It’s the “break-out-the-popcorn” moment media nerds have been waiting for: ABC boss David Anderson being interviewed on Sky News, of all places, by the man regarded as perhaps Australia’s most vocal critic of the public broadcaster’s performance, Chris Kenny.
Now Diary is told the Sky host appears to have won a tentative agreement from Anderson to conduct an interview on Sky, having bailed up the ABC boss up outside Sydney’s Ivy Ballroom after last month’s Andrew Olle Media Lecture at the venue.
We’re told when Kenny bowled up to the ABC chief spontaneously at the Ivy, Anderson even expressed curiosity as to why he hadn’t yet been asked on his Sky show for an interview.
“I’ve been waiting for you to invite me on your program,” the ABC boss told Kenny.
“Anytime … it’s a standing invitation,” Kenny replied.
At that point, we’re told Anderson agreed to the interview. Apparently, the entire two to three-minute stand-up exchange between the traditional media adversaries was caught on camera for Kenny’s upcoming Sky program, Your ABC Exposed, which we’re told will screen later this month on July 26.
But given the spontaneous nature of the exchange between Kenny and Anderson, will the much-vaunted interview actually take place? It’s fair to say Kenny isn’t the ABC’s favourite person, and he has already been delivered plenty of interview knock-backs from other ABC luminaries, including key on-air talent, for the doco – most notably when many were present on the night of the Olle lecture.
ABC chair Ita Buttrose was a “no”, although we’re told the pair did separately meet for a coffee for an hour or so in Sydney a couple of weeks back.
However, Kenny did manage to collar David Speers, now the ABC Insiders host (and previously his colleague at Sky) on the night of the Olle lecture for an on-camera chat. We’re told the pair engaged in a spirited debate about the “diversity” of guests on the ABC.
He is also interviewing one of the ABC’s fiercest defenders, Quentin Dempster for the doco. Meanwhile, we’re told the final interview for the show will occur this week, when Kenny interviews new Communications Minister Michelle Rowland for a lengthy interview about her take on the ABC.
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Probyn v Turnbull: the war continues
It’s not only the Liberal Party that Malcolm “I’m not a miserable ghost” Turnbull is continuing to haunt, but senior members of the media as well.
If there were a competition to decide the one current journalist that Turnbull sees as his “media enemy number one”, the ABC’s political editor Andrew Probyn would surely have to be the frontrunner.
Over at least four years now, Turnbull has made no secret of his ongoing irritation towards Probyn, ever since he won a correction out of the ABC in the dying months of his prime ministership over a story by the political editor about the so-called Super Saturday by-elections held that year.
The ex-PM is still said to be seething over Probyn’s contributions in the last months of his tenure running the country.
And on the weekend, there was yet another instalment in the epic history of antipathy between the pair. Turnbull didn’t like the latest suggestion the “Attack Class” French submarine program commissioned under his prime ministership was “over budget”.
Name-checking Probyn, Turnbull tweeted on Saturday the claim was “false”, and included a parting barb: “As the ABC celebrates its 90th anniversary such sloppy reporting is very disappointing.”
Just saw @andrewprobyn describe the cancelled Attack Class submarine program as having been “over budgetâ€. This is false - As Greg Moriarty defence Dept secretary confirmed in Senate Estimate. As the ABC celebrates its 90th anniversary such sloppy reporting is very disappointing pic.twitter.com/Bpjduo3JuL
— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) July 2, 2022
This latest breakout of hostilities, of course, is only the latest example of the naked antipathy between the Turnbull camp and Probyn.
In a letter sent by former ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie to the public broadcaster’s board in September 2018, just before she was fired from the role, Guthrie claimed former ABC chair Justin Milne – a close Turnbull friend and ally – had told her of the depth of Turnbull’s hostility towards Probyn.
“Mr Milne berated me about Andrew Probyn, saying that the then prime minister (Turnbull) hates him and ‘you have to shoot him’,” her letter said.
Guthrie then wrote she replied she couldn’t fire Probyn, stating “the ABC couldn’t be responding or seen to be responding to pressure from the government of the day”.
That extraordinary claim came months after the Turnbull government contacted the ABC to strenuously complain about another Probyn story. It was argued the ABC political editor had suggested in a report that Turnbull had decided to hold five by-elections on the same 2018 weekend as the ALP planned to hold its national conference.
