Media Diary: ABC’s high horse over Noosa blue
At the ABC, many of its earnest staff weren’t at all impressed about the media’s coverage of the Clarke/Yarbrough stoush.
Over at the ABC, many of its earnest staff weren’t at all impressed about the media’s coverage of the Clarke/Yarbrough stoush. Melbourne’s afternoons radio host Rafael Epstein told listeners: “I deliberately didn’t play the audio”, and said Stefanovic’s involvement was merely “just a bit of extra spice”.
Labelling it “catnip for some media organisations”, Epstein said he felt “bad even talking about it” and said it was “cruel” for outlets to air the stoush between the warring partners.
“It’s very embarrassing, it’s a blow up and it’s just a cruel thing to do,” he said.
“Let’s call it what it is, venal money making.
“It isn’t shared equally; media owners are never subjected to this, editors are never subjected to this.”
But former Seven Melbourne’s director of news, Steve Carey, was quick to tell Epstein he had a “very short memory”.
“In May 2014 two of the most powerful men in television were caught brawling in Bondi and that was James Packer and his then best mate David Gyngell, so let’s not beat around that one,” he said. “This story has all the tabloid ingredients, a public spat, big names, one of our best known sportspeople, former Aussie cricket captain and an incredibly high-profile TV celebrity, two sisters, claims of infidelity and here’s the kicker Raf, it was all played out in a public park at Noosa.” Talkback caller Phil from Mornington dialled in to point out a fairly obvious flaw in Epstein’s moral stand.
“You are sort of piling on mate with the same as everybody else,” Phil said. “You’re talking about it as much as anyone else mate: you’re stirring it up”.
Epstein’s colleague, ABC News Breakfast TV co-host Michael Rowland, joined in the attack on the media’s coverage: “Lol … personal drama. Not news”, he wrote on Instagram.
Nine’s newspapers gave the stoush a fair hit out, but the TV arm was relatively quiet on the celebrity stink, with the news bulletins omitting any mention of Stefanovic’s involvement.
On Melbourne’s Saturday 6pm bulletin, newsreader Alicia Loxley mentioned the police fines issued to Clarke and Yarbrough for public nuisance but made no mention of the Today show co-host.
The same occurred on Nine’s Sydney bulletin on Saturday night, where newsreader Lizzie Pearl didn’t mention Stefanovic in a report on the incident.
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Karl Stefanovic’s strife
Wrong time, wrong place, Karlos.
Perhaps Karl Stefanovic’s Nine stablemate, 3AW mornings host Neil Mitchell, put it best when he labelled the Today show host a “trouble magnet” after he was caught up in the now infamous public screaming match between his sister-in-law Jade Yarbrough and her partner, former Australian cricket captain Michael Clarke.
Mitchell sought to leap to Stefanovic’s defence following revelations of the Noosa showdown, expressing sympathy for the Nine star’s unfortunate role in the “bogan-like incident up in Queensland”.
“He’s a trouble magnet, Karl. This wasn’t his fault, he was a witness to all this but he’s a trouble magnet, it just follows him around,” Mitchell told his listeners last week.
“Poor old Karl … it’s ugly stuff.”
Mitchell went on to describe himself as an, “an unusual person, I like Karl.” But he wasn’t so kind to Clarke, who he accused of “carrying on like a bozo bogan”.
Stefanovic’s headaches don’t end with his extended Noosa hangover, however.
The 48-year-old father-of-four is still the subject of an ongoing police investigation into an alleged incident that also took place in the sunshine state – this time in Brisbane – in August last year. A waiter working at a Mercedes-Benz charity fundraiser claimed that Stefanovic allegedly touched him while he was working at the ritzy function.
The six-hour event was held at the car manufacturer’s showroom in the trendy inner-north suburb of Newstead which Stefanovic attended with his wife Jasmine, Jade’s sister.
When Diary contacted Queensland Police about the matter last week, we were told that “investigations are ongoing”, despite it being five months since the allegations were made. Stefanovic’s employer, Nine, would not comment on the alleged incident.
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Paramount on the nod
If cricket has a sweet spot – apart from the dead centre of Steve Smith’s bat – it’s the Christmas/New Year period, when most Australians are on holidays and have plenty of time to feast their eyes on the back-to-back Tests in Melbourne and Sydney, and enjoy the night-time dessert of the Big Bash.
But for media executives, and their legal and commercial teams, this festive season was particularly cricket crazy. The sport’s governing body had initially hoped to finalise a long-term deal for the broadcast rights to cricket by Christmas Day. But alas, the lucrative contract got stuck in the chimney on Christmas Eve, and the finer details just weren’t ready to be tied up with a neat bow. Cue muted groans and furrowed brows from media heavies at Foxtel and Seven, who had to junk plans for their summer holidays as they fought to secure the rights to one of the nation’s most sought-after sports broadcast deals.
At that stage, Foxtel (65 per cent owned by News Corp, publisher of The Australian) and Seven were still competing with Paramount (owner of Network Ten) for the seven-year contract, and the deal was still very much up for grabs.
