Mike Sneesby had no choice but to step down.
Nine Entertainment is a company in urgent need of a thorough clean out, and Sneesby’s departure will make that process easier.
The 50-year-old insists that his resignation has nothing whatsoever to do with the slew of workplace misconduct allegations that have been levelled against senior members of Nine staff in recent months, nor the subsequent review that he commissioned to address such issues.
But the inescapable fact is that Sneesby can’t distance himself from Nine’s rotten company culture, even though it had set in well before he took the CEO’s reins in April 2021.
Whatever steps he may have taken to lift the professional standards within the company – particularly with regards the TV and current affairs division – were too little, too late.
Sneesby came to the job with powerful momentum, having led Nine’s fledgling streaming service Stan to a position of market prominence within a few short years, but he always struggled to shake the tag of “TV guy’’, in a company that also houses powerhouse newspaper mastheads, and the most popular talkback radio stations in the country, including 2GB and 3AW.
Internally, there were frequent criticisms that he wasn’t always fully across the goings-on in the publishing and radio divisions, as he was more focused on the company’s TV arm.
Perversely, the implosion of former Nine chair Peter Costello – who quit after forcefully barging into a journalist from The Australian at Canberra Airport in June – possibly bought Sneesby a get-out-of-jail card.
At the time, it was Sneesby, not Costello, who was under pressure to resign following the ham-fisted handling of the saga surrounding ex-news boss Darren Wick, who had quit earlier in the year after it was alleged he sexually harassed a female staffer.
But if Costello’s unexpected departure was an opportunity for Sneesby to save his own skin, the window slammed shut when he decided to carry the Olympic torch through the streets of Paris prior to the Games in July.
The images of a beaming Sneesby jogging with the torch enraged a great chunk of Nine’s staff, particularly those in the publishing division who were on the cusp of strike action, demanding better pay and conditions.
Elsewhere, staff in the TV newsrooms saw Sneesby’s Olympic showboating as insensitive, given the allegations of widespread bullying and other claims of workplace misconduct remained unresolved.
Sneesby later defended his involvement in the torch relay, but the excuse didn’t wash with staff. His internal support was torched.
And then there’s the share price.
It’s fallen 58 per cent during Sneesby’s tenure, and on Thursday morning was wallowing at $1.24, with the company’s market capitalisation now below $2 billion.
To be fair, the industry-wide advertising slump severely curtailed Sneesby’s plans for Nine and the structural problems facing the free-to-air TV business represent an existential crisis for the company, as well as rivals Seven and Ten.
But it’s time for a new face at Nine.
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