Greg Hywood: ‘ABC is creating additional pressure on commercial media’

I use google ads and I can tell you that since November 2016, my google adwords account now shows GST. Previously, it did not, and was billed to a SGD account offshore. Now, irrespective of what currency I pay in, GST reconciliation is taking place. I think Mr Hywood comments regarding tax exposure may be based on out of date information.

As to the degree to which a hypothetical Hilmerization cost has to be understood, I think Mr Hywood needs to be careful what he asks for. I suspect that the cost of compliance to levelize the field would not lead naturally to any net advantage to commercials, because I think the search engine outcomes are NOT directed to [ad] outcomes, but are natural google preference for news sources which are not paywalled: in short, whatever the ABC is paying for, it cannot augment the order of non paid ranking and overwhelmingly thats what people actually click on. I see ABC hits high in [paid] box like everyone else. They’re often the same hits as the non-paid ranked search return.

I think if Mr Hywood thinks he can cobble together a business case by stealing 10c per day of everyone, he has another think coming. He’s not in radio, or TV. The more he trys to justify his news role against a general public broadcaster, the worse it goes for him because the one thing he can’t do, is deliver the entire package the ABC and SBS can.

This old Chestnut. Does anyone — Fairfax and News included — seriously think their businesses would be in top top shape, and not going down the gurgler if only the ABC weren’t there? Patent nonsense.

Once again Hywood makes plain his utter ignorance of the market he operates in. Fairfax does not and cannot compete with global aggregation. It is not just futile but destructive to Fairfax that he does this. Yet this has been his approach all along. The fact that Domain exists is not a function of the size of the Fairfax aggregation. It is a function of the masthead/print subsidy – as TPG confirms – and the fact that the aggregators have not yet channeled themselves to sectoral categories.
It is now very clear that the Hywood/Catalano game is simply a wrestle over who gets dibs on the last chunks of bonus.

The Senator was not well informed when he compared the power of Google to “the Dutch East India Company in the 1800s”. The Dutch East India Company ceased operations in 1799. He had better refresh his recondite references.

The most important part from a business POV was when he was unable to say that Domain paid the mastheads anything at all at the moment for the services the mastheads provide to Domain.

Domain might pay the mastheads something, but if it was at an arm’s-length commercial rate surely Hywood would have said so.

He didn’t, so it isn’t.

Little wonder TPG decided they wanted the whole lot, not a Domain with a valuation pumped up by tricky accounting.

Think of the advertising. how much of the masthead advertising of property goes into the masthead p+l? thats the question. anf TPG clearly knows the answer because catalano told them to buy the mastheads.

Thank you!

The Murdoch Press has been in a race to the bottom of the Barrel for 25+ years swapping journalism for opinions, elitist propaganda and sensationalism. Here is a great story of how they put Journalism last and opinions, elitist propaganda and sensationalism first. And blatant lies too!

https://www.buzzfeed.com/robstott/how-a-false-rumour-about-julia-gillard-is-hurting-a-mental

Yes the industry is facing challenges but you can also call them opportunities too and attacking the ABC is not going to help in any way.

Drawing on my own previous experience, working with [edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy] executives on huge pay packets can also create commercial pressures.

The ABC whinge is a distraction. As is the government questioning on his pay. It’s a listed company, the board sets his pay not the taxpayer.

He does have a valid point on Google/Facebook and local taxation. The playing field is clearly not level for local businesses and the international tech companies.

Most government bureaucrats are unable to comprehend the scale or sophistication of these companies operations, so how can we expect the government to regulate them fairly?

sad to have the same murdoch lines proffered by fairfax. oh well, they were told.

When it comes to News they put one thing and only that thing first: $’s. The user, advertiser, even the majority of their staff can run and jump and seem to get treated very unfairly. Their rhetoric is seemingly designed to divide public opinion, so that certain ventures (mainly political and business related), can get promoted. It has been disgusting here, in The US (recent Fox News debacles is one of many examples) and The UK (Hillsborough, hacking a teenagers phone to name a few…). The rivers of gold (classifieds) have dried up from News. It would be great if their reach could dry up, do they have much anymore, other than what is promoted by associations, which News is apart of…? Hopefully it will because it certainly seems that they serve no purpose for the wider community, other than charging higher prices than most and returning lower value than most and of course, it would seem, that hateful speech is a regularity, against those who seem to plug a reasonable, progressive agenda. The question I ask is: Would the world be better off without companies like News Corp? If not, why not?

Does Greg Hywood have a computer science degree? Does anyone at Fairfax who makes decisions? If not sack the lot of them and bring in some decent tech brains to try to salvage the operation.

OR: Google could buy them?

Given circumstances I’m not overly surprised the CEO of Fairfax doesn’t understand the difference between SEO and SEM.

Greg is right, the ABC/SBS are driving commercial enterprises out of business, as part of a political motive to advantage left parties. The ABC/SBS has targeted all segments of news and current affairs that the commercial networks used to provide (e.g. 10.00 or 10.30 new services, superior quality current affairs compared with current output and so forth.). In 2016 the ABC devoted 43% of time to news and current affairs. 32% of staff were in news (all FY16 annual report data). And it gives it all for free. In addition it is over funded , and although not exactly like on like because ABC/SBS include their low cost radio and regional services, in FY16 the ABC/SBS accounted for 38% of all costs in TV land against the part regional and all metro TV networks.
The Govenrment should halve the ABC/SBS budgets-Pauline Hanson is on the right track.

well said, Roger Colman

I can’t believe the dickheads on here who routinely bag private enterprise media – talk about biting the hand that feeds.

I’m sorry, but where did this notion that only commercial entities have the dollar given right to deliver news. Both the ABC and SBS have an obligation to deliver news and current affairs. I mean, honestly, which would you rather watch 730 or ACA, 60 Minutes or 4 Corners? Plus the bonus is you don’t have to put up with crap ads, and as someone who spent thirty odd years in the industry I feel qualified to mention…

That buzzfeed article is about people reading a headline rather but not bothering to get the full story… Even if one of those people was Miranda Device, the only relevance to “the murdoch press” reportage is that the original “cute lil story” appeared in the Herald Sun and the article that debunked/clarified the rumour with Beyond Blue was from The Australian.