The Kim Williams legacy: a lesson in who runs News
Friday’s departure of News Corp Australia’s Kim Williams came about because of his failure to master the internal politics of the company and by the collapse of sales revenues, writes Nic Christensen.
Among the legacies of the Williams years at News Corp may well be the passage of two phrases, “grin fucking” and “tummy compass”, into the Australian media lexicon.
Over the weekend, News’s arch rival Fairfax Media has had tremendous fun trawling over the details of the departure of the iconoclastic News CEO and indeed there are many stories about what happened and why Williams was left with no choice but to pull up stumps.
Mumbrella has spoken to many people inside the company over the last 48 hours, but perhaps one of the most succinct analyses came from a News Corp insider, who summed up Williams’s predicament this way: “You can piss off the editors or you can lose money, but you certainly can’t do both and think Rupert (Murdoch) will let you get away it.”
Is it my imagination or is appointing BCG the kiss of death?
best summary Ive seen to date, great piece Nic
Great article.
I for one hope that the newspaper bleeds revenue until they can act a bit more “fair and balanced” in their reporting. Deliberately polarising the nation in order to sell more papers is a short sighted and harmful stance. And one Australia doesn’t need or deserve.
Great piece Nic.
Lets see how long Fairfax keeps their management consultants – they are sending Greg H’s team crazy with their bungled roll outs.
I read an article recently that talked about Obama referring to Fox News as a “destructive force” in US life. I would personally apply a similar argument to the Daily Telegraph. It’s one thing to feature anti-government comment in the opinion section, but to selectively present news throughout the paper that strongly suits the editorial line is another thing entirely. It’s misleading. It’s a tactic that seems to have been borrowed from both Fox News and News’ British tabloids. I assume it is mostly for commercial/circulation (with a touch of ideology thrown in) reasons rather than the various conspiracy theories. Not sure if it is working for them though. I miss the days when the Tele was more about celebrity stories, bikini girls, humour and various other bits of mass market fluff. Under Paul Whittaker it is all about rabid and one-sided political campaigning.
Channel 9 should make a mini-series out of the Holt St shenanigans over the years. Maybe next version of ‘Underbelly’, sub-titled ‘Grin F**cking’.
Like most papers News Ltd’s papers are still losing readers and this may been the last nail in Williams’ coffin; refer latest ABC data from May – http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/.....ls-falter/.
Unfortunately for hywood, the management consultants at fairfax are a lot better at fixing the company than him, and the board are well aware of that. Watch this space….
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Tim Elliott told the story on Saturday of how Williams began his stint as CEO lecturing the newspaper editors on how they had for too long relied on “feeling” and not on hard data.
He reportedly told the editors there would be no more relying on gut instinct, somewhat bizarrely declaring an end to what Williams reportedly labelled: “the Royal Order of the Tummy Compass”.
Basically, they rely on Truthiness, a term created by Stephen Colbert. And as The Colbert Report is a parody of The O’Reilly Factor, which is on Fox News, which is owned by NewsCorp, who also owns News Australia, why is any of this surprising?
Laters – you’re a joke. The Fairfax board are a disgrace – and every single person in Fairfax knows it. How about that shareprice Fairfax boardmembers?
Not one of those individuals is brave enough to stand up to Corbett and his antiquated positions. Greg Hywood has done more for this company in 3 years than many other media CEOs have managed.
If News Corp and Fairfax both claim declines in print advertising revenue greater than the industry average, where’s print ad revenue going?
best piece written on WIlliams’ departure, great job, Nic
I challenge that his characteristic round framed glasses were the real cause of his undoing. No rough and tumble Aussie hack likes round glasses on blokes.
@ dibbyknob
Sounds like you’re one of Hywood’s mis-informed cronies. And the tanking share price has nothing to do with the Ceo? Better hope I’m wrong but unfortunately for you and him the wheels are in motion.
Laters,
You are a prize pillock. Having worked at FXJ and others over the years I have seen hundreds of these consultants come and go. PWC, McKinsey, Bain. It’s all the same.
One question. How many of these “consultants” see through their recommendations? And how often do they take responsibility for that?
Consultants DO have the advantage of being able to see through the internal BS. But at the end of the day they are all care and no repsonsibility.
After all, if these consultants were any good they would have fixed fairfax after being camped there (in various iterations) for the last 20 years?
Or is 20 years not long enough?
Dear ‘Nath’,
On what date did this mysterious requirement for newspapers to be ‘fair and balanced’ begin?
Newspapers through their history have always endorsed or opposed political candidates in every western democracy. It is an important part of the democratic apparatus.
I seriously suggest you go back to school and learn about the important role newspaper endorsements and opposition to political candidates and or parties has provided.
It’ll take you 5 minutes on the Internet to track down endorsements or otherwise of scores of high profile newspapers. Here’s the record for just one newspaper, The New York Times – http://www.nytimes.com/interac.....eline.html
It’s funny how we never heard any of this hysterical and stupid ‘bias’ whining from the Labor apologists when Murdoch endorsed Rudd last time around.
Nothing worse in this world than hypocrites.
