Australia Post has been pilloried about giving bonuses to staff in the form of Cartier watches worth $5000 or so. But maybe postie-in-chief Christine Holgate should have taken instruction from her fellow government-owned mates at the ABC on how best to award bonuses.
The ABC’s lesson to Holgate? Reward your staff in cold hard cash — and no one will bat an eyelid.
Diary has taken a look at a table in the just-released ABC 2019/20 annual report titled “other highly paid staff remuneration” — a category we’re told features a significant number of high-profile on-air TV and radio personalities.
We’ve discovered that in the category of those earning between $370,000 and $395,000 a year (taking in three lucky staff), bonus time was a bonanza. The “average bonuses” in that bracket, the report says, were $18,133 each. That’s more than three Cartiers. Eat your heart out, AusPost!
In the next salary bracket up at the ABC, the bonuses aren’t quite as big — but still more than a Cartier’s worth. The $395,000-$420,000 a year range featured no less than six staff, and they received bonuses averaging $8750 each.
A further six staff in the $320,000-$345,000 salary bracket got about a Cartier’s worth of bonus each: an average of $5333.
But spare a thought for the three ABC types in the highest salary category for “other” staff _— the $470,000-$495,000 range. In the last year, they’ve averaged a paltry $1333 in bonuses.
Aunty’s ‘performance and rewards adviser’
On the subject of those generous ABC bonuses, it seems they won’t be going away any time soon.
A new job has quietly popped up on the public broadcaster’s careers site: Aunty is looking for “performance and reward adviser”.
Yes, folks, after laying off 200-odd staff in brutal cuts, there still remains room in the ABC’s budget for a perks consultant.
And the allocation of “rewards” for staff will apparently be a pivotal part of the new job, who will have to prepare remuneration spreadsheets for annual salary and bonus reviews.
The successful candidate won’t be the ABC’s only bonus-booster. He or she will report to the “head of recruitment, performance and reward”.
What ABC news boss really said on ‘elites’
Much was made last week of alleged comments by ABC news and current affairs boss Gaven Morris in internal meetings with staff, where internal sources claimed he said Aunty’s journalists were too preoccupied with the interests of “inner city left-wing elites”.
But through Diary, Morris now wants to set the record straight.
He tells us the “elites” comments have been taken significantly out of context. His real point to ABC staff is for them to make sure they don’t give oxygen to any critics who claim it is the network of inner-city elites.
“I was trying to say to our staff: ‘Don’t let our critics paint us into a corner. Our critics call us inner-city elites, and our antidote to that is to appeal to all Australians’.”
Morris’s reasoning for this point of view is uncontroversial. “Every taxpayer puts a hand in their pocket to pay for the ABC. The question we need to be asking ourselves is: ‘Are we able to provide a service for all of them?’ We need to be able to look all Australians in the eye, and say we think we’ve got a great news service here, and great insights into Australia.”
He says it is important to ensure the ABC’s appeal is as broad as possible. Morris believes that more needs to be done to appeal to ABC viewers in two broad areas. “The outer suburbs of the cities and the big regional cities, which in turn have big areas of suburbs in them.”
But he quickly adds: “I’m not arguing that we should lose the inner city. We want to hang on to them, and be just as relevant in their lives. But we also need to expand to people who don’t use the ABC as much.”
Morris says he believes there has in the past been a form of “old- fashioned snobbery” on the subject among some staff, with questioning on why it wouldn’t leave the outer suburbs to “Seven or Nine”.
“They think it’s cheapening our brand,” Morris says. “But this is not about going tabloid or going down market. This is about appealing to smart, intelligent people in the outer suburbs and the big regional cities.”
Combet defends $15m Industry Super ads
In recent months, Greg Combet has been the face of some of Industry Super’s near-unavoidable “We’re all in this together” ads — even making the group’s diamond symbol with his hands. But could Industry Super ads be about to become an endangered species?
Australia’s financial services regulator APRA revealed in last week’s Senate Estimates that change is coming to the way it will police super fund spending on marketing, and Combet’s ads are in its crosshairs.
APRA’s deputy chair Helen Rowell surprised many by saying there’d be “heightened scrutiny” of the “value and benefit” of such campaigns, in reply to a grilling from Coalition NSW senator Andrew Bragg about Industry Super’s multimillion-dollar ad spend.
“The sort of campaign you’re referring to is the sort of arrangement that we think does need heightened scrutiny — and we are working to do that,” Rowell admitted.
Industry Super, essentially an umbrella marketing group for the country’s 15 union-backed super funds, has for years been one of the big prime-time TV advertisers.
