who is an avid advocate for it. We've got someone like a Paul Kelly who looks at this from a constitutional lens. We've got others who, indigenous writers who are writing it in, I suppose indigenous Australians who are writing this as a pro and it doesn't go far enough anti. And so, when I think through the history of time and the role of news media, it is to further the debate to help Australians understand the issue and our policy makers have a platform to express their views so that we can arrive at the right decision. So I'm giving you, every issue is different.Tim Burrowes:Now, Rupert Murdoch recently marked 70 years at the helm of the company, which just sounds remarkable when you say it out loud. Now he is in that leadership role alongside Locklan. You've seen that joint leadership evolve. I think you would've come back to the organization just after Locklan came back. How do you sum up that sort of joint leadership role now, from where you see it?Michael Miller:I suppose that's at a board level. I personally report through to Robert Thompson, who's the global CEO. The board look at many different broadcasting, business information, news media, real estate interests. Rupert and I deal far more with Lachlan now, as the co-chairs. And that obviously they would discuss many of those issues together as they would with other board members as well. I understand it's not always your traditional model of having co-chairs, but it's not unusual either and that it's a balance that appears to work. I don't know, I'm not on those board meetings to give a context of the dynamics at the time.Tim Burrowes:What else in media is intriguing you at the moment? I know you are interested in niche business models. I wonder what developing models you've been keeping an eye on, either here in Australia or overseas, which are capturing your attention at the moment.Michael Miller:Yeah, definitely deep niches. I came across a business, a publisher they call themselves who's specialized in watches. They claimed $100 million of revenue and that as there are wine collectors and car collectors, there's also watch collectors. I'm not one, but they want to know who the makers are, the history behind them, how to ensure them, and the swapping of them. There's expos and conferences, there's commerce, the total commerce solution to it as well. You look at the wine industry, you look at now just aspects of pets. There's passion points, there's music that I've learned a lot about when I was with now HT&E, in terms of people's passion points. Food is another one. It's not just travel generically, it's aspects of travel. It is arts travel, it is, I suppose adventure travel just on bikes.And so, the great thing is that you can now develop deep niches that can attract an audience. What I'm partly interested in that is that, how does a bundle with your core business? And so, in recent years we've invested in stock head, being for those stocks that don't get a lot of coverage. Kids SPOT has been part of the portfolio and is having another resurgence in terms of a source and destination for B2B and young parents to congregate and have a community around their kids. I look at the race net and punters to investments we've made and the passionate community of people who love the track. CODE Sports now has been another revelation in terms of its long form storytelling around our passion for sport. It's not all sports. We don't claim to be a competitor to a Wide World or a Herald Sun, but it is the stories of sport and there's a group there who make the time and have that passion.And so, how then do you include that as part of your broader subscription to a news corporate masthead? And that adds value. There's a proposition there. I see that many of the UK publications for five quid, you get to have puzzles and crossword for the year and it's a retention pace and it's a smart business model. And so, that's where I'm interested in what we've called in telco land triple or quad players of the past.I can see that reemerging as being part of your value proposition. And in reality, we've always covered stocks and puzzles and done long form storytelling, but it's in specialist environments where you can buy them separately, you can buy a part of, and that's what excites me as, we're getting into the storytelling of new genres, in new ways, using audio, using video, using UCG. Taste is the biggest cooking club in the country by a long way, and that's a passion point. And they're the ears that I'm always looking for that is inspiration and thinking, how big can you get it here? And sadly, the reality is, we're a country of 25 million people. I wish we had another zero at the end of that, which then you'd get some scale.Tim Burrowes:Now a slightly unfair question, asking to pick one, but if you could point to one act of journalism from News Corp in recent months that sums up the company's direction of travel, what would you choose or what would you think of?Michael Miller:Oh, our news award winner last year was Hedley Thomas. He is a journalist who has evolved into a podcaster, his recent podcast, Shandee's Story, and not only reopened the case of 23 year old Shandee Blackburn in Queensland, around the systemic failures of the Queensland government's DNA laboratory that he has given hope to over 200 families who do have unanswered questions. This is far bigger story than the Teacher's Pet. According to Hedley, the