BotW: Can Molloy win over Sydneysiders from 700km away?; TikTok boom; Iger re-enters Disney’s Who-niverse
Welcome to Best of the Week, mostly written on Friday afternoon, and completed on a beautiful Saturday at Sisters Beach, Tasmania, after an early morning for the underwhelming England vs USA World Cup match.
SBS has been doing some big numbers in the soccer, particularly via streaming. The metro audience of 439,000 for Argentina-Saudi Arabia was overtaken by the video-on-demand audience of 632,000. I wonder whether the existence of a free stream has attracted the attention of global soccer fans with a VPN.
Today: TikTok’s huge local revenues; A Melburnian for Sydney radio, again; Why the Disney ructions matter; and the Friendly Jordies firebombing.
Happy Small Business Saturday. Today’s writing soundtrack: David Bowie – Divine Symmetry.
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Taking the Mick?
Many years ago, I discovered my short lived broadcasting career was at an end when I turned up to present my Dubai radio show and the security card no longer worked.
Yesterday Chris Page did his final shift on Southern Cross Austereo’s Triple M Sydney. Starting his final breakfast show, he exulted: “My swipe card worked. Do you ever get to work and hold up the card a bit nervously?”
He wasn’t the only one to get a nervous flutter yesterday. Imagine the heart attacks from executives during Page’s 9am sign-off when they heard the words: “I’m going to read out a list of high profile paedophiles…” It was a joke, but I wish we could have seen his bosses’ faces at that point.
This coming week is when every Australian radio presenter, no matter how well they’ve been rating, experiences an elevated heart beat when they swipe that card. We’re entering the final week of the ratings year, and the 2023 radio lineup announcements are coming daily.
On Thursday, Triple M axed its Sydney breakfast show. That wasn’t a surprise. The MG, Jess & Pagey show – featuring Mark Geyer, Jess Eva and Page – has been limping since the acrimonious departure of Lawrence Mooney a year ago.
In the most recent set of ratings, the show was pushed down into bottom FM commercial slot, overtaken by stablemate 2Day FM’s Hughesy Ed & Erin. The listening share of 3.7% amounts to an average of just 31,000 listeners. For SCA, once Australia’s greatest radio company in its pre-merger Austereo days, having the bottom two FM breakfast shows in the country’s biggest market cannot go unaddressed.
A couple of hours after the show ended, we found out the replacement.
It’s radio royalty – Mick Molloy. Make that Melbourne radio royalty. And that’s one of two big issues around Molloy’s appointment.
Molloy was one of the greats of the Austereo days, but always from a Melbourne base, even with nationally networked shows. The legendary Martin / Molloy show, with Tony Martin, was huge. And the Triple M drivetime show he did from Melbourne with Jane Kennedy was formidable too.
When Molloy previously did Triple M breakfast, it was part of the Eddie McGuire-led Hot Breakfast ensemble for the Melbourne audience.
And Molloy was not on it for the whole show. Although it started at 6, Molloy’s contract allowed him to start at the more civilised hour of 7am.
Which raises two questions.
Will Molloy, a Melbournian who presents The Front Bar for Seven during AFL season, actually move to Sydney to present the radio show, which pairs him with Geyer?
And will he skip the first hour as he used to for Hot Breakfast?
The orthodoxy of breakfast radio is that it must be live and local.
Triple M’s spokesperson was not particularly forthcoming about time or location, when I asked the question via email, yesterday:
“I can confirm that the show will be airing 6am-9am.”
Back-and-forth, I followed up: “For avoidance of misunderstanding, are you saying that Mick will join the show from 6am each day? Also, in case you missed my follow up question, will he be doing it from Melbourne?:
“We will have more details about how the show will run in the new year.”
I kept trying: “So there are no surprises, I’ll be writing tomorrow that my guess is that he’ll do 7 or 7.30-9, from Melbourne. But tell me I’m barking up the wrong tree by all means!”
“Barking up the wrong tree 😊”
“So on the record that he starts at 6?,” I asked.
“As I said, we will have more details about how the show will run in the new year.”
That’s the sort of contractual stuff that will have been already locked in. You can form your own view why SCA doesn’t want to talk about it.
It’s a familiar pattern. SCA tap danced around the Melbourne-based Em Rusciano and Harley Breen who never did come to NSW for their short lived 2DayFM Sydney breakfast show. And comedian Dave Hughes spent months promising to move to Sydney for his current show. I’m not entirely sure if he’s even fully made the move now.