But just how big is surprising. Industry Super’s total spend on ads, marketing, PR, government relations, staff costs, modelling and research each year is $23m. Insiders tell Diary up to $15m of its annual budget is spent on promoting itself in ads — mostly on prime time TV.
The ubiquitous diamond symbol was hard to miss in the AFL grand final, with multiple Industry Super-branded ads during the game.
When we caught up with Bragg last week, he took aim at the ads fronted by Combet himself, in which the former Rudd government minister talked up Industry Super’s “biggest project”.
“We’re creating 200,000 jobs by investing in Australia,” Combet proudly claims in the ads.
But Bragg asks: “Why is Greg Combet, a former politician, putting his face on the ads?
It’s not a super fund advertising a product or a fund, and it’s not McDonald’s advertising a cheeseburger. It’s a lobby group advertising politics.”
When Diary put Bragg’s claims to Combet last week, he bluntly replied: “So what’s new? He’s on about it every month.”
He then referred Diary to Industry Super CEO Bernie Dean, who said he would “welcome enhanced scrutiny from regulators”, and added: “Advertising is a cost-effective way for funds to attract and retain members.”
Paleo Pete’s worm diet
Colourful conspiracy theorist “Paleo” Pete Evans looks like giving Ten’s “I’m a Celebrity” the controversy it needs to launch its 2021 edition.
While Ten is offering no comment, insiders at the network have told Diary the former MKR host is a “conversation starter” who’ll help the show attract eyeballs when it launches in the January silly season.
Pete should be right at home on a paleo-rich diet of worms and witchetty grubs. Tailor-made for a new cookbook.
George’s media reset
Another personality trying to recover his media mojo is former MasterChef judge George Calombaris.
Amid the media storm about the underpayment of staff at his restaurants, his one-time MasterChef colleagues Gary Mehigan and Matt Preston signed up to Seven without their fellow “musketeer”. That’s gotta hurt.
But in recent weeks, Calombaris has taken his first gentle steps back into the public eye. He’s been putting out “5pm Cookalong” videos, as part of a business venture where users buy boxes of ingredients from him to cook socially distanced restaurant-quality dishes by video.
Calombaris hasn’t done any sit-down interviews lately. But letters to his subscriber base about the “5pm Cookalongs” gave a hint of how things have been going.
The humble letter was titled “Thank you”, and started: “Well, it’s been a while since we’ve been in contact, and 2020 has certainly been a year of challenges … Like me, I am sure you have been spending time reflecting on what is most important to you. I wanted to personally thank you for the years of support you gave me.”
The videos, meanwhile, are a timely reminder of what made the energetic Calombaris a household name on MasterChef, with entertaining arm-waving and positive vibes for the camera.
But will risk-averse TV bosses be willing to put him back on the box?
Kohler moves on
Eight years after joining The Australian following News Corp’s purchase of Business Spectator, Alan Kohler is moving on.
Kohler, who has written two columns a week for The Australian, told Diary on Sunday: “I love The Australian, I’ve worked there three times, but it’s time for a change.”
The change will take effect from the end of November, after which he will take a “break”. Kohler will, however, carry on his weekly Money Cafe podcast, co-hosted with The Australian’s Wealth editor James Kirby.
I’m leaving The Australian after eight years. They’ve always given me a good run, no complaints, but it’s time to leave. I finish at the end of November.
— Alan Kohler (@AlanKohler) October 31, 2020
And I was there 49 years ago, as a copy boy, and then cadet. And back again 42 years ago, and back again 8 years ago. But I thhink that’s it now. https://t.co/NiCmernUC6
— Alan Kohler (@AlanKohler) November 1, 2020
Palaszczuk’s home for ex-journos
If anyone wonders why so many experienced reporters have disappeared from the Queensland political beat in recent years, look no further than triumphant Annastacia Palaszczuk.
The Queensland Premier’s winning formula has been helped no end by her poaching of prominent Brisbane political reporters. She has stealthily hired many of the Brisbane press gallery’s most experienced hands into her own ever-expanding team, ever since she first came to power in 2015.
And after Saturday’s election win, Palaszczuk’s benevolent society for ex-Queensland political hacks will stay open for business for at least four more years.
The sheer size of her team is impressive. For starters, there’s Nine’s ex-state political reporter Shane Doherty and his former ABC counterpart Chris O’Brien. Both covered the 2017 state election campaign as journalists, but were poached by Palaszczuk soon after and spent Saturday’s poll firmly on Team Annastacia.