Teacher's Pet downloaded 85 million times. And so, why has he been successful, I think is probably more, it's enduring, it is fearless, it is about fairness, it's about transparency, and it's about that accountability of those in who didn't ask the questions around Lynette Dawson. Now he did, he did the job that the law enforcement and politicians didn't do. And so, that is what good journalism is about and it's about making a difference. And so, that's probably the one that these people are aware of, that it's indicative of multi-platform storytelling using resources, but the commitment to finding the truth.Tim Burrowes:Now, last week we heard the news of the passing of Brian Walsh, who was the steward of Foxtel's TV making. A bit hard to ask you to sum it up, but how would you sum up the contribution that he made?Michael Miller:And his contribution was far broader than Foxtel. I remembered getting the news late on the Thursday night. I first came across Brian as a kid marketer in the mid '90s. We were launching the Sunday Magazine, which was a big deal at the time. There were over a million copies that a magazine would go into, the biggest magazine day one in the country.And he was a mentor to me in the launch of that entertainment based publication. But Brian has managed sporting stars. He was a talent manager. When the movies would come to Australia, he was their publicist on the ground. He would put on the halftime events at NRL Grand Finals. Now his days of promotions manager at 2SM and in radio, then leading to marketing. He was generous in his sharing of experiences, he wasn't a competitive guy. He loved the story. He loved connecting with audiences and he's going to be missed. But his contribution, as I say, is far greater than his colleagues at News and Foxtel. It's his contribution is to many people and probably, but look, he probably made a difference to many who didn't even know his name.Tim Burrowes:Well, last question from me, and this is the last question I ask everybody. What would your critics say about you and what would your supporters say about you?Michael Miller:They're the critics. We've got a few. Journalism is not there to be popular. It's often standing up for the unpopular, for those without a voice, for those who are unable to represent themselves in the conversation. And while we are standing up for the unpopular, we're not always popular and therefore we do have our critics. And that is what they would say about us, is that we're their version of what the news is, is not necessarily what we publish every day. And yeah, that's a tough job for an editor to decide what has got to be led, but we are there to make a difference, it'd be how I would respond to those critics who would like to see something different. We'd like to see their view of the world played back at them, but we are there to make a difference. And that part of that is being fearless and saying principle.Tim Burrowes:And what would your supporters say about you?Michael Miller:A measure that I use is, how are we going, how are the Australian people responding? And they're both your critics and your supporters. And that ultimately, I look at, do we have a growing audience? That's got to be your measure. Is that more important than your share price? Is that more important than your net promoter score? I think it ultimately is. How are your customers responding to what you're doing? And in the past two years, we've grown from 16.8 to 18.1 million Australians. So we've got a growing audience. And so, we are doing something right for them and why do they come to us? They come to us because they trust us. And that we're there for free thinking, free markets and free speech, and we're going to protect that and stand up for that. That means standing up for Australians. And that while we've got a growing audience, I'd say we're doing our job. And that our supporters would say, we trust you.Tim Burrowes:Michael Miller, thank you very much for your time.Michael Miller:Thank you, Tim.textTime to leave you to your Thursday.Audio production was courtesy of Abe's Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.Message us: letters@unmade.mediaI'll be back tomorrow with another update tomorrowToodlepip…Tim Burrowestim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to the Start the Week podcast. Today:* Anti-siphoning lobbying goes into overdrive* Will TikTok and YouTube be pulled into the News Media Bargaining Code?* What the Balenciaga scandal says about fashion mags* Musk's feeble “Twitter Files”* The war at The Market HeraldToday's episode feature Tim Burrowes and Abe UdyFurther reading:* Sydney Morning Herald: TikTok, YouTube could be targeted under Australia's media code* Australian Financial Review: Seven, Nine, Ten fight to keep sport on free to air TV* The Australian: ‘Outdated, anti-competitive': TV's anti-siphoning laws face overhaul* New Daily: Balenciaga's reputation in tatters after ‘creepy' photo shoot* New Daily: What Balenciaga's BDSM controversy tells us about high fashion's dire problems* Wired: The Twitter Files Revealed One Thing: Elon Musk Is Trapped* Unmade: How the ASX's fastest growing media company implodedAudio production was courtesy of Abe's Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers and sound design for corporate videos, digital content, commercials and podcasts.Message us: letters@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

