Press Council ruling on Yassmin Abdel-Magied column handed down

The Press Council passes judgment on Yassmin Abdel-Magied column; Nine backs Karl; Leigh Sales gets makeover.

Cartoon: Johannes Leak.

David Koch hasn’t been the only breakfast TV host facing speculation about his future. The ­rumours were also flying around the Nine Network bunker last week about whether Karl Stefanovic will remain in the Today chair next year. The gossip had it that Stefanovic’s contract was due to ­expire at the end of this year and that Nine was actively considering other options for the show, given Stefanovic’s string of recent controversies and Sunrise’s overall ratings ascendancy. Diary decided to put the claims directly to the man who makes the decisions, Nine news and current affairs boss Darren Wick. A passionate Wick wanted to go on the record to ­defend the much-criticised Today co-host and very publicly slap down suggestions that the network was not committed to Stefanovic and Georgie Gardner as a team going forward. “I’m not going into the details of his contract but that talk is absolute nonsense,” he said. “We’re going to be long-term, and we’re going to win this thing.” Wick did admit the year had seen its share of struggles for Today. “It’s been a rough beginning. Everyone reports all the dips in the road.” Headlines were made earlier this year about a private late night phone call between Stefanovic and his brother Peter in which he was said to have criticised Gardner. But Wick said Stefanovic and Gardner were now in a “good place” as a hosting team, after travelling to England toge­ther to cover the royal wedding. “These are two people who are professional at their job, and they’re bloody good people. Karl’s got to live with every single thing he does being reported in the ­papers. I admire this guy, and I care about him. And Georgie is one of the most wonderful people I’ve met.”

Costly night out

It’s Australian TV’s night of nights, but the move of the Logies to the Gold Coast this year has caused a lot of headaches for the major networks: seven million of them, to be precise. Insiders have told Diary the major TV networks and the Logies’ owner, Bauer’s TV Week magazine, will be out of pocket a record $7 million collectively for this year’s instalment on July 1 — about $2m more than last year when the awards were held in Melbourne. Network bean counters are privately crying foul at this big cost blowout, amid tough financial times when on every other day of the year staff are forced to resort to counting proverbial paperclips to keep costs down. One big problem is that the vast bulk of the networks’ talent is based in Melbourne and Sydney. The new location means that nearly everyone attending the Logies this year needs to be flown up. But it’s not just on-air talent that has to be jetted in to the Gold Coast. This time around, the networks are also flying up their hair, make-up and wardrobe people, blowing out the costs even further. Could it be they don’t trust the quality of Surfers Paradise spray tans and fake eyelashes? By contrast, when the ­Logies were in Melbourne, the networks’ local hair and make-up people were simply set up in hotel suites at the awards night’s home at Crown casino and other hotels nearby. Another reason for the cost blowout is a scheduling nightmare TV Week may have overlooked when choosing a new midwinter date for its big night: the Gold Coast Marathon is being held on the same day. This unusual mix of marathon junkies and TV personalities is having its effect on the Logies weekend, with many entry level rooms at big Goldie ­hotels sold out, and others going for upwards of $700 a night. One network is adopting a Hunger Games-style approach with its ­celebrities to keep costs down. As one insider at that network puts it: “If you’re nominated, you go. If you’re not, you don’t.”

 

Limits to Logies largesse

As the Logies costs pile up, the networks’ only consolation is that TV Week is giving them what jokers are dubbing a “Celebrity Assistance Package” to help subsidise their huge extra costs this year. Diary is reliably informed the networks are trousering $1000 a head from TV Week for each celebrity they bring to the Logies. However, even Bauer’s considerable benevolence towards needy celebrities has its limits: it apparently tops out at $75,000 in total for each network. Apparently, the Celebrity Assistance Package is being distributed out of the lump sum that TV Wee k pocketed from the Queensland government’s major events unit, as an incentive to move the Logies from Melbourne. But the networks are grumbling that is an amount that barely touches the sides, given the costs involved. So is the big night worth it for the networks? Apparently so. Veteran media analyst Steve Allen estimates the total publicity value to TV networks of the Logies each year is $20m.

 

Bring on Barnaby

Your diarist’s Barnaby Joyc e-Vikki Campion scoop the Saturday before last in The Weekend Australian (which first revealed they were selling their interview to Seven for $150,000) was a catalyst that prompted jittery network ­executives to bring the screening of the story forward by weeks. Seven sources say that when Sunday Night first won the interview over Nine’s 60 Minutes 12 days ago, the network did not want to screen it until mid-June at the earliest. Seven’s initial take was that it wanted to put plenty of distance between the Joyce-Campion ­interview and Sunday Night’s much-criticised Jacqui Lambie profile. But after The Weekend Australian story appeared, triggering an outrage about the payment to a sitting politician, the thinking changed in the Seven bunker. Program-makers were worried that under the blowtorch of a media storm, Joyce might give away at least some of the story, because of his tendency to mouth off in public. As one source puts it: “What if the interview had not gone well? Remember, he’s a politician, and he’s known to talk. It was about preservation of the exclusive.” So Seven flouted all the rules of tabloid TV, and rushed out its second political interview in the space of a week last night. It’s fair to say that Sunday Night and 60 Minutes are allergic to pollie interviews, which are generally viewed as box office poison. But running two politicians, Lambie and Joyce, back-to-back in successive weeks? Diary imagines 60 Minutes legend John “Westy” Westacott’s reaction would be unprintable.

