‘Appropriate diversity’ key to Aunty’s voice tracker

Some ABC staff see strong similarities between the tracker and previous events such as elections in the past.

There has been plenty of internal chatter at the ABC about its internal “content tracker” for stories about the voice referendum.

Many staff believe the ABC’s tracker has been primarily created to deal with the sort of blowback that managing director David Anderson has routinely faced on similar issues during his high-profile Senate Estimates hearings, which invariably make headlines. The feeling is that an ABC voice story could easily be the subject of a tough question from the likes of Liberal senator Sarah Henderson in Estimates.

The tracker has been ostensibly created to ensure a balanced position by the public broadcaster in stories about the voice.

ABC managing director David Anderson.

A spreadsheet provided to staff to account for their voice reporting has a comprehensive list of issues for producers and journalists to report on. Sub-headings include “story”, “name of the speaker”; “date of the broadcast”; “is this speaker Indigenous?”; “Where does the speaker live?”; “status of speaker”; “position on the voice”; and “duration of what they’ve said”.

In a “Frequently Asked Questions” section sent to staff which deals with the “purpose of the tracker”, staff have been told that it is designed “to provide timely feedback on our coverage (of the voice), which will assist with presenting an appropriate diversity of voices and perspectives”.

But it also quickly clarifies: “The purpose is not to enforce a perfect 50-50 representative of each position.”

The section “where does the speaker live” is designed to “monitor the geographic spread of talent,” staff have been told. “We are also asking you to record where speakers reside.”

Some ABC staff see strong similarities between the tracker and previous similar tools used on major news events such as elections in the past.

And with coverage of the voice likely to only become a more, and not less, controversial issue in the lead-up to the referendum this year, there appears to be a hypersensitivity internally to ensuring the ABC gets it right.

Voice referendum may decide Q+A’s fate at ABC

It would be an understatement to say it has been an eventful week for the ABC’s flagship panel show, Q+A.

Hot on the heels of last Monday’s announcement that host Stan Grant won’t be returning to the show after taking leave this year, the show’s executive producer Erin Vincent revealed she was also leaving.

Vincent has taken up a job as CEO of the Melbourne-based Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas – an organisation that is, interestingly, chaired by the ABC’s former news boss, Kate Torney.

Stan Grant. Picture: Noah Yim

But Diary is told it would be wrong to say that the departure of Grant has played any role in Vincent’s departure. Vincent was apparently a key candidate in the search process to decide the next CEO for the Wheeler Centre well before the Grant announcement, and had always intended to leave if she got the job. So the timing of her departure last week is said to be a coincidence.

With Patricia Karvelas also revealed as the host of the show until at least the end of the year following Grant’s departure, Q+A returned from a short recess last Monday night with slightly improved ratings of 216,000 viewers across the five capital cities.

What the ABC does with Q+A in 2024 could now hinge largely on whether the show becomes a national town hall for debate in the lead-up to the voice referendum in the last quarter of the year. While the 216,000 five-city number is up a bit on numbers earlier in the year which dipped below the 200,000 mark – after it returned to its traditional Monday 9.35pm slot at the start of the year – it is believed ABC bosses would like to see more hard evidence that it is cutting through with viewers.

The first test of Q+A’s influence on the national conversation about the voice will come in the next week. The ABC’s voice correspondent and The Drum co-presenter Dan Bourchier will host a special edition of Q+A from the Garma Festival in remote north-east Arnhem Land, with the episode to be recorded on Saturday. The all-Indigenous panel is still being finalised, but is so far said to include Noel Pearson, NT Labor senator Malarndirri McCarthy, and “no” case leadership group member Warren Mundine. The recording will include an unticketed audience, basically made up of whoever in northeast Arnhem Land wants to attend.

Next Sunday, David Speers will also host Insiders from Garma, featuring an all-Indigenous panel of journalists.

In coming months, we’re told that Karvelas will host plenty of debate between “yes” and “no” case advocates on Q+A, as was witnessed last Monday: when Indigenous filmmaker Rachel Perkins, the co-chair of Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition, debated prominent voice opponent, former deputy PM Barnaby Joyce.