On this week's Mumbrellacast: how Tourism Australia is looking to use its new brand ambassador, Ruby the Kangaroo to bring the tourism industry back to its 2019, $60 billion level; whether TikTok should be brought under the News Media Bargaining Code; and Nine pulls print from Tassie. Plus, a chat with Kathleen Enright and Skye Lambley from recently launched (in Australia) creative sustainability consultancy, Salterbaxter.

As Meta stops funding U.S. news publishers for their Facebook News Tab content, how could recent changes to social media impact Australia's media industry? Marlene Even spoke with Rafqa Touma, reporter for Guardian Australia and Nick Bonyhady, technology editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Welcome to Unmade's Start the Week podcast, dedicated to looking ahead to the week in media and marketing.Today's topics: * TrinityP3 pushes agencies to declare how they are dealing with harassment, bullying and assault;* Ten owner Paramount ANZ makes a big move for the AFL rights; * Meta and Google give their verdict on the News Media Bargaining Code;* Marketers still struggling with martech optionsFurther reading: * LinkedIn: Why TrinityP3 is requesting agencies declare on issues of harassment, bullying and assault – in the interests of clients and the wider industry* The Australian: Bidding war looms as Network Ten lobs $3bn bid for AFL broadcast rights* The Australian: Network 10's breakfast news program records one of the lowest ratings in Australian TV history* SMH / The Age: Halfway point: What people are watching on TV in 2022* SMH / The Age: Meta executive claims Australian news outlets used laws to pay debt, reward shareholders* Marketing Charts: Almost Half of Marketers Are Overwhelmed by Their TechnologyAudio production on Media Unmade was courtesy of Abe's Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers and sound design for corporate videos, digital content, commercials and podcasts.Message us: letters@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Today's edition features the final extract from the audio edition of my book, Media Unmade.In today's chapter, we reach the end of the 12-year decade covered in the book.Via the News Media Bargaining Code, the government institutes a shakedown of the digital behemoths. Google twigs quickly, finding ways to hand over cash to Australia's big publishers. Facebook is slower on the uptake before boss Mark Zuckerberg eventually does a deal with treasurer Josh Frydenberg.And in North Sydney, Nine gets ready to announce its news boss.If you enjoyed hearing the podcast, please do give it a five star rating on whichever podcasting app you use. That helps other people find it.Audio production on Media Unmade comes courtesy of Abe's Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers and sound design for corporate videos, digital content, commercials and podcasts.As ever, I welcome your thoughts to letters@unmade.media.Toodlepip…Tim BurrowesUnmade This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

In the final Mumbrellacast episode for the year, the team looks back at some of the biggest storylines of the year across the media and marketing industry. (3;36) Following the discussion comes an interview with Publicis Groupe ANZ CEO, Michael Rebelo, where he speaks about the French holding group's year, which included client wins, new cultural initiatives, job opportunities stemming from growth, the group's approach to hybrid working and the reality of driving change in the industry. (31:32)

Hello everyone!Recently I had a great discussion with the CEO of The Conversation in Australia and New Zealand, Lisa Watts. I wanted to dig a bit more into the success of the university/news hybrid that began in Melbourne 10 years ago, and how it has expanded globally. The idea of using subject matter experts within academia to explain the issues behind current news stories seems like an obvious content play now that The Conversation has been successful, but as Watts points out in the podcast, it would not have worked if the platform had begun at a single university. As in so many matters digital, the details of how The Conversation works are vital to understand why it works.A couple of explainers that aren't covered in the podcast: The Conversation was co-founded by Andrew Jaspan and Jack Rejtman. Both have now left the organisation, Jaspan after local staff and international partners revolted against his leadership style and direction.There's also an omission from the interview that I want to mention. It emerged last week that The Conversation and SBS are not going to get content deals with Facebook in the Australian market. These are lucrative arrangements big media players like Nine and News Corp have made with Facebook and Google in the shadow of the News Media Bargaining Code. As I have opined elsewhere, the deals are flawed because the code is flawed, and the whole thing amounts to a government-facilitated shakedown without any guarantee of public benefit. I didn't ask Watts about it because our conversation occurred before the news broke.Facebook is getting pummelled in the story warsI have had a close look at The Wall Street Journal's case against Facebook (paywall), prompted by an extensive leak of research and debate within the company: the opinion piece is here on The Spinoff. I think Facebook's Nick Clegg is probably right when he says the facts and opinions quoted in the WSJ have been cherrypicked and misrepresent the situation inside Facebook. On the other hand, the articles do surface big problems that extend beyond just one company. How do we regulate social media to moderate the drive for engagement, reduce social division, and harden our pathetic cognitive and societal defences against manipulation?There's no point whining about Facebook if we don't have the first idea what we would change to make it better.Have a great week,HalThe Crawford Media podcast music is”Ethernight Club” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halcrawford.substack.com

On this episode of The Grapevine, Dylan gets on the line with associate professor of history at Monash University, Julie Kalman, to talk about the book she co-authored, ‘Smuggled; an illegal history of Journeys to Australia'.Then, lawyer, activist, and chair of Digital Rights Watch, Lizzie O'Shea, calls in to discuss the News Media Bargaining Code in light of Facebook refusing to play ball with SBS & The Conversation in their recent negotiations over use of content on the social media platform.And as restrictions ease, what's happening with Melbourne's live music scene? Musician Clare Bowditch phones in to discuss her calls for better planning to get live music up and running once vaccination targets are met.

ExchangeWire's Mat Broughton and Rachel Smith are joined by Nick Barnett, independent consultant and Wires 2021 judge, to discuss the latest news in ad tech and martech. In this episode: TikTok launch Lead Generation to help advertisers reach audiences on the platform; the ACCC allows the CPA to bargain collectively with Facebook and Google under the News Media Bargaining Code; and BuzzFeed create Lighthouse to replace third-party cookies, but not all publishers are as prepared.

