Media Diary: Peter Dutton’s aside captures frustration with ABC

Sometimes in TV interviews, the merest mumble can be the most memorable moment. So it was during Sarah Ferguson’s combative interview with Peter Dutton.

ABC 7.30 presenter Sarah Ferguson.

Sometimes in TV interviews, the merest mumble can be the most memorable moment.

Take Peter Dutton’s combative interview with ABC 7.30 host Sarah Ferguson last Thursday night after his budget reply speech.

Towards the end of the 16-minute interview, having been cut off by Ferguson at least two dozen times, Dutton let slip his exasperation.

During a bit of to-and-fro about government spending, Ferguson said: “I just want to interrupt to say this …”

Dutton, looking and sounding like a man who was being forced to eat a restaurant meal he didn’t order, muttered under his breath: “I thought you might.”

Ferguson: “Well, I think it’s important.”

Dutton: “Right.”

To be fair, it’s not as though Ferguson gave Treasurer Jim Chalmers a rails run during their post-budget interview on 7.30 last Tuesday.

By our count, Ferguson asked Chalmers the same question – in relation to the government’s $300 energy bill handout – about eight times.

Chalmers managed to maintain his plastered smile for the full quarter hour – a fair effort.

Craig Reucassel’s failed ABC tag game is a touchy subject

It’s the radio equivalent of the universal human fear of throwing a party and no one turning up. What happens if you launch a radio competition and no one enters?

Last week, Diary brought you the news of ABC Sydney breakfast host Craig Reucassel’s promotion of the “biggest game of tag, ever”. Yes, a radio game of tag.

What could go right?

The idea was that Reucassel’s listeners would “tag” friends or workmates – in a politically correct and safe space kind of way, of course – and that at the end of the “five-day competition”, the last person to be tagged would be “it”, and would be announced as the winner. Or the loser. Or something.

ABC Sydney breakfast radio host Craig Reucassel. Photo: Supplied

Anyway, Reucassel assured listeners there would be a prize for that lucky someone, and the prizewinner would be declared, to much fanfare, on Friday’s program.

But Diary was left disappointed on Friday morning when there was no mention of the winner. We really wanted to know: What random person was the last to be tagged? And what was their prize?

With just six minutes to go before Reucassel’s program wrapped up for the week, caller Cath from Cremorne rang up to ask the host the $64,000 question: “Hey Craig, I was just wanting to get an update on the tag competition.”

Was the call a set-up? Is Cath related to Craig? Who knows.

But Reucassel’s response to the “inquiry” about the game – which he plugged for days on his show, and across the ABC’s various social media platforms – was telling.

“It (the tag game) was meant to finish at 7.30 (on Friday morning), I totally forgot,” he told Cath.

“We had such a packed day I totally forgot about.

“Not only did I forget about it but do you want to know the worst part of this, Cath?

“The worst part is that do you know who was tipped yesterday by a particular staff member who hid under my table with her computer? Because she was still working, and she tipped me yesterday, so the damn news is I’m the one that’s in, damn it.

“I totally forgot, Cath, thank you for the reminder, I’m such an idiot, it was such a big day, there’s so many news stories today. Cath thank you for the reminder.

“What a moron, I’m ‘it’, damn it, damn it.”

… And it got worse

ABC Sydney mornings host Sarah Macdonald joined Reucassel on-air at the end of his show, as she prepared to take over the airwaves. In a bid, perhaps, to share the burden of the game shame, she limply engaged Reucassel in some regrettable banter: “I’m standing back from the microphone too so you don’t tip me. It’s over.”

Macdonald pretended to revel in the fact ABC staffers were (perhaps the only) participants. “I just especially love that (producer) Willy this week, going to tip you hiding under the desk with her computer.”

Reucassel replied: “I was in a meeting, she thinks I’m coming out and what I love about it is someone asked her, ‘how long have you got?’ (under the desk) and she said, ‘I think I’ve got half an hour in me, that is commitment’.

“Zero productivity losses at the ABC this week, despite playing tip.”