Ultimately, the ABC issued a statement saying that it “apologised” for that implication, saying the report should have included the detail that Turnbull had earlier that day “denied” making the decision on the timing of the by-elections.
Earlier that year, the Turnbull government had also made a series of complaints about the reporting of its then chief economics correspondent Emma Alberici, who has since left journalism to become a recruiter.
Despite Turnbull’s ongoing antipathy towards Probyn, both during and since his prime ministership, the ABC has consistently stood by its political editor’s reporting in the face of the onslaught.
The ABC has previously said in response to the Turnbull complaints that Probyn was a “respected journalist … with a large body of award-winning and news-breaking political reporting during his lengthy career’’.
Probyn chose not to comment when we reached him on Sunday.
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Anna’s retirement home for ex-Nine hacks
Just as Annastacia Palaszczuk was prevaricating about her possible retirement date last week, she was also luring yet another batch of journalists to what Queensland media types have facetiously dubbed the “Palaszczuk Retirement Home for Clapped Out Hacks”.
And there’s been no bigger beneficiary of the Premier’s seemingly endless benevolence towards reformed journalists than a fast-growing list of refugees from the Nine Brisbane newsroom, with yet another two about to defect to the gargantuan Palaszczuk spin unit.
Diary can reveal the latest two Nine staff joining the exodus to Palaszczuk’s media retirement home at 1 William St are two of Nine’s longest-serving foot soldiers in Brisbane: news reporter Shannon Marshall-McCormack and the network’s No.2 news executive in the city, the executive producer of its 6pm news bulletin, Cullen Robinson.
Marshall-McCormack and Robinson are just the latest additions to the Premier’s team of 30-plus spinners and other reformed hacks, as she relentlessly raids the rapidly-thinning stock of experienced news journalists in Brisbane, seemingly with the purpose of avoiding media scrutiny.
The lucky Marshall-McCormack has scored himself not only a pay rise and new office digs in the heart of Brisbane – but a cushy new gig as well: the grandly-titled role of “2032 Olympics Adviser to the Queensland Premier”.
Yes, you heard that right, folks. A whole 10 years ahead of the Brisbane Olympics, the lucky Marshall-McCormack has landed a full-time job for a mere two-week event. Nice work if you can get it.
And Marshall-McCormack isn’t the only beneficiary of the Palaszczuk benevolent retirement home for ex-Nine troops. None other than Robinson, who has for years been Marshall-McCormack’s newsroom boss, has also quit Nine, with the pair’s departure now leaving a serious hole for the network’s ratings-leading 6pm news bulletin.
Robinson is off to help out Palaszczuk after an SOS to help out her gaffe-prone Health Minister Yvette D’Ath, who he will join as her chief of staff.
But news of Robinson’s departure to D’Ath has come as a shock to his long-term newsroom colleagues, with many privately asking why he would leave one of Brisbane’s most powerful news jobs to work for D’Ath, of all people, in the midst of Queensland’s rolling crises involving ambulance ramping and a dire hospital bed shortage. Talk about a hospital pass!
For both Marshall-McCormack and Robinson, it’ll be quite the reunion when they take up residence in Palaszczuk’s ex-journo retirement home, which just happens to be already full to the brim with ex-Nine staffers.
Right at the top of the tree in the media retirement village is ex-Nine political editor Shane Doherty, Palaszczuk’s right-hand man who calls the shots for the increasingly under-fire premier and most of her team of 30-plus spinners. And Doherty has made sure the Premier’s team is literally stacked with former Nine staffers — including a second ex-Nine political editor, Spencer Jolly, plus veteran former Nine reporter Phil Wilmington, and fellow Nine alumni Bryce Heaton and Emmy Kubainski.
With the battle for No.1 in the Brisbane news ratings between Nine and Seven as close as it has ever been, the poaching of a growing number of battle-hardened Nine news types to the Palaszczuk retirement home is presenting a serious problem for its bosses. Whoever could be next?
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Sales ‘not leaving’ as Festival of Leigh ends
The festival of Leigh Sales finally reached its climax last week, with the now-departed 7.30 presenter appearing in yet another swag of media interviews in her last days in the role. There were lengthy chats with the likes of 2GB’s Ben Fordham, a 7.30 half-hour special on Friday night titled ‘Farewell to Leigh Sales’ and, as we noted last week, a party at the ABC with her colleagues.
When you add that to the previous week’s packed media schedule for Sales – including appearances on Bluey, magazine covers and even an interview with herself in the Nine papers – you could be forgiven for thinking that Sales was departing the ABC for good.