Verizon announced the sale of Verizon Media this week, with private equity firm Apollo Global Management Inc. for US$5 billion. The company will go forward under the name Yahoo with Verizon retaining a 10% stake in the company. The team looks at how the deal may affect the company's Australian outpost, led by Paul Sigaloff, as well as what it means for the future of telcos trying to become media companies, and vice versa.Things are looking up for the Australian ad industry, with Standard Media Index reporting an upward turn in spend for the month of March and a surge in forward bookings for April. So which sectors are looking rosy going into the rest of the year, and how do you measure ad spend year-on-year when looking at a lockdown-punctuated 2020?Also this week, Seven West Media became the latest publisher to ink payment deals with Google and Facebook, thanks to the introduction of the News Media Bargaining code. The team analyses the ins and outs of the agreements, and other recent deals, and Tim Burrowes provides an update on the state of Mumbrella's own potential deals.

What do Australians really think about social media? We're joined this week by CIS policy analyst Monica Wilkie, who will share the results of her new CIS survey on the subject. Does social media connect or isolate? Is its impact on society mostly positive or negative? Which generation relies on social media the most, and for what purposes? And at a time when two-thirds of Australians want Facebook and Twitter to maintain political neutrality, are the networking giants delivering? Monica Wilkie is the CIS media analyst behind "The Woke Wars" and "If I Ran the Woke Zoo." Her new policy paper Australians' Attitudes to Social Media: Connection or Curse? is available for free download from the CIS website. Conducted in February 2021, it reports the results of a survey of 1024 Australian adults just before the Commonwealth passed the News Media Bargaining Code. The findings may surprise you!

con Philip Di Salvo e Innocenzo Genna Partiamo dall'Australia con il News Media Bargaining Code per arrivare in Europa: quali sono le prospettive di questo scontro tra titani? Partiamo dall'Australia con il News Media Bargaining Code per arrivare in Europa: quali sono le prospettive di questo scontro tra titani? Conducono: Guglielmo Finotti, Irene Fregonese e Nino Matafù Zetein-Podcast-4x02.mp3 leggi tutto

Australia extends tech giant probe to Google and Apple browser dominationZDnet: With the News Media Bargaining Code out of the way, the Australian government has moved its tech giant battle to the browser scene, keeping Google in its crosshairs while putting Apple under the microscope.Led by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the new battle is focused on "choice and competition in internet search and web browsers".The consumer watchdog on Thursday put out a call for submissions, with a number of questions posed in a discussion paper [PDF], centred on internet browser defaults.It claimed Apple's Safari is the most common browser used in Australia for smartphones and tablets, accounting for 51% of use. This is followed by Chrome with 39%, Samsung Internet with 7%, and with less than 1%, Mozilla Firefox.Microsoft and newspapers join forces to fight GoogleGoogle accuses Microsoft of 'naked corporate opportunism'Google repeated how its against “proposals that would disrupt access to the open web,” believing that link taxes “hurt consumers, small businesses, and publishers.”The company then makes the case that Microsoft's participation in the discussion is not being done in good faith, with “self-serving claims” that are “just plain wrong.”They have paid out a much smaller amount to the news industry than we have. And given the chance to support or fund their own journalists, Microsoft replaced them with AI bots.Split Screen: How Different Are Americans' Facebook Feeds? – The MarkupApple sues former employee for stealing trade secrets, leaking information to the mediaApple is taking legal action against its former materials lead, Simon Lancaster, over allegedly leaking trade secrets to the media. The lawsuit accuses Lancaster of abusing his “position and trust within the company to systematically disseminate Apple's sensitive trade secret information in an effort to obtain personal benefits.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Alex and Elliot chat about: * Gartner's five Legal Tech trends that are changing in-house legal departments * BankWest's new comic-like terms and conditions * an update on the Australian News Media Bargaining Code * a recent newspaper article outlining how law firms can do more with less (spoiler: via legal ops) * PWC accepting its first Bitcoin payment LINKS Gartner article: https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/5-legal-technology-trends-changing-in-house-legal-departments/ BankWest's visual T&Cs: https://www.bankwest.com.au/about-us/media-centre/news/pictures-make-a-thousand-words-in-visual-style-australia-first How law firms can do more with less: https://www.afr.com/companies/professional-services/how-law-firms-can-do-more-with-less-20210301-p576ox PWC's Bitcoin payment: https://www.ccn.com/big-4-accounting-giant-pwc-accepts-first-bitcoin-payment/

