New book set to haunt Nine
17Apr08

Source: MediaSpy, Herald Sun

A new novel about an Australian television network could come back to haunt the Nine Network and former CEO Eddie McGuire over its handling of the Jessica Rowe “boning” affair.

The anonymously-written book, titled Boned, is a a thinly veiled retelling of the 2006 sacking of Rowe from the Today show, which caused destabilised the network and undermined confidence in McGuire’s leadership.

Despite saying he called for Rowe’s “boning”, an affidavit by former Nine news director Mark Llewellyn claimed McGuire discussed “boning” or sacking the former Ten Network newsreader.

While speculation continues over the identity of the author, the
word from media circles is that Rowe, Llewellyn, and even sacked
reporter Christine Spiteri are possible suspects.

Nine publicists refused to comment on the text when contacted today,
but insiders say executives have been nervous about its pending
publication for some time. The book will be released in June through Puffin Books.

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Search and consume the way of the future
17Apr08

Source: Lara Sinclair, The Australian

AUSTRALIA’S
media executives are predicting a channel-less media environment that
can be searched and consumed on the go, on demand and on a single
device, a survey by Media on the eve of the 2020 Summit has found.

Some
of Australia’s top media chiefs – many of whom will participate in the
Rudd Government’s summit (although media is not a specific discussion
topic) – painted the picture of a changed media landscape by 2020.

SBS managing director Shaun Brown said multi-channelling – or the
launch of new digital channels by free-to-air television broadcasters -
would be "overtaken by on-demand services".

"I’m of the view channels will be replaced with reservoirs of
content from which viewers make choices on a time and platform basis
that they identify," Mr Brown said.

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Conroy clears way for broadband plan
16Apr08

Source: Cath Hart, The Australian

AFTER
four months in power, Stephen Conroy yesterday wrapped up the
unfinished business in telecommunications left by the Howard government.

Earlier
this month, the Communications Minister dealt with his first telco
hangover, announcing the Opel consortium had not met its contractual
obligations and would no longer receive a billion-dollar handout to
build a regional broadband network.

Aside from the fact that Telstra had its legal legion working
overtime on a raft of actions over the circumstances surrounding Opel
winning the tender, the deal was also an awkward policy fit with
Labor’s election promise of a $4.7 billion national broadband network.

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Help Taglines Regain Lost Glory
15Apr08

For some time now I have been observing the advertising world move away from the effective use of slogans or taglines. It seems that, along with jingles, slogans have become "uncool" within an industry that prides itself on being "current" and "cutting edge". Perhaps it has something to do with our current generation of marketers not wanting to do what their predecessors did. Maybe slogans and jingles are considered "old-fashioned" marketing devices.

I couldn’t disagree more (a quick look at our agency show reel displays my appreciation for slogans and jingles). I think "cool" is to blame for the blandness of most campaigns today, and why few current campaigns will ever stack up against the legendary Australian campaigns of yesteryear such as "feel like a Tooheys", "Meadow Lea, you oughta be congratulated", "Woolworths, the fresh food people", "Its time" for Gough Whitlam’s election campaign and "C’mon Aussie C’mon" for World Series Cricket. Mo & Jo would be shaking their heads in disbelief.

I still believe that well-conceived slogans attached to a memorable device, such as a jingle, are extremely effective and should be part of every marketing campaign. Today I found an excellent article in AdAge (USA) extolling the virtues of the marketing slogan. It is wonderful advice:

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Blogging as a marketing strategy
15Apr08

When most companies weigh up their marketing and advertising options they usually consider mainstream media (TV, radio, press), online advertising, direct response, outdoor etc. But their is an increasing school of thought that blogging is a relevant and powerful medium for both attracting business and communicating your brand message.

Earlier this year Sticky Advertising held a Hunter Media Showcase covering all the media options available to local advertisers. Our keynote speaker was Gavin Heaton who discussed social media and Web 2.0 as they relate to businesses. It is an area that Sticky has become very conversant in with 4 blog sites being administered by the agency and several clients beginning to explore blogging strategies as part of their marketing mix.

Gavin has just returned from New York City where he attended the Blogger Social and a social media round-table with Advertising Age. It is quite significant that an advertising bible such as AdAge is now publishing marketing blog rankings (such as the one on the top right of this site) and actively discussing blogging.