Barnaby Joyce. Picture: Getty Images

Fingers crossed

As last night’s story screened on Sunday Night to likely blockbuster ratings, all eyes at Seven are on the figures that pop out shortly before 9am today. Sunday Night’s executive producer Hamish Thomson will be desperately hoping the bucks paid to Joyce and Campion will buy the program some badly needed morale and status. The show attracted a miserable 444,000 viewers last week to its special edition about Jacqui Lambie diving back into the dating game (which, yes, did ­include her attending a sex toy party). Ratings like that mean Blockbuster Sunday, a concept that Thomson is ­apparently fond of championing to fellow staffers, hasn’t exactly been taking off ­lately for poor Sunday Night. The ratings riddle has sparked an ­increasingly desperate search in the Sunday Night bunker for stories that create Monday morning water cooler chatter. A pity the program ultimately ­decided its only story option was to fork out big coin for one. Thomson and his battling band will be keen to see the Barnaby and Vikki circus (guest-starring seven-week-old Sebastian Joyce) bring home the ratings bacon: after all, $150,000 is a lot of dough in cash-strapped times for commercial TV. What is $150,000 worth in terms of ratings? Seven execs are privately hoping 1.5 million Australians last night tuned in for Blockbuster Sunday with Barnaby and Vikki, rather than doing their usual ­Sunday night thing of streaming paid content.

Occasional Sunday

It’s worth putting some ratings context to Sunday Night’s eagerness to fork out big moulah to lock up the Joyce-Campion soap opera. Until last night’s edition, it’s fair to say Seven hadn’t been showing much love in 2018 towards its current affairs flagship. Diary’s own analysis of network schedules shows Seven has been erratic this year in screening Sunday Night, supposedly a weekly current ­affairs show. The program has run just nine times in 2018, an interesting stop-start strategy for a show costing the network millions each year. Sunday Night has been shoved aside recently for several big network events: including the Commonwealth Games and Delta Goodrem’s Olivia Newton-John biopic. Meanwhile, across the way at Nine, 60 Minutes has screened on 15 Sundays this year, virtually every week of the ratings season. Sure, the show has been shunted to some graveyard timeslots, but Nine has continued to commit to running it. The differing attitudes of the networks to the shows have been reflected in the 2018 ratings. Sunday Night’s figures have collapsed to an average of 591,000 this year in the five major cities, down 23 per cent on last year’s ratings. Hardly blockbuster stuff. Meanwhile, the figures at 60 Minutes have fallen marginally — down 2 per cent to 717,000. ­Before chequebook journalism returned last night, Sunday Night had topped 60 Minutes just once this year: a colourful curiosity piece about the former child star of soapie The Sullivans, Susan Hannaford.

Delta Goodrem. Picture: Getty Images

 

It’s a no to Q&A

While at least one member of the government has been in high demand from TV networks, you literally couldn’t pay some very senior politicians to join Tony Jones on the ABC’s Q&A. Our search of Q&A’s archives shows that Treasurer Scott Morrison and Immigration and Home ­Affairs Minister Peter Dutton have avoided the show for years. For example, Diary hears Morrison was asked on to Q&A the Monday after last month’s budget but instead fronted up that night for a “town hall” forum hosted by Paul Murray on Sky News. Diary asked several senior government staffers what was going on, and it seems the Q&A absences are deliberate. In fact, there is open hostility in some government quarters ­towards the show. One senior staffer simply said: “Why would we?” ­Another said: “From the perspective of a conservative member of the government, you’re talking to the converted. You’re bashing your head against a brick wall. They often claim the audience is more ­Coalition than anyone else. But from our observation, we just don’t believe it.” But ABC insiders strongly defend the processes for determining the political make-up of Q&A’s audience. They say each audience member is asked their voting intention at a federal election if it were held on that day: nearly identical to what Newspoll asks.