 This is the podcast companion to our latest Honest Government Ad about the News Corp Bargaining Code - watch it here. You can also view this podcast on YouTube - which we recommend as it contains lots of visuals and graphs to help you follow the story.You can follow Lizzie here: twitter.com/Lizzie_OSheaYou can find Digital Rights Watch here: digitalrightswatch.org.auSOURCES:Here's the legislation: aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_...Lizzie's Overland article: "Facebook vs the media code: whoever wins, we lose" Also by Lizzie: "Australia's flawed push to make Big Tech pay for news"If you enjoyed this podcast please subscribe and most importantly, recommend it to others! This podcast was produced thanks to our Patrons. If you'd like to help keep us going, you can support us on Patreon or via these other options.Follow us on Youtube | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram 

This past week, the Australian government passed a law called the News Media Bargaining Code - designed to force Facebook and Google to pay up for the news content that ends up on their platforms.The tech giants have long resisted this idea, but things are changing. This is a story about value - how much news is worth, who should be funding it and how.Contributors:Lizzie O'Shea - author of Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Teach Us about Digital TechnologyJames Temperton - digital editor, Wired UKParis Marx - host, Tech Won't Save UsJames Meese - senior lecturer, RMIT UniversityOn our radarAl Jazeera Media Network launches a new platform, aimed at a new audience. The clue is in the name: Rightly.Iconic, absurd, haunting: Ten years since Gaddafi's 'Zenga Zenga' speechOn February 22, 2011, with Libya in a state of revolt over his 42 years in power, Muammar Gaddafi decided it was time to take to the airwaves. For Libyans all too familiar with political repression, the "Zenga Zenga" speech, as it came to be known, was equal parts chilling and bizarre. Ten years on, we look back at one of the Arab Spring's most extraordinary media moments.Contributors:Sherine El Taraboulsi-McCarthy - senior research fellow, Overseas Development InstituteMansour El-Kikhia - professor of political science, University of TexasAbdulkader Assad - columnist, The Libya Observer- Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Last week Facebook turned off Australian users' access to news over a looming law change to make them pay to distribute it. This week news is back in their feeds after a face-off with the government there. Australia's been praised for taking Zuckerberg on - but would news media be better off in the long run without Facebook?

A wonderful discussion with one of Australia's most experienced political journalists - Malcolm Farr - who now appears in the excellent Two Grumpy Hacks podcast. We spoke about the issues of quite an extraordinary week in #auspol - including Craig Kelly moving to the cross bench, the passing of the News Media Bargaining Code, the cncerning culture within our Parliament in Canberra - Labor's fortunes - & if through his long career Malcolm had ever known a period & a Government such as this. Well worth a listen!

Unless you have been living under a rock or happened to be searching for this article on Facebook (too soon?), you probably know about the Australian government's legislative attempt to make big tech pay local news publishers for content.  In short, the News Media Bargaining Code (which is still winding its way through parliament) is intended to level the playing field between tech platforms and news media companies. Not surprisingly, it has sent ripples of anxiety around the digital media world, with Facebook and Google taking radically different stances in the stand-off.  To explain what this all means for investors, Livewire's Ally Selby spoke to Magellan's Vihari Ross and Montaka Global Investments' Chris Demasi. They discuss the repercussions of this news for investors in Facebook and Google, the potential windfall for publishers, as well as whether regulation curbs companies' ability to grow and innovate. 

In this episode of MSoM, I'm joined by Ben May the Founder and MD of The Code Company. We talk about the downstream impact of the news media bargaining code and how it changes how publishers do business. Ben has over a decade of experience working with news publishers and media businesses in Australia, particularly from an infrastructure front, building the digital solutions that make news publishers run on the internet. We talk about how media companies should approach Google's News Showcase from an audience, discoverability and data front, the idea of a walled garden approach to hosting news, the real value of Facebook audiences for publishers, and how media companies are already investing in deleveraging the influence and risk associated with big tech.

Show #1054: Thursday, February 18, 2021 Councilwoman Salas, Bruce Sidlinger, Bubblewrap and Living Life! 0:00-15:10 Sex Ed, Red Light Cameras and more! Jeff starts off with info on a renewed push for reparations, more on gun control plus an update on more Arizona legislative bills including: banning red light cameras optional mask mandate  ban sex education k-3 (Jeff recalls the infinite universe of gender and cyborg as a gender!) bill for inmate feminine hygiene products.    15:11-25:17 Life outside the bubblewrap! Jeff talks about living your life to its fullest. We all have an expiration date, stop being wimpy! Plus more on plexiglass hallways, bad (and good) school boards and the lack of a plan for a plan for the plan! What message are we sending our kids in the era of bubblewrap and hand sanitizer! NEW LEADERS NEEDED ALL AROUND! Walls in D.C. to keep the "subjects" out but no walls at the border? What's that all about?   25:18-43:28 Councilwoman Regina Salas  Jeff talks with Flagstaff City Councilwoman Regina Salas.  City is in moderate recession budget planning. How short are they? Or are tax revenues growing? How big is the city budget? Are people traveling? Councilwoman Salas reveals the BBB tax revenue and what it may mean. Building permits are way up! What's driving this? Retail sales are also up. What's driving the increase? Barriers to business? Well yeah! But what's being done? When can I go in person to address my elected representatives in Flagstaff?    43:29-64:12 Bruce Sidlinger, Internet going down under! The News Media Bargaining Code? WT$?& Australia has some weird new proposed law that FaceBook disagrees with so FaceBook pulls the plug on news links. What is this bill and is FaceBook the good guy or bad guy on this issue. Businessman, investor and educator Bruce Sidlinger explains the issue.   Plus, the tyrants in California are at it again. This time they want to seize private property! But its for the “greater good”! Watch out Arizona, more Californians about to flee! WELCOME TO AZ, REMEMBER WHY YOU LEFT CA!   64:13-74:31 Olivia Reads the Headlines Olivia returns to the show to read some “surprise” headlines to Jeff including: Texas deepfreeze, food and water problems Synthetic meat. Yum! Bankrupt HOA And turn down the gas