Now, never let it be said that Diary doesn’t love a good game of tag. After all, we were nine years old, once upon a time.

But that’s kind of the point. ABC Radio’s audience skews heavily towards the older members of society – or at least, those that think tag is something fun to play at their kids’, or grandkids’ parties. Those ABC listeners are likely to want to discuss a cross-section of issues, from politics, to business, to sport, to community issues.

We know this, because it’s been the secret sauce of the prestigious breakfast slot on the ABC, going back decades.

ABC Sydney breakfast radio host Craig Reucassel.

As has been well documented, ABC Radio has been haemorrhaging listeners for nearly three years, since the tail-end of the pandemic. It’s a genuine crisis for the national broadcaster.

Reucassel himself lost 33,000 listeners in the last radio survey, having taken over the breakfast timeslot from James Valentine in January.

Whoever is responsible at the ABC for deciding that juvenile vaudeville is the key to wooing back lost listeners should front up to chairman Kim Williams’ office and explain the program’s pivot to mediocrity. It’s selling the listeners short.

One ABC insider who refused to participate in the game told Diary that playing the inane game on air “was an insult”.

“The audience has responded,” the anti-tagger mused.

“It was a disaster before it started.

“The ABC’s breakfast audience needs and demands meaningful content.”

For those who care, an ABC spokesperson assured Diary the winner of the tag game will, in fact, be announced this week.

Please, make it stop.

Spotlight survives

Seven’s investigative program, Spotlight, made headlines for all the wrong reasons recently, after former producer Taylor Auerbach lifted the lid on the program – or at least lifted his own lid by claiming he spent more than $10,000 on a company credit card in November 2022.

That pricey card swipe, you’ll recall, allegedly paid for two Thai masseuses to keep himself and former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann entertained.

The claim that Seven reimbursed Auerbach for the credit card misuse is vehemently denied by the network, and Lehrmann denies he was even there at the time.

But it appears the exodus of staff from the program hasn’t harmed the show’s ratings, with the flagship current affairs program beating Nine rival 60 Minutes four out of five times since it returned to the small screen in April.

The stellar result will be cold comfort for Spotlight’s former executive producer, Mark Llewellyn, and senior producer Steve Jackson, both of whom oversaw much of the program’s content that will air up until July. The pair left the show before its April launch, but should take much of the credit for its early season success.

The biggest winner for the program so far this year remains the April 22 episode, when The Chase Australia’s Anne Hegerty spoke about a tough health battle she had been dealing with for decades.

The episode, hosted by Michael Usher, drew 642,000 viewers compared to 60 Minutes, which focused on whether Australia’s $3.5bn fleet of Taipan helicopters is worth it or not.

Since Llewellyn departed the network last month, Phil Goyen has been filling in and spies told Diary the hunt remains under way to find a permanent replacement to take over.

Following Llewellyn’s departure, Seven appointed former West Australian editor-in-chief Anthony De Ceglie as the network’s news boss, replacing veteran Craig McPherson.

Diary couldn’t help but notice comments by De Ceglie given to industry newsletter Mediaweek last Monday, with some pointed barbs seemingly aimed at his predecessor’s blind spots.

Seven West Media director of news and current affairs and editor-in-chief, Anthony De Ceglie.

“There seems to sort of be a disconnect internally and a disconnect externally about what we do with our video … sometimes the digital video is not talking to the broadcast video and vice versa,” De Ceglie said.

“Part of what I’ll do with Seven is ensure The Nightly is even more integrated with the 6pm bulletins, which was always the dream.

“There’s certainly nothing stopping us now. There was nothing stopping us before, but I can certainly fast-track it in the new role.”

Ouch!

Expect more new appointments in the coming months with De Ceglie understood to be looking to shake things up further.

AFR’s WA farewell

The countdown is on until Nine’s only serious printed newspaper, The Australian Financial Review, disappears from the West Australian landscape forever, although it will continue to live on in the digital realm.

