Annette Sharp: Testing times for Nine boss Hugh Marks
Inclined to deputise, delegate and retreat to focus on bigger picture issues Nine’s CEO Hugh Marks record for success has endured many ups and downs during his first four years in the job, Annette Sharp writes.
Opinion
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A barely recognisable Nine, sans the heavy weaponry that once made it unassailable — top-rating news, big- budget current affairs and cricket — has overcome a 12-year losing streak to claim the 2019 television ratings battle.
But the hard-fought win has come at high personal cost to Nine CEO Hugh Marks, whose two-decade-long marriage ended recently, as revealed here three weeks ago.
Marks celebrated four years in the CEO job, one he described as the “best in Australia”, last month.
They have been a test of the former lawyer-turned-numbers-man who has gained a reputation, despite his congeniality, for being ruthless when sizing up one of television’s sometimes most under-appreciated assets — its stars.
And there has been much change on Marks’s watch.
Inclined to deputise, delegate and retreat to focus on bigger picture issues — such as the acquisition of Fairfax last year — leaving his generals to manage the day-to-day business, Marks’s record for success has endured many ups and downs during his first four years in the job.
Here’s a look back at some of the CEO’s more public plays in an industry where your scorecard is always on display and under review.
November 2015: Marks succeeds former CEO David Gyngell in the role at Nine Entertainment Co.
December 2015: Marks applies the screws to Nine shareholder and longtime affiliate partner, WIN-TV’s Bruce Gordon, lifting licensing rights on Nine content and, after a six-month extension and a Federal Court action, sees off Nine’s regional partner of 30 years.
That same month he signs off on stalled contract negotiations with Today show host, Karl Stefanovic, and signs the star to a deal worth $3 million a year, after Marks’s predecessor Gyngell baulked at the sum.
January 2016: Marks presides over what becomes known as the “greatest misadventure” in 60 Minutes’ 37-year broadcasting history after the program’s bosses sign off on the “rescue” of Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner’s two children from Lebanon where they live with their father. 60 Minutes agrees to pay “$115k ($69k upfront)” to child recovery agent Adam Whittington to “snatch the kids, escape by water”. A crew of four 60 Minutes staff, led by veteran producer Stephen Rice and reporter Tara Brown, are assembled and later dispatched to Lebanon to cover the story.
April 2016: Four 60 Minutes crew members — including Rice and Brown — are arrested and imprisoned in Beirut over the botched kidnapping on April 7. Nine’s news director Darren Wick flies to Lebanon to meet with a Lebanese legal team to have the TV crew, facing upwards of three years in jail if found guilty, released. Nine pays the children’s father a rumoured $1 million to drop the charges, and its employees are released. Nine’s board signs off on an internal review, led by veteran 60 Minutes producer Gerald Stone, to determine who’s responsible.
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May 2016: Producer Rice is dismissed for his part in the rescue/kidnap. He later sues and wins a compensation payout reportedly worth $1 million from Nine. Five other Nine staff are “censured”. These include 60 Minutes’ executive producer Tom Malone — newly promoted to the role of Nine’s director of sport — and his replacement, Kirsty Thomson. Stone tells 60 Minutes Marks “acted unfairly” in sacking Rice.
June 2016: In financial year 2016 results, Nine reports Group earnings from continuing businesses of $202 million, down 7 per cent on 2015.
August 2016: Seven’s Olympic coverage from Rio delivers to Seven huge audiences of two million-plus viewers. Despite this, Nine lifts its audience share at the back end of the year and even claims the year in the metro market ratings for its perennial breakfast bridesmaid Today, with Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson at the helm.
April 2017: A Current Affair reporter Ben McCormack is arrested on child pornography charges and is suspended from work.
August 2017: Nine posts a $203 million loss for the 2017 financial year after winding up a loss-making content deal with Warner Bros.
October 2017: Protracted contract negotiations between Nine and Today star Wilkinson collapse and she goes to Ten’s The Project after failing in her attempt to win pay parity with her on-air counterpart, Stefanovic. Her departure proves a PR disaster for Nine and for Marks. Today’s ratings tumble over the following two years.
The following day, the host of Nine’s iconic The Footy Show, Paul Vautin, is let go via phone after 23 years with the network after management decides the program needs a freshen-up. Vautin takes a call from a middle manager — not Marks, not the head of sport — telling him he’s gone.