Australia's prime minister on Friday urged Facebook to lift its ban on news access for Australian users and return to the negotiating table with media organizations, warning that other countries would follow his government's example in making digital giants pay for journalism.Prime Minister Scott Morrison described Facebook's move Thursday to prevent Australians from accessing and sharing news as a threat.The blockade has escalated a fight with the government over whether powerful tech companies should have to pay news organizations for content.“The idea of shutting down the sorts of sites they did yesterday, as some sort of threat — well, I know how Australians react to that and I thought that was not a good move on their part,” Morrison told reporters.“They should move quickly past that, come back to the table and we'll sort it out,” he added.Australian news organizations could not post stories and people who tried to share existing news stories got notifications saying they were blocked from doing so.There was public outrage at how the Facebook blockade was bungled, cutting access — at least temporarily — to pandemic, public health and emergency services.Newspaper headlines included: “No likes for unsocial network,” and “Faceblock.”An article about how fake news would replace credible journalism in Australian feeds carried the headline, “'Fakebook' shows all it cares about is profit, not people.”Some non-Australian outlets also appeared affected, with posts disappearing from Facebook pages belonging to Britain's Daily Telegraph and Sky News. Both share names with news outlets in Australia.The blockade was a response to the passage of a bill by the House of Representatives on Wednesday night that would make Facebook and Google pay Australian media companies fair compensation for the journalism that the platforms link to. The legislation must be approved by the Senate to become law.Google has responded by quickly working out licensing content deals with major Australian media companies under its own News Showcase model.Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has announced a wide-ranging deal with Google covering operations in the United States and Britain as well as Australia. Major Australian media organization Seven West Media also reached a deal earlier in the week. Rival Nine Entertainment is reportedly close to its own pact, and state-owned Australian Broadcasting Corp. is in negotiations.Morrison said he discussed the Facebook dispute with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday. Morrison was also discussing Australia's proposed law with the leaders of Britain, Canada and France.“There is a lot of world interest in what Australia is doing,” Morrison said. “That's why I invite, as we did with Google, Facebook to constructively engage because they know that what Australia will do here is likely to be followed by many other Western jurisdictions.”Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, the minister responsible for the proposed News Media Bargaining Code, had a telephone conversation with Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg after the blockade began on Thursday and again on Friday.“We talked through their remaining issues & agreed our respective teams would work through them immediately. We'll talk again over the weekend,” Frydenberg tweeted on Friday.“I reiterated Australia remains committed to implementing the code,” Frydenberg added.Frydenberg maintains that Facebook had been having constructive negotiations with Australian media on pay deals immediately before the surprise blockade.News Corp Australia executive chairman Michael Miller was more equivocal about Facebook negotiations.“Having been someone who's dealt with Facebook over the past months, we have some weeks where we're getting good engagement and think we're progressing and then you get silence. I think the door is still open,” Miller told a Senate inquiry into Australian media diversity."While Facebook may have moved away, they don't move...