With so much publicity about Sales’s ‘farewell’, maybe that’s why ABC managing director David Anderson, tongue firmly planted in cheek, felt the need to clarify what Sales would notbe doing when he gave a speech at her party at the ABC’s Dot Strong Terrace last Thursday. He even ruled out the possibility that she could become the replacement for John Barilaro in the controversial $500,000 a year role as NSW Trade Commissioner to the Americas!
“There have been many rumours about what Leigh will do next,” Anderson told the gathered ABC luminaries.
“Leigh is not the new trade ambassador in New York or LA. Leigh is not entering politics for the Liberal Party. Leigh is not entering politics for the Labor Party. Leigh is not entering politics.
“Leigh is not joining a high-profile corporate affairs consultancy. Leigh is not joining (Annabel) Crabb on an expedition to recreate the circumnavigation of Australia. But the ABC would definitely commission that TV series if it was true. And Leigh is not recording a tribute to her favourite show tunes, although I would definitely listen to that in the car.”
And she is definitely not, as Fordham mischievously suggested in his interview on Thursday, heading to 2GB to become a shock jock.
Anderson instead emphasised that Sales would be staying at the public broadcaster for the foreseeable future.
“Leigh is taking a very, very well-deserved break – and will not be leaving the ABC,” he said.
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Kyrgios saves network’s cut-strength Wimbledon
Nick Kyrgios’s antic-ridden victory over world No.5 Stefanos Tsitsipas on Saturday night, along with a strong performance by the Australian contingent generally, has ensured Nine has milked full value out of this year’s instalment of its lucrative deal to screen Wimbledon.
But Diary hears until the event got underway, there was concern within Nine about whether the 2022 Wimbledon would turn out to be an inferior version of tennis’s most prestigious event. In the weeks leading up to this year’s tournament, it hit controversial territory by taking the decision to ban many of the sport’s stars from taking part after the tournament’s controversial ban on Russian and Belarusian players.
Diary understands soon after the Russian players were banned, Nine quickly took a high-level decision not to use the big-name absences as an excuse to try to lower the price tag of its lucrative deal with the event’s rights holder, the All England Club. Nine’s unwillingness to play contract hardball is seen as a long-term move to show good faith with the All England Club ahead of future Wimbledon rights talks. And the word is that given four Australian players have now made the event’s fourth round, Nine feels its monetary decision paid off.
Those banned from Wimbledon 2022 include Russia’s world number one Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev, and top women Aryna Sabalenka and Victoria Azarenka.
The organisers’ thinking in imposing the ban, apparently, was to avoid the optics of the British royal family presenting winners’ trophies to a Russian or Belarusian athlete, given the near-universal global condemnation of the war with Ukraine.
There were also ripple effects. Other non-Russian big names such as drawcards Naomi Osaka and Eugenie Bouchard pulling out soon after the decision to strip the tournament of women’s and men’s ranking points.
Nine confirmed there was no attempt to renegotiate any parts of its three year, multimillion-dollar deal with Wimbledon
Apart from the Seven-Cricket Australia stoush, there are, of course, other precedents for networks reducing reduced prices on sports deals because of changes of circumstances. In the early days of Covid-19 in 2020, both Nine and Seven negotiated discounts for the NRL and AFL over the pandemic’s impacts on the schedule
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Ten denies Studio 10 to be dumped
Is Ten’s perennial ratings underachiever Studio 10 on its last legs?
With the show routinely thrashed by rival shows like Sunrise, Today and ABC News Breakfast, it seems a fair question after the program ditched the first 30 minutes of the show last Monday. In place of that half-hour last week came the excitingly named 10 News First: Breakfast.
Diary hears the change prompted understandable fears at Ten this invasion of Studio 10’s on-air space could be the first step towards the axing of the long suffering morning show, hosted by Sarah Harris and Tristan McManus. As we’ve frequently noted, the program regularly struggles to hit even the 40,000-50,000 viewers mark in the capital cities.
Interestingly, the well-regarded Harris – long been rumoured to be seeking greater challenges than Studio 10 – turned up on The Project last week, during Lisa Wilkinson’s three week post-Logies break.
However, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, Ten insiders insist reports of Studio 10’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.
“Studio 10 is in no danger,” a well-placed insider tells us. “With all of its advertorials, it more than pays its way.”
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