But just when the chase was getting interesting, the US-owned media giant effectively chose to declare their innings closed, with Paramount executives requesting that negotiations for the cricket rights be suspended from Christmas Day until mid-January. Perhaps the siren song of holidays on the beach was too hard to resist.
Unsurprisingly, Paramount’s push for a yuletide pause went down like a dropped slips catch within the walls of Cricket Australia, and left the impression that Paramount’s passion for the nation’s summer game was somewhat less than rock-solid.
As of mid-December, Paramount was still saying publicly that the company was “engaging productively” with Cricket Australia. But Paramount insiders have since pushed the line that the media company had “lost interest” in the cricket broadcast rights deal as long ago as late November when, they say, Cricket Australia had decided that it would not accept the US-owned company’s demands for an “all-or-nothing” deal – that is, exclusive rights to all Tests, international ODIs and Twenty20s, as well as the BBL and the WBBL.
Well-placed industry sources have privately expressed the view that the media company is trying to rewrite the history of these negotiations in a bid to save face after again failing to secure the rights to a top-tier sport in Australia.
“When you lose, it’s easy to say that you didn’t try really hard,” said one source who was close to the negotiations.
Another said it “beggars belief” that Paramount wanted to hit the snooze button on its negotiations with Cricket Australia when such a lucrative deal was at the pointy end of talks.
Ultimately, on January 3, Foxtel and Seven were announced as the joint broadcasting custodians of the sport through until 2031.
Whatever the truth about the timeline of Paramount’s failed bid, the inescapable fact is that the media company is in a serious spot of bother.
As the owner of the only commercial free-to-air channel in Australia without broadcast rights to a single top-tier sport, it faces a rocky future.
It’s accepted wisdom that live sports, such as the AFL, NRL, cricket and tennis, form the bedrock upon which ratings success is built in Australia, and with all those sports now locked into long-term contracts, Network Ten – and its US bosses – will need to think creatively if it is to remain even remotely competitive with chief rivals Nine and Seven.
Ten is coming off a dire 2022, when it finished the ratings year in fourth position, behind the ABC.
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Brekkie wars
Sunrise has kicked off the year by continuing its dominance in the breakfast TV timeslot over its main rival, Nine’s Today show, despite the debut of new co-host Sarah Abo, who was announced as Allison Langdon’s replacement at the end of last year.
Figures from official TV ratings firm OzTAM showed Sunrise had an average audience of 206,400 daily viewers across the five major metropolitan cities last week, compared to Today with an average of 165,200 – a difference of more than 41,000 viewers a day.
This compares to the same week last year when Sunrise drew an average of 243,000 viewers compared to Nine’s 224,000 viewers – a difference of just 19,000 viewers.
That said, Sunrise’s strong showing last week may have had a bit to do with the program going to town on the Noosa blow-up – hosts David Koch and Natalie Barr certainly didn’t spare their on-air rival Stefanovic when discussing the incident.
But it wasn’t all bad news for Today and Stefanovic.
Abo slotted comfortably into the breakfast program co-host’s role, showing poise and charm. If there were any concerns that Abo and Stefanovic might take a while to find their on-air chemistry, those fears appear to have been allayed in week one of their partnership.
Meanwhile, Langdon will begin as host of A Current Affair from January 30.
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No snowflakes, please
Media Watch’s hunt for a new journalist/producer comes with a specific job requirement – snowflakes need not apply.
The advertisement for the role, which remains on job vacancy websites, states that applicants must “have a thick skin”. Which is slightly curious, given that the program is more in the business of handing out bruising – and sometimes undeserved – judgments on the work of other journalists, rather than subjecting itself to any rigorous self-examination.
Who knows, maybe host Paul Barry will steer the show in a different direction in 2023? But there is a fair bit riding on the success of the 20-minute program this year.
With the trouble-plagued Q+A returning to its former timeslot of 9.35pm Monday, Media Watch – which airs at 9.15pm on Mondays – will be tasked with providing a strong ratings launching platform for the political chat show, which shed hundreds of thousands of its loyal viewers when it shifted to Thursday nights in 2021.
No pressure.
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Top end censored
The NT’s Correctional Services commissioner Matthew Varley and Attorney-General and Minister for Justice Chansey Paech were let off the hook at a press conference last week after journalists were warned some questions were a no-go zone.
Marking National Corrections Day on Friday, journalists were sent a media invite prior to the event at Darwin Correctional Centre, stipulating that it was solely to “pay tribute to corrections staff who make a positive difference to people’s lives”.
But as for asking any tough questions about other issues relating to correctional staff, forget it. The media alert sent by the AG’s office told journalists the commissioner and AG would be available for questions at the event but reporters were to steer clear of anything that had a whiff of, well, news.
“The focus … is to celebrate and recognise the achievements of NT Correctional Services staff,” the press invitation wrote.
“Any questions relating to staffing, prisoner numbers or the EBA negotiations should be submitted in writing and will not be responded to at the event.”
It’s not that uncommon for political staffers and PR reps to attempt to guide a journalists’ line of questioning before a press conference, although the requests invariably fall on deaf ears. But for the NT AG’s office to put its demands on journalists in writing takes it to a whole new level.
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