This newsletter is really a public policy thought-letter. While excellent newsletters on specific themes within public policy already exist, this thought-letter is about frameworks, mental models, and key ideas that will hopefully help you think about any public policy problem in imaginative ways. It seeks to answer just one question: how do I think about a particular public policy problem/solution?PS: If you enjoy listening instead of reading, we have this edition available as an audio narration on all podcasting platforms courtesy the good folks at Ad-Auris. If you have any feedback, please send it to us.- RSJGoogle and the Australian government are on a warpath. There is a proposed new law - the News Media Bargaining Code - that forces Google and Facebook to pay media publishers for links to the news on their sites. While other countries have tried to regulate and make Google and Facebook pay for the content they freely use from news sites, this law is a global first.The CodeHere’s a brief summary of the Code from the Australian government press release:The Code will support a diverse and sustainable Australian news media sector, including Australia’s public broadcasters, by:encouraging the parties to undertake commercial negotiations outside the Code;enabling digital platforms to publish standard offers, which provides smaller news media businesses with an efficient pathway to finalising agreements with digital platforms;establishing a negotiation framework under the Code that allows both parties to bargain in good faith and reach binding agreements;ensuring that an independent arbiter is able to determine the level of remuneration that should be paid under a fair and balanced final offer arbitration model should the parties be unable to reach agreement; andsetting clear and workable minimum standards for digital platforms including requiring 14 days advance notice of deliberate algorithm changes that impact news media businesses.The Code will initially apply to Facebook NewsFeed and Google Search. Other digital platform services can be added to the Code in future if there is sufficient evidence to establish that they give rise to a bargaining power imbalance.  404 ErrorGoogle’s reaction was swift. It went for broke in its open letter addressed to Australians:The ability to link freely between websites is fundamental to Search. This code creates an unreasonable and unmanageable financial and operational risk to our business. If the Code were to become law in its current form, we would have no real choice but to stop making Google Search available in Australia.  For Google, search is free and neutral. Its proprietary algorithm takes your search term, trawls the net, ranks the relevant sites and presents to you a million search results in order of what it thinks will be most useful to you. This is free because that’s Google’s mission - to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Along with your search results, it throws up a few relevant ads that might be of interest to you based on your search. These are clearly identified and highlighted as ads. It makes money through them. Search and ads are different silos for it. There’s a separation (or so Google would have us believe) between the church and the state For Google, paying news publishers to link people to their websites is a slippery slope. Other businesses will soon demand for the same. The search algorithm will no longer be pristine. Soon there will be bidding wars to appear higher on the search ranks. The whole principle of open internet will be vitiated. The Australian government responded to Google’s open letter with PM Morrison indulging in some plain speaking:“We don't respond to threats. Australia makes our rules for things you can do in Australia. That's done in our parliament. It's done by our government. And that's how things work here in Australia." Meanwhile, Facebook decided yesterday it will block its users and news publishers from posting links to news sites because of the Code. Best Of Both Worlds?So, how should we think about this?Well, first let’s get all the good that Google has done for the world out of the way. Google has been the among the most transformational tools ever made available to humankind. It deserves its extraordinary profits and market cap. But there have been unintended effects of its dominance especially for news media. News publishers have lost customers as print has fallen out of favour. Their digital properties don’t draw in as much ad revenues and most traffic to them is routed through Google or Facebook. Classifieds which were the other source of their revenues have also gone online. The subscription model might be the way forward but no one has really seen it scale. It still looks like a niche game. There’s hardly a viable business model to run a mainstream newspaper with extensive ground reporting, investigative pieces and deeply researched stories. What has replaced these are free websites with commoditised news from the wire, paid articles masquerading as news, listicles with clickbait-ey headlines and, of course, fake news or disinformation sites with specific political agenda. Poor quality news for free will drive away good quality reportage - that’s the Gresham’s Law for media.The downstream impact of this in culture and politics has been huge. If this were to continue and the price for news nudges towards zero, the supply of news will also be eventually zero. All we will be left with is views, opinions, hearsay and manufactured disinformation. The question therefore is this. Does the bargaining code like that’s being taken to the Australian parliament solve this problem? Sure, Google will be forced to come to the table and negotiate a deal with the publishers. This will mean some additional revenues for them to support journalism that matters to them. But let’s play this out a bit. Different media houses will have different bargaining power. The smaller ones who might be doing cutting edge work won’t have any power to cut a deal for themselves. Google will now have an incentive to push certain types of links over others. Maybe it will present the links from sites whom it doesn’t have to pay on top of its results. You might have the cheaper, low quality journalism being promoted. More Gresham’s Law in action. Will that be a good outcome? Or, will Google play arbiter in ranking the results based on what’s the best commercial deal for it? It will interfere in the search results. Remember it is a publicly listed company. It will do what’s in the best long-term interests of its shareholders. Lastly, there’s a more fundamental shift in the business model of the traditional news publisher that’s needed for them to survive in the long run. An annual boost of income from Google is welcome but not enough. The ability to unbundle their core product, using digital tools to deliver news beyond the written form, flexible subscription options and continuing to invest in content are all steps many of them have taken to remain relevant. They will have to continue investing in them and thinking beyond to fight the good fight. Google itself has worked on a solution to compensate publishers through its platform called Google News Showcase. As the Google open letter said:“With News Showcase, we would pay for publishers’ editorial expertise and for beyond-the-paywall access to news content for users—not for links to news content.”  But the hitch here is the News Showcase doesn’t exactly even the playing field between Google and media outlets. Google has unilaterally decided this is a model that works best for others and it’s now their way or the highway. It’s a bit odd that an organisation that wants to convince the world it isn’t a bully should use a one-size-fits-all model for all publishers or threaten exiting a country because it doesn’t like a proposed new law. It does the exact opposite. The natural question that comes up is if every other country follows the Australian model, will Google exit them all?A more flexible and negotiable News Showcase model is possibly a better option than the News Media Bargaining Code approach that’s being thrust upon Google in Australia. The principles of open internet and free search are too critical to be compromised. It is in Google’s interest to continue to make its model more palatable to publishers than have governments interfere in a space where there’s no real market failure. It appears that’s the way it is going after the strong response it received from the Australian PM. The deal it struck with Nine Entertainment yesterday seems to suggest that. This wasn’t possible even two weeks back:A fortnight ago Nine was dismissive about the Showcase product, insisting it would not negotiate with Google until the law was passed.“This is what monopolies do, they put an offer, in the form of Google Showcase, but not offer to negotiate,” a Nine spokesperson said at the time.“It has to be all on their terms and that is not an approach we will participate in. We support the legislation the government is proposing as the best way to secure a fair payment for our content.” The impending law seems to have got Google back to the negotiating table. If that’s what the law intended to do, it is a good lesson for Google to be proactive about offering flexibility to media platforms world over. We need good quality journalism that’s financially viable and we need an open internet. There shouldn’t be a trade-off between them. HomeWorkReading and listening recommendations on public policy mattersA quick primer by The Guardian on the proposed Australian law and its background Tim Berners-Lee in The Guardian: “Australia's proposed media code could break the world wide web” Get on the email list at publicpolicy.substack.com