The dilemma for programming executives is that the most in-demand on air talent get to set their own boundaries and take on side gigs. Or sometimes radio is the side gig.
The ultimate case of boundary setting was Hamish Blake and Andy Lee choosing to move away from the demands of daily radio altogether despite having the number one drivetime show for SCA at the time. Their weekly podcast was the compromise, although it’s now the backbone of SCA’s Listnr.
No matter how well it pays, it’s relatively unusual for a radio network to get the undivided attention of its biggest stars. Just look at Kiis FM’s Kyle Sandilands (Australian Idol) and Jackie Henderson (The Masked Singer).
At SCA, Eddie McGuire famously juggled his TV and radio commitments, which eventually caught up with him when he made his oafish comparison of Adam Goodes to King Kong and later blamed exhaustion. And that came after a warning. Under previous management, programming director Jeff Allis once publicly stated “We will invest in people who put Triple M number one in their list of priorities, not fourth.”
I’m not sure that’s the pragmatic view any more.
Over the last few years, Carrie Bickmore and Tommy Little often prerecorded their drivetime show for Hit network because of commitments to Ten’s The Project.
Sometimes, radio executives have to make a less than perfect choice in order to get the talent they want. We’ll find out in a couple of months how much of a priority Triple M is to Molloy.
Bob is back
This week’s return of Bob Iger to Disney after three years away is fascinating. He’s had a far greater impact on the media we consume in Australia than you might realise.
Iger is a transformative deal maker, who spots the way the media world is evolving, figures out strategic targets who might not even be planning on selling, then makes the acquisition work.
When Disney’s animation fell behind, he persuaded Steve Jobs to sell digital animation house Pixar (the home of Toy Story). Pixar thrived and its executives helped turn around Disney’s animation unit too.
Iger played the long game with George Lucas, and the Star Wars franchise is now something which will outlive its creator.
Iger was also the executive who saw the potential of acquiring comic book company Marvel. Disney invested heavily in creating what is now the Marvel Cinematic Universe and beforehand was little more on the screen than Iron Man.
And one of his final acts before he departed Disney last time round was to persuade Rupert Murdoch to sell 21st Century Fox, sealing Disney’s place as the biggest Hollywood and television force, and providing the firepower needed for the launch of Disney+. At some point it will likely overtake Netflix as the world’s biggest streaming platform.
Disney’s deal with the BBC over Doctor Who is starting to look like something from the Iger playbook, even if it was put together while he was away. This morning it is being reported in the UK that there will be a string of spin-offs featuring Doctor Who adversaries. Call it the Who-niverse, if you like.
The decision of the Disney board to sack Bob Chapek and bring back Iger is yet to be explained. Watch Iger closely. He makes big deals, and when he does they point to the future direction of the media.
Fire fight
I’ve previously written about commentator Jordan Shanks, who runs the Friendly Jordies YouTube channel. I’m no fan. He often punches down, targeting relatively junior journalists working for mainstream publications while using their work as source information. But he also takes on big political and societal targets who do deserve it.
This week his home was firebombed, most likely because of his work which, like it or not, is a form of journalism.
I’ve been surprised how little outrage there’s been from mainstream media sources.
An attack on a media worker – even when who’s a bit of an asshole – is an attack on Australia’s democracy. It deserves to be loudly, unequivocally condemned.
Tech boom ends, except for TikTok
There a feature in this morning’s Australian Financial Review which is worth a read. Mark Di Stefano explores whether most of the the giant digital platforms have passed their peaks.
The exception is TikTok, with 9m monthly active users locally. He reports that TikTok’s Australian advertising revenues – $75m in the last calendar year – are on course to multiply by five this year. That would amount to nearly $400m. And the company is targeting a further doubling next year.
That means the platform is already a major local player, probably on target to be top three.
Unmade Index: SCA leads upwards
Southern Cross Austereo dragged the Unmade Index narrowly into positive territory yesterday, despite most locally listed media and marketing stocks declining.
While the index was up by 0.13%, SCA was up by 5.19%. It’s unlikely the growth was sentiment around Mick Molloy’s new show. Most of the growth came before yesterday’s mid morning announcement.
SCA’s share price has now risen by 20% in the last fortnight. Sentiment around SCA has changed somewhere.
Time to let you go about your Saturday. I’ve a date with a cafe and a big pile of newspapers.
We’ll be back with the Start the Week podcast on Monday.
Have a great weekend.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
tim@unmade.media
