BotW: Mount up
Welcome to Best of the Week, written on a pleasant morning in Evandale, Tasmania.
Today: Positive Paramount signals; and a week of losses for the industry.
Happy International Geocaching Day.
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Paramount starts spending
The most fascinating new dynamic in local media is yet to play out, but this week a couple more pieces fell into place. The new management of Paramount have come to play. Whether Network Ten will get to come on the journey still remains to be seen.
Barely a week into the Skydance takeover deal closing, the company announced a huge TV sports rights deal - a seven year, US$7.7bn contract to become the exclusive US broadcaster of Ultimate Fighting Championship.
It was a sign of intent from new proprietor David Ellison who is backed by his family’s Oracle billions. He’s not going to be merely cutting his way to the top.
Paramount said it would chase the UFC rights in other markets when they become available. The Australian UFC rights are currently held by Foxtel in a “multi-year agreement” which kicked off in the beginning of 2024. With recent Foxtel announcements “multi-year” has meant two. If that’s the case, then those local UFC rights might be up for grabs soon.
That creates an early bellwether for where Paramount’s Australian operation, including Network Ten, sits within the company global plans.
One of the intriguing elements of the US deal, is that although much of the content will be streamed to Paramount+, one of the attractions for the rights owner TKO Group is the reach to new audiences offered by some bouts airing on broadcast network CBS.
Apply that principle to the Australian market, and Paramount’s ownership of Network Ten becomes an important negotiation tool for local sports rights deals.
In audience and advertiser terms, UFC is at best a third tier sport in Australia. AFL and NRL sit on the top tier with cricket and tennis on the next rung. But it does have the major attraction of being year round. And the audience skews younger than most sports which is attractive to advertisers.
If Paramount wins the local UFC rights, it would be a huge signal to the market. It would be taken more seriously in other rights and trading negotiations.
Currently Ten is a distant third behind Nine and Seven for ratings and revenue. One way or another, that won’t be acceptable to the new Paramount management.
Industry goodbyes
It was a week of sad shocks for the industry.
On Monday we learned of the passing of the marvelous John Baker, the force behind Adelaide’s most storied agency KWP. Although I didn’t know him well, I met him often enough to have lost count. On every work trip to Adelaide I’d observe the influence of KWP spread far beyond their office. Other agencies still rightly treat KWP as the local benchmark.
On Tuesday the industry reacted to the loss of former Woolworths marketer and agency executive Luke Dunkerley, widely seen as an extremely decent man in an industry which is not always that way.
Both Baker and Dunkerley went too early.
And on Thursday, Australia stopped for a moment at the passing of David Stratton at the age of 85. At The Movies, presented with Margaret Pomeranz on SBS and the ABC, was a huge part of the monoculture. Stratton brought to the show his expertise, including nearly 20 years as director of the Sydney Film Festival. The duo - and their agreeable disagreements - were part of the fabric of Australian life.
One star.
Unmade Index finishes strong
Seven was the one stock on the Unmade Index to see a fall on Friday, losing 3.3%.
The rest of the index followed the lead of the wider ASX All Ordinaries which closed on a new high yesterday.
Among the star performers was Southern Cross Austereo which rose by 5.1% despite having to make the awkward admission that Ido Leffler had accidentally sold some shares during a blackout period where directors are not allowed to do so. Leffler only sold $614.46 worth of shares, SCA told the ASX.
Ooh Media also had a strong finish to the week, rising by 3.2%. ARN Media was up 1.1%.
The Unmade Index closed on 578.1 points, up by 1.17% for the day. However, unlike the All Ords, the Unmade Index is far from its 2022 opening high of 1000 points.
In case you missed it from Unmade:
On Monday, I asked why Australia’s media owners are better at hating each other than working together. The emails I received afterwards suggested I struck a chord:
On Tuesday, we dug into Seven’s full year numbers and annual report:
On Wednesday I explored the weakness of Tech Council of Australia chair Scott Farquhar’s argument for making it easier for AI companies to scrape Australian content without paying for it:
On Thursday my colleague Lauren McNamara explored the evolution of AI-led agency Cuttable in an audio-led edition:
And yesterday, we explored some of the reasons behind DDB’s loss of its oldest client, McDonald’s:
More from Mumbrella…
Opinion: Has fragmentation gone too far?
‘I put all my skin in the game’: Ebiquity CEO Ruben Schreurs on overseeing the world’s top brands
How does Netflix compare to the other streamers, here and abroad?
Dentsu Japan props up group, job cuts to come after big APAC revenue declines
Don’t believe everything you read: OMG and WPP tie in Comvergence rankings
Time to leave you to your weekend.
If you’d like a little more from me, last night’s episode of MediaLand from ABC Radio National is now on your favourite podcast feed.
Our guest was former Al Jazeera correspondent Peter Greste, who a decade ago was imprisoned in Egypt after being falsely accused of aiding terrorists. We discussed the assassination of AJ journalist Anas al-Sharif by the Israel Defence Force which claimed he was a Hamas operative.
Co-host Vivienne Kelly and I also tackled the proposed WA “post and boast” law, the Netflix price rise, and what the point of having a term of office is, after the early departure of SBS managing director James Taylor for a lucrative gig at Ooh Media.
And if you’d rather hear about things I’m wrong about, give this morning’s episode of Game Changers Radio a listen. They don’t agree with my take on the Jonesy & Amanda move.
And finally, a recommendation. My colleague Hal Crawford conducted an excellent interview with the global CEO of Ebiquity, Ruben Schreurs. It was a wide ranging discussion of the marketing landscape, but also a fascinating exploration of Schreurs experiencing an attack which nearly cosythim his life. I promise you’ll find it a rewarding listen.
Have a great weekend
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade + Mumbrella
tim@unmade.media