The Australian Government's dispute with a tech giant has had an effect.Seven West Media has struck a multi-million dollar deal with Google to licence news content on its platforms.Google has been threatening to leave Australia over the proposed News Media Bargaining Code bill, forcing platforms to pay for news.Merja Myllylahti, a media researcher at AUT University, told Heather du Plessis-Allan doesn't expect the same thing will happen in New Zealand."We don't have regulatory process or any government deal with this platforms, so my question is why would they pay when there isn't the pressure." She says that Australia's proposed bill has forced this to happen, while other countries have lawsuits happening right now that is causing changes in this area there.Myllylahti says that New Zealand has quite a neoliberal attitude when it comes to regulating these platforms. "I think they have this idea that it's best to leave it to market forces to work it out, but in the case of these platforms, I don't think that approach is the right one."LISTEN ABOVE

Understanding how our data is used on Data Privacy Day, Google has kicked off an information war about the News Media Bargaining Code - but they've also presented a solution, Tesla has unveiled the latest version of the Model S electric car, we review the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra smartphone, Norton releases new internet security for gamers, Ring launches its smallest and cheapest video doorbell and we'll answer your tech questions in the Tech Guide Help Desk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week's episode of The MadTech Podcast, ExchangeWire's Rachel Smith and Lindsay Rowntree discuss the latest news in ad tech and martech with ExchangeWire CEO, Ciaran O'Kane. In this session, they cover: WhatsApp decision to extend the deadline for its new privacy policy; the impact that Apple's ATT framework could have on Facebook's ad business; and the US's response to Australia's proposed News Media Bargaining Code.

The preferred method of advertising has shifted -- most advertisers spend their money online, rather than using traditional sources, like the print and broadcast media. After decades, of inaction, governments across the world are legislating to level the ground. The European Union's new copyright rules effectively allow publishers to charge a fee from online platforms that showcase their news articles. In November, Google had signed copyright agreements with six French newspapers and magazines. The Alphabet-owned company has also set aside over $1 billion over the next three years to pay news publishers for their content. The Australian government has taken this a bit further. It has introduced a legislation -- called the News Media Bargaining Code -- in the Parliament on Wednesday, which seeks to make tech giants pay for the news content on their feeds, or risk paying hefty fines. What is the legislation all about? Here's all you need to know. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/business-line/message

Gen talks to The Honourable Kevin Rudd about the monopoly that is the Murdoch empire, the News Media Bargaining Code and the News Royal Commission petition. In this episode, Gen and Mr. Rudd discuss: - Why news media diversity is so important - The power dynamic between Murdoch's media coverage, politics and public discourse - What you can do on a local level to propel media diversity in Australia - What does the code mean for the future of Australia and the rest of the world The News Royal Commission Petition closes on the 4th of November, sign and read more about the petition here. Follow Mr. Rudd on Instagram or Facebook. Mr. Rudd on the Media Bargaining Code Information on the ACCC Media Bargaining Code Sign up to the Young Diplomats Society FREE Career Chats Event on the 29th of October at 7:30pm FOLLOW US: Follow Global Questions on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for more content! Find more about Young Diplomats Society on our website. CREDITS: This episode is produced by Young Diplomats Society on the lands of the Wurundjeri/Gadigal people. We pay our respects to the traditional custodians of the lands upon which we operate and live.