 

Aunty’s own wizard

Can the producer dubbed “The TV Wizard” by no lesser media statesman than Ray Martin in his autobiography bring her special brand of stardust to the ABC’s 7.30? That is the question on ABC insiders’ lips, following the appointment of Jo Townsend as the program’s number two under executive producer Justin Stevens. Townsend has a longstanding connection with both John Lyons, the ABC’s head of investigative and in-depth journalism (and the man who has ultimate responsibility for 7.30), and Stevens, that goes all the way back to 2005 in the twilight years of the Sunday program. At that point, Lyons was Sunday’s executive producer, and Stevens and Townsend were in their early TV years. Since Townsend has arrived at the ABC in recent months, there are already signs that the 60 Minutes “presenter as star” culture has infiltrated Aunty. The network is now running a nightly ad campaign that has Leigh Sales starring as the focal point of the program. The promos are highly reminiscent of the 60 Minutes playbook, where presenters are front and centre. The celebrity-heavy ABC promos feature the full gamut of Sales’s interviews and emotions: embracing Paul McCartney, bantering with Margot Robbie and Hillary Clinton, talking tough with James Comey, and sharing an emotional moment with Blanche d’Alpuget. Sound familiar? Many believe Townsend the TV Wizard is already working her mysterious 60 Minutes magic on the public broadcaster. Ratings-wise, Townsend’s creative stardust is needed at Aunty. While 7.30 has this year solidly rated above 600,000 on Mondays (the ABC’s news and current affairs night), it has generally struggled to hold that audience for the rest of the week.

Leigh Sales with Sir Paul McCartney. Picture: MPL Communications

 

ABC seeing new year in

Still on the ABC, the early mail is that Aunty has retained its exclusive rights to screen the New Year’s Eve festivities on Sydney Harbour. Last year was the third and final year of the ABC’s previous deal to show the big night, including the 9pm and midnight fireworks displays. A spokesman for Clover Moore’s City of Sydney Council confirms it has already chosen its next broadcast partner, but adds an announcement can’t yet be made because contract terms are still being “finalised”. However, commercial network sources bidding for the fireworks believe the ABC has locked up the deal. And apparently Aunty is set to host the NYE telecast for three more years, despite having frequently been a New Year’s Day punching bag in the media for its countdown coverage in recent years. It is ­believed the ABC/City of Sydney NYE deal only sees a token amount of money change hands between the parties, mainly ­related to broadcast costs.

 

Get me outta here

Just over two months since Australian cricket’s ball tampering scandal saw captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner thrown out of the game for a year, the crisis continues to reverberate in boardrooms across the country, as cautious corporate sponsors ­become ever more careful to protect their precious reputations. The newly announced corporate partner of all men’s Test cricket in this country, energy supplier ­Alinta, is understood to have made sure to include an escape clause in its four-year contract with James Sutherland’s troops at Cricket Australia to protect it from scandals like the South African affair. The previous Test sponsor, Magellan, sensationally invoked a “disrepute” clause within days of the scandal to allow it to escape its three-year, $8m a year deal after less than one year. Alinta has had a near-identical get-out clause written into its contract. There was also talk last week that Alinta may have even included another ­escape hatch, through an innovative contract clause that would ­allegedly have allowed it to quit the sponsorship if cricket ratings fell in the wake of Sandpaper-gate. However, Diary has since been assured that talk is wide of the mark.

 

Nothing to see here

A highly-critical Sunday Telegraph column from April last year about controversial social media activist and former ABC personality Yassmin Abdel-Magied has been cleared of any breach after a complaint to the Press Council. The Piers Akerman column — ­titled “What genius gave this Islam idiot a soapbox” — could never have been accused of pulling its punches. It variously dubbed Ms Abdel-Magied as a “silly Muslim woman”, “stupid”, someone who “was always bound to utter great inanities”, “a fool”, “nonentity” and “halfwit”. The column also referenced her headline-making Facebook comments about Anzac Day last year, which Akerman ­described as “ridiculous”. The council said Akerman’s opinions were “likely to offend many”. But the ruling went on to state: “It is in the public interest in freedom of speech that vigorous public ­debate be permitted, even when expressed in extreme terms, as is the case here. Accordingly, the Council considered that there had been no breach of its Standards of Practice.”

 

Former ABC personality Yassmin Abdel-Magied.. Picture: Kym Smith

 

 

 

Tom takes a new turn

He’s back! Just when you thought it was safe to return to the lounge room, Tom Waterhouse is coming back to your screens. Diary hears the high-profile bookie, son of Robbie and Gai Waterhouse, is this week meeting with advertising reps at major media companies to flesh out a campaign to run across TV, print and radio in coming months. His personal brand took its share of knocks before he sold his Tomwaterhouse.com ­online bookie business to William Hill back in 2013. Many people were definitely not fans of the blanket coverage he paid for ­ads and football telecasts, which effectively made him the face of online betting in Australia. Even former treasurer Joe Hockey said it was “wrong to have a bookie so ­involved in the coverage of the footy”. Five years later, Waterhouse now admits the coverage was “polarising” and he has learned to take a more balanced approach to media promotion. But it has not deterred him from buying ad space once more, now that he controls the Tomwaterhouse.com domain name once again. This time, he wants to plug not his bookie services but a new site peddling horse tips, through packages costing subscribers up to $120,000 a year. At that price, they’d want to be some darned good tips.

Tom Waterhouse. Picture: James Croucher