For the record, I don’t like either Rudd or Abbott but this is not a personality or popularity contest, it’s an election for the Government of our country and the sooner people stop listening to political (not media) dogma, the better we’ll all be.
Both News and Fairfax have obvious financial problems and obvious inability to do anything about them. News has an ageing “proprietor” and Fairfax has an ageing grocer in charge. It seems evident that the CEO roles in both are now merely a window into the lack of direction and sense of purpose in both. What is blatantly obvious is the standard of product. They both are miserable and standards are falling in a market where the real is issue is rising competition.
If nothing changes, these two will be the ageing drunks on the street corner, belting each other ineffectually as the community looks in bemused indifference.
I have to wonder if anyone has spoken to the people at Foxtel who worked under Williams versus the executive post his departure. Be interesting to understand the view of Williams and that company’s change post Williams, from “within the walls”.
Like McKinsey and then BCG at NAB.
Been in there forever, and all that has happened is the bank has sunk to the bottom of the pack
Hi Nic – I, like many others who have provided feedback, enjoyed your well-written piece. But I have to say I’m bemused by the anecdote about Kim telling me to ‘get off the f…ing bus’. It never happened. Kim and I never had a terse word to one another. I never had a disagreement with him about anything, including merging the newsrooms.
I had robust disagreements with others about many things, including aspects of the merger, but this one has me baffled. It is also a story no-one has repeated to me or ever asked me about. I do believe what you say in your piece about it being told, as many things are being said about what’s going on at News. Some are true, some aren’t.
Regards,
Neil Breen
(Time updated so comment appears in sequence)
Hi Neil,
I’ll email you as well, but in a public forum, I wanted to apologise for not getting your response to the “get off the bus” story.
As I said in the piece, that story did go widely around News and came from multiple staff across various parts of the company. On that basis I took them to be true.
However, on reflection, I should have I checked it with you. This was a oversight on my part and I’ve posted an update in the story to reflect and draw readers attention to your comments.
I appreciate you clarifying.
Cheers
Nic – Mumbrella
Whilst there are elements of your story that are likely true, you are ill-informed as you again repeat the messages of various unnamed senior advertising executives of the collapse in ad revenues – given that News (and Fairfax) are the market, who is holding the sector up? Sadly perpetuating this myth serves the agendas of narrow minded and beady eyed little men who are working to protect their fiefdoms (editorial) or yearn for their return (the various unnamed advertising sources). PS Incidentally, collapse is not true – decline is.
I LOVE it!
Folks at newspapers can’t figure why they are declining.
There have been many great eras – the era of steam, the era of the railroads, the era of trans-oceanic liners.
Whatever happened to those expensive investment newsletters that were delivered by Telex, huh?
Gone.
All gone.
And so, news and information is collected digitally, manipulated digitally, massaged and enhanced AND THEN PRINTED IN INK ONTO PAPER AND LOADED ONTO TRUCKS AND DRIVEN TO ALL CORNERS OF THE STATE – TO BE THROWN OFF ONTO THE FOOTPATH, WHERE VENDORS COLLECT THEM AND PEOPLE HAVE TO TRAVEL TO THE SHOP TO BUY THEM.
Where does this distribution model seem odd?
Newspapers are where television would be if there was only VHS at the shop and no broadcast over-the-air.
Like a man jumping off a hundred storey building; as he passes floor 95 he can truthfully say “I’m not dead”.
As he passes the thirtieth floor he can truthfully say “I’m not dead”…
But, you know what?
He’s dead.
Just not yet.
But inevitable.
Newspapers, who buys ’em? I don’t, my kids don’t, their friends don’t.
THAT’S why they are declining.
I cannot understand some of the credulous praise on this thread particularly from someone like Neil Breen who should know better. It’s a round-up of articles in News and Fairfax papers days after the fact. I think some of the journalists behind the mammoth endeavours in the weekend papers might have a copyright issue.
Hi Are We For Real,
Allow me to come to Nic’s defence. You’re wrong.
This is a piece Nic began to work his sources on, on Friday, as soon as it happened. He filed a first draft to me on Saturday and continued to work on it across the weekend. We held off on posting until Monday when News had been given the opportunity to comment on the claim that News Corp has seen a 40 per cent drop in revenue. That has been thus far unreported.
Our view is that where other interesting pieces are carried, we acknowledge and link to them for the readers’ benefit (I know the linking to the outside world is not something always done by traditional titles – I see you’re posting from a News Corp IP address)
We were very clear that two of the most colourful lines “grin fucking” and “tummy compass” came from the Tim Elliott’s SMH story. As previously has been reported elsewhere, Tim Elliott had already been working on a profile of Kim Williams for Good Weekend. Clearly this material paid off in a big way.
But the analysis and insight is entirely Nic’s own. He was sharing it in media interviews from Friday afternoon onwards, long before those other articles appeared.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
I have bought daily newspapers for 40 years.Suddenly I decided to help my bottom line and save $600 per year,thanks to the opinionated journalism appearing in the
West Australian and Sunday Times in Perth.When you piss off 40% of your readers and therefore your revenue,as you sow,so shall you reap.
Dave.