At one point, the largely pro-voice Q+A audience on Monday became rowdy, with Karvelas forced to intervene to tell them to be “respectful” to Joyce when they booed him after he described the referendum as “one of the most divisive things that has come into my (regional) area”.

All options are on the table in 2024 for Q+A: a continuation as normal on Monday nights if it resonates during the voice debate; a possible “rest” period for some months to refresh the show, or; even cancellation if it fails to achieve cut-through.

Miles disappears as Palaszczuk’s attack poodle

To coin a good old fashioned Australian tourism slogan, where the bloody hell is Steven Miles?

Political pundits in Queensland haven’t missed the fact that the number of the Queensland Deputy Premier’s media appearances has literally fallen off a cliff in 2023, as his boss Annastacia Palaszczuk’s polling flounders amid crisis after crisis.

And now Diary has the proof – with research proving that Miles’ media profile has literally vanished over the past year.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles. Picture: Liam Kidston.

A couple of years back, it was hard to avoid Miles, the premier-in-waiting affectionately known in Queensland political circles as “Giggles”. Who could forget his now-infamous Labour Day speech to union members in May 2021, when he described then-prime minister Scott Morrison as a “c---” – to the loud applause of those present. (Miles was later adamant that he had “stuttered” in uttering the word, and had meant to say “contrast”).

For years, the Premier’s office consistently paraded Miles in front of the media for some of its most difficult-to-defend stories, most notably the fiasco of the mothballed Wellcamp quarantine facility: built at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, but now a $223m white elephant.

This is in stark contrast to Palaszczuk’s growing reputation as the Minister for Good News with her public press conferences, which are dominated by the likes of continuous announcements about the 2032 Olympics, free flu jabs, free kindergarten for kids, and, of course, photo opportunities with Queensland State of Origin stars.

But now the word around the deputy premier’s digs at 1 William St, Brisbane, is that Miles has finally had enough of being the fall guy for the state government’s worst pratfalls – and has drawn the line.

Research performed for Diary by media monitoring group Streem bears that out. The numbers show that Miles’ media appearances have collapsed over a 12-month period to last week – with a halving of the deputy premier’s average daily media mentions during the period.

For the month from July 20 to August 19 last year, Miles had accumulated a substantial 639 media mentions across Queensland TV, print, radio and online, or an average of 21 mentions per day. But for the month from June 26 to July 25 this year, Miles’ profile had sunk, with just 328 mentions in the Queensland media, or 11 a day.

What makes his dramatic fall in media presence even more remarkable is that the past month’s figures include two weeks where he was elevated to Queensland’s acting premier.

Insiders say the huge collapse in Miles’s media presence is down to the man himself. Diary is reliably informed that internal polling by Labor’s left faction which Miles leads in Queensland found that all the bad news was threatening his hopes of ever becoming premier.

So the word is that Miles has finally had enough of his personal standing among voters being trashed, while his boss has fronted the most positive news stories and famously swanned off to a host of red carpet events.

Miles apparently sees having to be the face of many of the Palaszczuk government’s failings on health, youth justice, the housing crisis and waste has done nothing for his once-certain future destiny of becoming premier.

When he did pop up as acting premier this month – while Palaszczuk was on a “trade mission” to Asia – it was a very different Miles who re-emerged for now-rare public appearances, including some press conferences and an interview on Seven’s Sunrise.

Political pundits noticed a much more serious and authoritative Miles, seemingly shedding his reputation as the government’s chief attack poodle to give respectful and considered answers to journalists’ questions. And from what key Labor sources are privately saying, the new Steven Miles is here to stay.

Seven and Nine’s Logies ‘argy bargy’

The Logies may be over for another year – but it wouldn’t be TV’s night of nights without the annual backroom squabbles between the big dogs of the commercial TV sector, Seven and Nine.

Seven, of course, this year snatched the host broadcasting rights for the Logies from Nine, and it seems there may be lingering tensions between the networks over the hostile takeover.

Diary is reliably informed that Nine was initially peeved a few weeks back when its stars had a very thin representation on an initial draft list of Logies presenters on the night at Sydney’s The Star casino. We’re told that at one point, only two Nine presenters – Love Island host

Sophie Monk.

