Sharp Shooting: Hugh Marks’ lifeline after office romance, Guy’s court date clash
Hugh Marks’ new job at the ABC is a lifeline for the man but it’s his office romance controversies that’s got people talking.
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Hugh Marks’ new job at the ABC is a lifeline for the man who struggled to find work after leaving Nine in 2021 with the stench of office romance controversies clinging to him like horse apples to a Blundstone.
After taking a stab at consulting, initially with Tennis Australia for six months in 2021 and then at the NRL on the Rugby League Players Association Collective Bargaining Agreement (RLPA denied it employed him) in 2022 (both roles an extension of relationships he’d cultivated while at Nine when he had the honour of throwing huge sporting rights’ dollars at both), Marks launched a production company with fellow TV producer and nerd Carl Fennessy, formerly of Endemol Shine.
Called Dreamchaser, the company initially struggled to get projects off the ground following its 2022 launch.
One show it did manage to get up though, this year, was the parenting series The Role of a Lifetime, which was picked up by the ABC and may now create issues for Marks, wearing his producer’s hat, unless he recuses himself from the partly government-funded deal.
Marks’ record of achievement since 2021, the year after his office romance was discovered (by this writer, though Marks later dismissed our reports as “ridiculous gossip”), has been patchy at best.
The office romance revelations created enormous ructions within the Peter Costello-led Nine board and within six weeks both Marks and his girlfriend Lexi Baker, the company’s then managing director of commercial, resigned. The story dominated the media industry news cycle for weeks.
Four years on, it seems the ABC recruiters were banking on the nation having a Covid-hangover when they spearheaded Marks to the top of their ABC executive candidates’ list.
It turns out no one had forgotten the stink that followed Marks’ out the door at Nine, and also hadn’t forgotten that, separate to this, he was one of a series of Nine CEOs who presided over the culture of sexism, bullying and sexual harassment that also prevailed at the commercial broadcaster during his five-year tenure.
That culture was recently exposed in Nine’s damning organisation-wide culture review.
As it happens, the ABC also recently conducted its own culture review which found the organisation to be systemically racist.
A separate staff survey also found the news division to be a hotbed of bullying and, to a lesser degree, sexual harassment.
While this might constitute ”a good fit” in some people’s eyes, it doesn’t among some aggrieved ABC staff who this week didn’t know where to turn when they learned of Marks’ appointment to the role formerly held by ABC stalwart and steady-as-you-go MD David Anderson.
One enraged insider aptly described the appointment as “incomprehensible”
Another put words to what many were thinking: “If Hugh Marks was the answer, what on earth was the question?”
How widespread and rigorous could the search by head hunters have been if Marks was the top candidate?
Can the pool of executive talent in this country be so shallow as to render him “the best”? Cynics took a different view: If Marks could see no issue in romancing a subordinate between business trips and expeditions to the tennis in Melbourne, could see no problem picnicking with another subordinate, his female EA, in a Sydney park and never noticed the sexism, sexual harassment and bullying that was apparently rife at Nine, as he claimed this week, might he have the blind spot chairman Kim Williams needs at the ABC?
While ABC spruikers have been at pains to say Marks was not picked by the chairman, senior industry insiders are of the view Williams has been on the hunt for a suitable ‘yes man’ with whom he may carve up the onerous task that lies ahead.
His lofty mission, he has said, is to make the ABC the “reliable and compelling microphone and mirror to the nation”.
With his plan also to raise more funding from the public purse, it seems timely to remind Williams of Marks’ comments to a Senate Estimates hearing in 2016 when the Nine CEO expressed his opinion the ABC’s production budget was too high.
This, he said, was crowding commercial networks like Nine out of the market in some areas, notably children’s content, he added.
Williams has indicated he has hopes of making more children’s television.
No doubt that should prove a hot topic to kick off with when Marks gets his boots under his new desk come March.
Court date clash for Guy in 2025
In the second lot of shock news for Guy Sebastian in as many months, Sebastian’s former manager and one time close friend Titus Day had an interlocutory win in court last week, a result which could play havoc with Sebastian’s planned 2025 concert tour.
The singer stepped down from Seven’s The Voice in October, a month after a Seven rep shot down claims, reported elsewhere, that Sebastian had become a “total diva” on the set of the program.
A month later the singer exited the show after six years to, he said, concentrate on his music career.
What Sebastian neglected to mention was he is also due back in court on May 26 for his former manager’s embezzlement retrial, something expected to take between four and six weeks.
Day, who has long maintained his innocence, was initially convicted of defrauding Sebastian of $620,000 and jailed for a maximum of four years in 2022 but in 2023 was released after seven months after an appeals court found prosecutors made inappropriate comments to the jury in closing remarks.
Day’s convictions were quashed and a retrial date set for 2025.
Last week, Day managed to obtain a stay of his retrial until the NSW government repays $960,000 in legal fees owed to him for the botched trial.
The retrial date can’t proceed until the almost $1 million sum has been paid to Day and the NSW District Court has set January 15 as a deadline for payment for the retrial to proceed.
It’s news that could mean Sebastian, who separately is suing his former manager in the Civil Court – Day is countersuing for $1.2 million for commissions he claims were withheld – may have to reshuffle his concert tour next year – although that might not be much of an issue.
When this column checked the guysebastian.com site for his concert dates on Thursday, we found only one, June 4 in the UK at the Come Together Festival – which coincides with the opening days of the current retrial date.
Incredibly the same thing occurred n 2022 during the original trial when the singer, who tours infrequently, also found himself double booked.
Stevo’s departure sparks appointment talk
Still with Nine Media, word this week that Michael “Stevo” Stephenson, the company’s chief sales officer, has resigned has been widely interpreted as a sign Nine is poised to announce the appointment of a new CEO.
The man currently in the role as acting CEO, Matt Stanton, is tipped to formally step into the role vacated by Mike Sneesby last September.
Sources close to Stephenson say Nine’s long-time sales boss grew tired of being overlooked for the top job after putting his hand up for the CEO gig both in 2020 and this year.
Unfortunately for “Stevo”, who has been at Nine for 18 years, Nine’s recent culture review may impacted on his chances of becoming CEO.
Separate to the review, this reporter revealed in 2023 “Stevo” was involved with his former direct report Anna Quinn, Nine’s Group General Manager until December 2022.
Stephenson’s departure was announced on Wednesday although a comment from the veteran was strangely missing from the Nine press release.
Sources say relations have been tense between the two men for some months.
Not to worry, if our mail is correct, it won’t be long before Stephenson announces a new role in 2025.
Our sources predict he will move to radio company ARN as chief operating officer in the new year.
Originally published as Sharp Shooting: Hugh Marks’ lifeline after office romance, Guy’s court date clash
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