For those who missed the news last week, Nine is pulling its cherished print version of the AFR from WA after Seven West Media – the owner of the only printing press in the state – jacked up the costs of publishing Nine’s business rag by 100 per cent.

Nine cried foul but refused to be gouged, while the Kerry Stokes-controlled Seven shrugged its shoulders and described the extermination of the WA version of the Fin as a “commercial decision” – a phrase that, in this context, means whatever you want it to mean.

Seven West Media chairman Kerry Stokes. Picture: Hollie Adams/The Australian.

Anyway, despite some rumours that a last-minute rapprochement between Seven West Media and Nine was on the cards, it now appears those cards have been marked: “No deal.”

The last print edition of the AFR in Western Australia will hit the newsstands on Wednesday, and after that the paper’s 2000 local readers can console themselves with the $5 they’ll save each day from not having to fork out for the skinny tabloid.

And while the AFR’s editor-in-chief, Michael Stutchbury, blew a gasket when it was announced earlier this month that his newspaper was being driven out of WA, it seems his loyal readers aren’t about to take to the streets in protests.

Last Monday, the paper’s own letters page ran a few tributes to the AFR, with the readers’ missives offering a final, lukewarm homage to the once-mighty masthead.

One WA reader suggested that the AFR should henceforth be called The East Coast Financial Review, while another said all of the paper’s subscribers should ditch the printed edition because “digital newspapers are better anyway”.

But our favourite was from a Perth grandfather who lamented that his three-year-old grandson will no longer be able to use the rolled up home-delivered AFR as a Star Wars light sabre.

Everyone grieves differently.

High bar

News that the nation’s most prestigious media awards, the Walkleys, and their principal sponsor, Ampol, will part ways when the two-year branding deal expires in October was hardly a surprise.

The writing was on the wall earlier this year when the earnest folks at the journalism prize unit revised its policy to demand that sponsors of the Walkleys must not “pose a significant reputational risk due to the nature of their dealings that offer no tangible benefit to humanity”.

That’s a helluva high bar! For starters, how many journalists can say every day, without fail, that their day’s work has been a net gain for the human race?

Sometimes even Diary questions its self-worth! Although not that often, admittedly.

Which brings us to BHP, another sponsor of the Walkleys.

At first glance, is petroleum mob Ampol any better or worse than mining company BHP?

How is it that Ampol is deemed by the Walkleys – and by a group of activists cartoonists who wrote to the Walkley Foundation last year to raise their concerns about the sponsorship – to be an unacceptable sponsor, and yet dollars from BHP are considered legit?

Diary is not for a second suggesting that BHP – one of Australia’s biggest employers and a significant contributor to this nation’s prosperity – is a bad sponsorship fit for the Walkleys. Quite the contrary.

Nor are we suggesting the Walkleys should accept sponsorship dollars from, say, a tobacco company, either.

But we would like a bit of clarity on who at the Walkleys arbitrarily decides right from wrong, in terms of what is good for humanity?

It seems clear that the Walkleys directors – journalists Adele Ferguson, Karen Percy, Sally Neighbour, Erin Delahunty, Kate Ferguson and Victoria Laurie – and chief executive officer Shona Martyn have created a rod for the organisation’s back, particularly at a time when sponsorships aren’t exactly growing on trees.

Walkley Foundation chair of the judging board Sally Neighbour.

Diary asked the Walkleys if it had lined up a replacement sponsor for Ampol, and if it would continue its sponsorship with BHP. We also asked about rumours that the organisation was struggling to attract a wider array of financial backers.

A spokesman for the Walkleys said: “The Walkley Foundation does not comment on its sponsorship arrangements.

“Like all not-for-profit organisations, the Walkley Foundation is always eager to welcome new sponsors who strongly share its organisational values and objectives, as outlined in our constitution, and who, more broadly, are supporters of an Australian media that is free, ethical and of high quality.

“New sponsors will be considered by the board of directors on a case-by-case basis in line with its new sponsorship policy.”

This is going to get messy.

Nick Tabakoff is on leave