Nine producer’s flight; Fairfax’s Hunger Games; John Laws OK

Network chief Hugh Marks’s soap operas continue and veteran radio man John Laws OK after a fall.

Nine chief executive Hugh Marks’s woes contiunue. Picture: Renee Nowytarger

Long-time 60 Minutes producer Rebecca Le Tourneau faces an internal HR investigation at Nine after she allegedly exposed herself to other travellers on board a Qantas flight, Diary can reveal. Le Tourneau was ­travelling on Sydney to New York service QF11 with veteran investigative reporter Ross Coulthart when the incident took place on April 1.

It’s believed she indulged in one of the airline’s extensive first-class menus after being upgraded from business class. It’s understood Coulthart repeatedly tried to calm an excited Le Tourneau down as her behaviour become erratic, while Qantas flight attendants told Le Tourneau to return to her seat. There is a suggestion sleeping tablets played a role in the incident.

The incident took place six days before a crew from 60 Minutes, including reporter Tara Brown,were detained while filming a story in Lebanon after a botched child kidnapping attempt. Asked for a statement, Nine and Qantas both declined to comment. Le Tourneau is a Walkley Award winner after working on Brown’s report into Australian paedophile Peter Scully, Catching a Monster.

Hugh’s soap operas

Life behind the scenes at 60 ­Minutes is producing plot twists as complex and entertaining as any episode. Surely, Nine chief Hugh Marks need look no further than the 60 Minutes crew for his next prime-time ratings hit. In the meantime, Marks has received the full review of events that led to the arrest of the 60 ­Minutes crew ­involved in the so-called recovery of two children in Beirut. Marks is consulting with the Nine board and management about the­ ­findings.

The review was carried out by former 60 Minutes executive producer Gerald Stone, former boss of A Current Affair, David Hurley, and the network’s general counsel Rachel Launders.

Fairfax’s Hunger Games

Death by a thousand clicks. After Fairfax Media journalists passed a vote of no-confidence in the publisher’s management, Diary hears that some of the staff asked to leave under a forced redundancy scheme were told they do not generate enough online clicks.

In a Hunger Games-style assessment of their contributions, reporters are being assessed on the basis of page impressions and number of articles ­rather than journalistic merit. The brutal handiwork was first suggested by cost-cutter-in-chief Greg Hywood’s hitherto favourite management consultancy, Bain & Co. As well as clicks, journalists were rated on a range of other metrics.

The long list of marquee journalists going down the lifts and walking out the door are taking the industry’s breath away: The Australian Financial Review’s property guru Robert Harley, economics editor Alan Mitchell, international editor Tony Walker, cartoonist Rod Clement and media editor Dominic White. ­Almost 90 others are being paid to leave. Senior Sydney Morning Herald business writer, and litigation magnet, Michael West, also goes.

Laws OK after fall

The Golden Tonsils, John Laws, is expected to be right to resume on air this morning after a fall at one of his favourite restaurants on Saturday night. The 2SM radio host spent a precautionary night at Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital after a table he was leaning on ­collapsed during dinner at the China Doll restaurant in Woolloo­mooloo.

After he walked to his nearby apartment, paramedics decided the 80-year-old should head to hospital. He was discharged at 8am yesterday and his team say he should be right on air this morning with another “Hello, world”.

Soccer deal on table

Football Federation Australia chief executive David Gallop is working hard to secure the code’s biggest ever broadcast deal, after it emerged the A-League rights would be sold separately from the international rights. Diary understands FFA has held formal meetings with television broadcasters in recent weeks. Key to any deal will be the appetite of free-to-air broadcasters Seven Network, Nine Network and Network Ten.

Subscription TV group Fox Sports, owned by The Australian’s publisher News Corporation, is the incumbent rights holder, while SBS broadcasts a game a week. “We are currently talking to a broad cross-section of media companies including all the free to air networks,” Gallop told Diary. “We are comfortable that our code has a good story to tell.”

The current deal is worth $40 million a year and the code had been chasing an increase of up to double that in the new agreement. However, Lagarde Sports and Entertainment holds the rights to Socceroos matches and is believed to be keen to negotiate with Australian networks separately.

It adds a layer of uncertainty to the process, given FFA won’t be able to bundle A-League and international broadcast rights. The wildcards in the sale are telco Optus, which snatched the En­glish Premier League rights from Fox Sports for $63m a year, and Qatar-based beIN Sports, which launched three channels on Foxtel yesterday. One string that Fox Sports has added to its bow since the last FFA deal is new head of live sport Steve Crawley. The well-regarded former Nine head of sport started at Fox Sports this month, joining former colleague at the free-to-air network and head of TV channels Gary Burns.

No horror show for Stan

Stan’s new horror series Wolf Creek has recorded more than double the views of the digital streaming service’s previous best launches. Nine and Fairfax Media’s streaming service has put plenty of marketing muscle behind Wolf Creek, including a pop-up roadhouse-style bar in Sydney’s Martin Place, and in Melbourne during the weekend of the Logies.

The marketing push appears to have paid dividends with more than 500,000 views since the series was made available on Thursday, and 40,000 subscribers watching the entire six-episode series. “Wolf Creek has broken all of our viewing records, and more than doubled our next best series,” Stan chief executive Mike ­Sneesby told Diary. Wolf Creek’s numbers were compared to dramas, Better Call Saul and Billions, over their first four days on Stan. Stan is now aiming to hit a million active subscribers — which is around the figure needed to break even — including free trials next year. The company has a 72 per cent conversion rate from free trials to paying subscribers. Wolf Creek is a spin-off from the eponymous 2005 film, which was followed by a sequel in 2013. Stan needs the subscriber growth after agreeing to fork out $100 million-plus over five years for an output deal with US network Showtime, owned by CBS Corporation.

MKR goes global

Seven Network has sold its My Kitchen Rules format to US network Fox. It’s a landmark deal for Seven, which has been investing heavily in its own productions, with the free-to-air advertising market coming under increasing pressure from new forms of viewing and soft economic conditions.

The agreement will see Fox create and produce the reality series juggernaut for the US market. It follows similar Seven deals with Channel 4 in Britain and broad­casters in New Zealand, Canada, Serbia, Russia, Denmark, Belgium, Norway, Germany and Lithuania. Fox, owned by News Corp’s sister company 21st Century Fox, has begun filming a celebrity version of MKR.

The Scribe signs off

The Scribe hangs up his boots after 38 years. After a long, glorious career at The Australian, Errol Simper is putting his pencil away and retiring his A Certain Scribe media column for walks on Sydney’s Manly beach. Having joined The Australian in 1978, Simper is the newspaper’s longest serving contributor. He has been chief-of- staff three times and has worked for The Canberra Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, Northern Territory News and Queensland Country Life. He was a London correspondent during the 1980s, and by our reckoning might be Australia’s first full-time media specialist. A Certain Scribe is also Australia’s longest-running column by a single author. Simper is a passionate Liverpool fan and, happily, his beloved club has reached the 2016 UEFA Europa League final on Wednesday. The Aust­ralian’s former editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell has joined Media as a columnist. We thank Simper for his service, and wish him good health and happiness. His encyclopedic insights and good humour will be missed by his loyal readers and all at Holt Street.