Ex-Brisbane Sunday Mail reporter Chris Taylor — an on-again, off-again Labor adviser — was brought back by Palaszczuk from Tasmania last year to repair frosty relations with members of the gallery after Jackie Trad’s integrity dramas.
Meanwhile, veteran ex-Nine political reporter Spencer Jolly joined Palaszczuk as a senior media adviser all the way back in 2015, and ex-Seven news producer Zoe Russell is also employed as a principal media adviser for the Premier.
Palaszczuk even has jobs for photographers. These days, top ex-Courier-Mail snappers Jack Tran and Mark Calleja now both do photos and video work for her. Nice work if you can get it.
2GB cuts last Alan Jones ‘original’
When he left the Nine-owned 2GB in May, Alan Jones said his ratings dominance was down to the collective “140 years of experience” among his production team.
Last week, the last and perhaps most important of the Jones “originals” — and a key plank in his radio dominance — was surgically removed from 2GB by Nine.
A shell-shocked Paul Christenson, Jones’s executive producer of 29 years (18 with 2GB), was told on Tuesday his services would no longer be required. Christenson, who had switched to new drive host Jim Wilson’s show when Jones left, was abruptly told to finish up last Friday.
That leaves Christenson, 58, out of work in the midst of a pandemic.
But there’s a ray of hope for him. Diary hears there’s a position vacant at Sky News with none other than Jones, with the imminent departure of his producer Dan Mullins. Surely Jones and Christenson couldn’t be reunited again at Sky … could they?
Ita: ‘I’m not a Trump barracker’
ABC chair Ita Buttrose contacted Diary on Sunday to make one thing abundantly clear: any suggestion she will barrack for Donald Trump in this week’s US election is fake news.
A few weeks back, we reported that she had taken to Studio 10 to support Trump’s views on one issue: his dissing of Meghan and Harry’s use of their high-profile platform to butt into the US election campaign.
Buttrose told Studio 10 at the time: “I think he (Trump) probably said something that many people think.”
But Ita became concerned after Twitter lit up last week with trolling that suggested she had endorsed Trump over Joe Biden for Tuesday’s election. Any such suggestion, she says, is “simply not true”.
“I have not stated any position on the US election, as it is a matter for American voters,” she tells Diary.
That’s not to say the ABC chair has no views on who she wants to win — just that she won’t be revealing them publicly. “Of course I have my private views, and the outcome of this election will have far reaching ramifications for democracy in the US and for the rest of the world, particularly countries like Australia who have such strong trade links with the US.”
But Ita has been unable to resist a cheeky gibe at one Trump habit: his allegedly prodigious use of fake tan. “I think anyone should be careful with the amount of fake tan they use,” she said.
But she quickly clarifies that her assessment of Trump isn’t about politics, but cosmetics: “That’s not a political position,” she informs Diary. “It’s just common sense.”
Nine’s ‘Brick Man’
As the Donald Trump/Joe Biden election campaign reaches its climax, none of Australia’s US news correspondents are in any doubt about the fervour of Trump supporters. A few months back, Nine’s US correspondent Alexis Daish interviewed a Trump supporter dubbed “Brick Man” (real name Blake Marnell) for 60 Minutes, after he was called up on stage by no less than the Donald himself.
Brick Man is so named because he wears a suit featuring a brick wall, representing Trump’s much-discussed Mexican border wall.
As Daish covered Trump’s rallies, old mate Brick Man popped up at every one. And while Brick Man’s fellow Trump supporters booed the “fake news media” at the rallies, Daish was spared because of their unlikely friendship.
“When Trump fans see us talking, they don’t heckle me like they heckle other media,” she says.
Landslide victory
One of the funnier sights for the Aussie media contingent at Trump’s Pennsylvania rallies was a group of about 30 very vocal Trump groupies who had flown all the way from Japan especially for the campaign.
The crew, holding “Japan loves Trump” posters, were happy to put up with two weeks of quarantine on the way back home, just so they could spot their hero.
Once a huge banner featuring life-sized images of Trump was unfurled, they broke into a two word chant: “Landslide victory”.
Nine’s Tim Arvier tells Diary: “Their English and my Japanese weren’t good enough to discuss much more than that they’d travelled here to see Trump and were very excited.”
BBC apologises to staff over Russell Brand sex complaints
Some employees had stayed silent about the behaviour of the comedian and actor because they believed he ‘would always get his way’, a BBC director said.
Questions about ABC platforming ‘radical fringe Jewish voice’
Jewish groups have questioned why the national broadcaster has chosen to platform and ‘mainstream’ a Jewish ‘radical fringe voice’, in its coverage of anti-Semitic events in Sydney.