November 2017: Historic sexual harassment allegations are levelled at Nine’s retired TV gardener Don Burke, who was accused by 50 women of being bullied, harassed and indecently assaulted during the making of the show (which premiered in 1987 and wrapped in 2004).
December 2017: McCormack pleads guilty to two child porn charges, is convicted and placed on a three-year good behaviour bond. His employment at Nine ends.
January 2018: Georgie Gardner starts as Wilkinson’s replacement on Today.
February 2018: Erin Molan is cast as Vautin’s replacement on the new-look Footy Show.
March 2018: Nine secures the rights to the Australian Open Tennis in a five-year deal worth $300 million.
April 2018: Nine loses the cricket rights to rival joint bidders Seven and Fox Sports, ending a 40-year broadcasting tradition.
May 2018: Nine parts ways with cricket commentators, including Mark Taylor, Shane Warne and Michael Slater, but offers Bill Lawry and Ian Chappell “lifetime” contracts.
October 2018: The Footy Show reboot with Molan is cancelled due to lacklustre ratings.
December 2018: Stefanovic is let go from Today along with support cast including sports presenter Tim Gilbert and Nine reporter Peter Stefanovic. His wife, newsreader Sylvia Jeffreys, is moved aside while Richard Wilkins is demoted as Nine clears the decks and prepares to start again.
Nine announces a reboot of the AFL Footy Show in Melbourne but founding stars and regulars Eddie McGuire and Sam Newman will not be on it.
Nine acquires Fairfax Media and drops the historic name and the regional newspaper assets.
Into the bargain Marks picks up for Nine a 54.5 per cent stake in radio network Macquarie Media, under whose umbrella sits talkback stations 2GB, 3AW and 4BC. The deal takes place as Macquarie’s bosses are making plans to replace top-rating but controversial 2GB breakfast host Alan Jones with 2GB morning show host Ray Hadley. Hadley is given a whopping pay rise, put at $1.7 million, taking him to $4 million, to take over when Jones’s contract expires in June.
January 2019: Deb Knight replaces Stefanovic at Today.
February 2019: Nine launches new-look AFL Footy Show in southern states with Anthony Lehmann, Neroli Meadows, Brendan Fevola and Dylan Alcott hosting.
April 2019: As new bullying claims against Hadley are exposed by the media, 2GB disintegrates into rival factions. Jones, having learnt of management’s plan to dump him, recruits Marks and Nine’s powerful chairman Peter Costello to his cause to stay put. As a consequence, the cards are hastily reshuffled by Macquarie management.
Jones is to be re-signed on a new $4 million contract to 2021, and Hadley will keep his pay bump from June. Nights host Steve Price, who was also given a pay rise on the promise of succeeding Hadley on mornings, will also keep his pay rise.
May 2019: The AFL Footy Show and its all-new cast are axed.
July 2019: 2GB afternoon host Chris Smith leaves after being dropped from his show to accommodate Price.
August 2019: Jones loses the support of advertisers and management after offending
New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern with a comment that the Australian PM should “shove a sock down the her throat”.
September 2019: Macquarie’s departing chair Russell Tate writes to advertisers apologising for Jones’s comment as ad revenue plummets, wiping millions off Marks’s Macquarie balance sheet.
Marks is criticised for holding a Liberal Party fundraiser attended by PM Scott Morrison at its Sydney HQ raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Liberal Party, whose former treasurer chairs Nine’s board.
October 2019: Macquarie CEO Adam Lang departs following the realignment of executive roles. In Melbourne, 3AW operations manager Stephen Beers is pushed out. A month later, following the completion of Nine’s takeover of secondary shareholder interests, Nine’s newly appointed, but green, radio GM Tom Malone (who denied the appointment to the radio gig to this column months earlier) rehires Beers.
November 2019: Gardner and Knight are replaced as Today co-anchors by Stefanovic and Ali Langdon. Nine completes takeover of Macquarie Media radio network.
Nine’s head of PR confirms Marks has split with wife Gayle.
December 2019: Stefanovic launches legal action against The Sunday Telegraph without the knowledge of Marks, just a few weeks before the return of Today.
2GB’s new afternoons host Steve Price steps down after being dropped from his new show to make way for Deb Knight. Price rejects offer to return to nights. 2GB Money News host Ross Greenwood also walks after having his contract and obligations squeezed by Marks for 2020.
annette.sharp@news.com.au