Sophie Monk and one mystery talent – were pencilled in to present Logies.

Nine executives took note of the fact that Monk was seen as an acceptable presenter by Seven, given that she got her original break in television through her successful appearance on the Seven reality TV show Popstars.

Nine was said to be unimpressed by the lack of its other talent on the initial Logies presenters’ list.

Irritated calls are said to have been made by high-level Nine television executives to their counterparts at Seven about the network’s poor representation on TV’s night of nights. One source calls it “the usual argy bargy” of Logies politics.

Whatever was said in the phone calls, it seems to have worked, with a cold war between the Seven and Nine tables on the night averted.

By the time the Logies came around on Sunday, no less than five Nine presenters, including Today co-host Karl Stefanovic, Under Investigation host Liz Hayes and Monk, were allowed to present awards. “We’re all friends again now,” was how one executive put it last week.

‘Suck that up!’: Bolt’s tirade to Turnbull

It’s not often that an ex-prime minister plays a direct role in influencing contract negotiations for big-name media personalities.

But that’s exactly what happened last week with star Sky News presenter Andrew Bolt, when Malcolm Turnbull published a scathing article – co-authored with former ACTU president Sharan Burrow – in online news site The Guardian about Sky.

Turnbull claimed in the piece on Tuesday that Sky presenters were specialising in “angertainment” in relation to the voice, and that a new channel launched last week on Sky risked becoming a “factory for misinformation” about the upcoming referendum’s “yes” case.

The former Liberal PM repeated his allegations in an interview with Patricia Karvelas the next morning, on Radio National’s breakfast program.

Turnbull’s comments on radio were the final straw to motivate Bolt into making an extraordinary move on his eponymous show on Wednesday night: live texting his acceptance of a new two-year deal to his bosses at Sky.

Andrew Bolt.

Malcolm Turnbull.

Bolt revealed live-to-air that he had been “agonising” for a fortnight over whether to accept a new contract with Sky. “It’s an old story: I wanted to retire years ago, and every year it’s the same old stupid agonising, the Nellie Melba kind of thing. And I haven’t known my mind.”

But Bolt noted that Turnbull’s words to Karvelas that morning had a magical effect on his powers of decision making.

“Now that Turnbull’s done this, I’ll tell you what: you’ve inspired me – and I’m going to send Boris (Sky News CEO Paul Whittaker), my boss, a text,” Bolt said live-to-air as he turned to his phone. “Make it one year more. No, no – make it two years, just to get Turnbull really upset, make it two years. And send.”

Before Bolt let the subject of his contract renewal go, he had one more message for the former PM. “There you go Malcolm – you’ve got two more years of me to complain about. Suck that up!”

Bolt has since shared with Diary proof that he did indeed send his job acceptance message to the Sky CEO while he was on-air that night, just under 10 minutes into his show at 7.09pm.

His message to Whittaker was unequivocal: “I am sorry to have agonised for so long. Make it two years.”

Media’s monopoly buster walks away

The monopoly buster of media monitoring is walking away. Elgar Welch is departing as CEO of Streem, the media-tech business he founded, grew and finally sold last year.

Streem was acquired by US giant Cision in an all-cash deal believed to be worth just under $50m in April 2022, less than five years after the firm was founded.

In that period, Streem managed to snatch large swathes of the corporate and government client base of the-then dominant media monitoring player, ISentia.

Former ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel. Picture: AAP

Streem’s entry had a dramatic impact on the listed ISentia’s share price, which fell from a healthy $2.86 a share when Streem entered the market early in 2017 to just 17 cents a share by the time it was taken over by UK-based Access Intelligence and delisted in 2021.

But the rise of Streem was a boon for some of its high-profile early shareholders, including rugby great John Eales and another monopoly buster, ex-ACCC chair Graeme Samuel, who are said to have made multiples of their original investment back.

Welch is understood to have been on a luxury yacht in Croatia with key advisers in recent weeks to map out his two future career options: whether to take on a global role at Cision that has apparently been on offer, or find another entrepreneurial start-up.