As a follow up, Gavin has just posted a fascinating piece on blogging for businesses which you really should read. In the meantime, here is the content of todays piece in AdAge magazine which was prompted by the round-table discussion:

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Popularity: 6%

Latest Newcastle media and advertising news in The Sticky Report
14Apr08

Newcastle advertising agency Sticky Advertising publishes a bi-monthly media and advertising analysis for clients and subscribers. The Sticky Report is packed with all the latest radio and television ratings results, news-press information and  online marketing advice.Sticky_logoemail_copy

Of particular interest are Sticky’s TV cost-effectiveness rankings. These reports provide advertisers with suggestions as to the best value TV programs for different demographics.

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Underbelly helps NBN slay ‘em in the Hunter
14Apr08

Newcastle TV ratings week 15 2008

Prime must be starting to worry here in Newcastle. Near the end of 2007 they were breathing down NBN’s neck on a weekly basis. Their 2008 show-reel looked promising while NBN was still making changes to stop the bleeding from last year. Media Hunter bravely predicted that Prime would win a few weeks early in the season. How wrong we were.

While NBN is well down on their corresponding result for 2007, they are still well ahead of the competition, despite axing 2 awful shows already this year.  NBN News, Underbelly, CSI and the returning Sea Patrol are all performing strongly, while Rugby League is a reliable winner on the weekends.

Meanwhile Prime had just one program in the Top 10 last week and have seen old favourites Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives and Lost slip from view. In fact its all Aussie programs in the Prime Top 10, meaning their US shows are letting them down miserably.

The Aussie programming theme has spread far and wide. Of the Top 10 programs in the Hunter last week, only two were foreign. NBN’s Top 10 had 2 foreigners, Prime none, while Sc Ten had 7 non-Aussies.

Unfortunately this is no help to Prime who were confident of really taking it to NBN this year.

Southern Cross TEN are looking on the bright side of life. While they are still well off the overall pace, they are well in front of their terrible start to 2007, and are performing well in their target demographics.

Nonetheless, overall ratings figures are just part of the picture. To have a look at the most cost-effective TV programs for advertisers click here.

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Seven nudges Nine for No.1 again
14Apr08

National TV ratings week ending April 12

Source: David Dale, Sun Herald Blogs

Life in Cold Blood might describe a typical day in the
programming department at Channel Nine, but it’s actually the name of
the program hastily rushed to air to replace The Power of Ten, a game show axed by Nine after it got a mere 521,000 viewers last Monday.

That was Nine’s second big axing of the year (the first had been Monster House) and Nine was looking at a third when Wednesday’s ratings arrived, showing that the much publicised My Kid’s A Star could
manage only 878,000 in the mainland capitals. It may be dawning on Nine
that Australians don’t like shows in which people are humiliated.

The only content working consistently for Nine now is Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and Underbelly (which it can’t play in Melbourne). Seven’s Gladiators lost 300,000 from its opening night, but still remained among the week’s most watched shows, as you can see below.

The ABC pulled 1.33m for Steve Irwin’s father on Australian Story and SBS got 480,000 for China’s Great Wall.
Pay TV’s most watched in the week to Friday were a rugby league match
between Wests Tigers and Panthers (244,000) and an AFL match between
Adelaide and Port Adelaide (238,000).

The prime time audience shares are ABC 17.2% Seven 28.2% Nine 26.6% Ten 22.2% SBS 5.7%.

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Ad spend booms in ’07
11Apr08

Source: Adnews

Advertising revenue rose 11.5% to $13.2 billion in calendar year 2007, with all mediums posting increases, according to the Commercial Economic Advisory Service of Australia’s latest report.

The official CEASA report on advertising expenditure in main media revealed the following increases over 2006:

Metropolitan/national daily newspapers (including inserted magazines): up 4.3% to $2,341,519

Regional dailies: up 5.6% to $500,812,000

Regional non-dailies: up 14.7% to $432,391,000

Suburban newspapers: up 27.9% to $801,287,000

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Popularity: 5%

Nine ushers series online
10Apr08

Source: Lara Sinclair, The Australian

THE
Nine Network has broken ground for downloads, promising the first four
episodes of medico-legal drama Canal Road online before on-air
broadcast.

While other networks have placed single
episodes of comedy and current affairs programs on the net, Nine is the
first to launch multiple episodes of a local drama at once.

The first two episodes of Canal Road were slated for Ninemsn this
week, ahead of the show’s TV launch next Wednesday. The next two
episodes will be available next week.

Nine has experimented with downloads and "catch-up TV services",
making episode one of Sea Patrol available three days before its launch
last year.

Ten has traditionally been more receptive than its rivals to making
content available online, using YouTube to distribute episodes of Thank
God You’re Here.

Content from The Chaser, on the ABC, has similarly been widely distributed on the net.

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