BotW: Of influencer CEOs, SCA agitation, and a symbolic exit
Welcome to Best of Week, written on board VA1090 out of Sydney on Friday afternoon, and in chilly Evandale, Tasmania, this morning.
Today: How influencer became a dirty word; Why doesn’t ARN Media just leave its rival alone?; and a big signal from a Seven insider.
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How to be incredibly profitable in media
This week politics commentator Hannah Ferguson generated headlines in a speech to the Press Club of Australia. ‘Influencer’ has become the dirtiest word, she argued.
Some of the facts of her speech were wrong.
Tackling media concentration she claimed: “Three entities - News Corp, Nine Entertainment and Southern Cross Austereo - control almost 90% of metro radio licences.”
You could argue that Ferguson was merely simplifying the status of Nova Entertainment, owned by News Corp boss Lachlan Murdoch. But omitting ARN Media, owner of the Kiis and Gold networks, isn’t an error you should make in the opening minutes of a speech about the over concentration of the “dinosaur” media.
There was also mischaracterisation of how the terminology of influencers emerged. It was not “manufactured”, as Ferguson claimed. It arrived organically and gradually. PR people engaging in issues management used to talk about journalists, podcasters and the like as “influencers” and gradually expanded the term as social media came through.
What is true is that influencer has become a negative word, likely to bring to mind fitness influencers pushing questionable products with poor disclosures of paid sponsorships. And that is frustrating for those in the creator economy who behave ethically.
In the end social media influencers annexed the term themselves. The word only became tainted through the actions of many of those influencers who particularly in the early days were shady in their disclosures.
Ferguson presents a manicured version of herself as CEO of a media company. Girlboss, to use the cringey 2014 terminology.
However, she’s the CEO of a company where she’s also the product, and the only full time employee. Her books, her public tours, her podcasts.
In Ferguson’s Press Club appearance she asserted: “I run an incredibly profitable business.” She then emphasised: “I do have a profitable media business in this country which is quite rare.”
It’s easier to own a “incredibly profitable” media company when you only have two other part time employees, both of them university students.
Words like CEO, and media company imply scale beyond the creator economy.
Legally and technically it’s true that Ferguson is a CEO of her business Cheek Media. And anyone can call themselves CEO. I remember an ad sales person once handing me a business card that said “CEO of advertising”. I still feel bad for him.
Indeed, at the urging of a friend in the industry I reluctantly put the CEO title on my LinkedIn bio once there were five of us on the team at Unmade, although it felt fake as hell at the time for a business of that size.
But like they say, fake it til you make it. All the way to the Press Club.
Southern Cross Austereo - still in ARN’s sights?
Speaking of ARN, the seemingly unending saga of their pursuit of Southern Cross Austereo took another turn this week.
Investment firm Sandon Capital popped up with a threat to try to spill the SCA board. So good, so 2024.
The SCA board had survived a previous attempt when shareholders felt last year’s takeover bid by ARN was being slow walked. That one was withdrawn when the SCA board acquiesced to due diligence, only for ARN’s bid partner Anchorage to get cold feet.
On Monday it emerged that Sandon, which only just qualifies as a major shareholder with a 5.05% stake, kicked off the first steps of the process towards a vote on a board spill.
The SCA board seemed to quickly rebuff the attempt, putting out an assertive statement to the ASX pointing out that Sandon isn’t exactly a long term holder of SCA stock, having only moved to major shareholder status six months ago. SCA also said that of those allowed to vote, it already had the backing of half its shareholders to vote down any spill.
On Friday came another turn. Sandon wants the Takeovers Panel to allow ARN Media to vote the full stake it obtained during its previous bid.
I’m keeping an open mind, but for Sandon to go to that degree of effort suggests it believe ARN Media would indeed vote for a spill, and indeed has a plan for another takeover tilt.
That doesn’t sit particularly well. Although there was an elegance to ARN Media’s original plan, particularly the idea of a single major owner of digital audio content, the moment passed. ARN Media chose an unreliable partner in Anchorage and it lost.
There’s a point where the distracting action of trying again looks more like sabotage on a rival.
ARN is yet to reveal whether it is backing Sandon’s move - but there’s a real risk that if the company continues to run interference on its rival, it hurts the unusual consensus that the audio sector generally achieves.
Nonetheless, wheels are turning in the M&A space. Nine’s sale of Domain to CoStar still seems to be proceeding. And Seven Wests Media’s share price has gone on a tear - up 20% this week alone.
Somewhere in the background, somebody is making moves.
BRS appeal DOA
It would appear that Nine’s distracting and expensive defamation battle with Ben Roberts-Smith is finally over. Yesterday he lost his appeal against the ruling that Nine’s publications did not defame him when they reported that he was a war criminal.
The years-long distraction has robbed many Nine journalists, including the admirable Nick McKenzie, of time covering their beats.
Even if Nine recovers its financial costs in a case underwritten by rival Seven West Media proprietor Kerry Stokes, it won’t get that back.
Australia’s defamation system is still skewed firmly against public interest journalism.
Exit Anthony De Ceglie
Speaking of Seven West Media, the media industry lost one of its innovators this week.
Seven West Media’s director of news and current affairs Anthony De Ceglie is departing to launch the Perth NRL franchise of The Bears. It’s a symbolic defection from the AFL-aligned SWM, and the biggest shock exit from the organisation since James Warburton’s 2011 walkout to run Network Ten.
It’s clearly an exciting opportunity for De Ceglie (like Hannah Ferguson, he’ll get to say CEO on his LinkedIn), and one that gives him a return from Sydney to his home town of Perth.
De Ceglie represented a rare spark of innovation in the least evolved of the three commercial TV networks. In his previous role at The West, he was instrumental in the launch of both The Nightly, which has become a credible news product, and community sports streaming service Streamer.
De Ceglie’s time on the TV news side of the business was most associated with the experiments of astrology and satire segments. They didn’t work out. But the point was that he was trying new things.
The fact that De Ceglie sees his future, not just outside Seven West Media but outside of media itself says a lot about the prognosis for the industry.
De Ceglie has been replaced by his deputy, old school newsman Ray Kuka. Will we see as much effort to innovate? I don’t think we need to ask an astrologer for the answer.
Seven finishes the week in the dip
Seven West Media’s price rally fell away a little on Friday, with the share price dropping for the day by 3% after fading in late trading.
Like the wider ASX All Ordinaries, the media and marketing stocks covered on the Unmade Index had no clear direction yesterday. Domain continued to nudge up towards the CoStar offer price of $4.43, and carried majority shareholder Nine with it. And Ooh Media was up by 0.9% as it continues to trade close to a one-year high.
ARN Media dipped by 0.9% to land on a market capitalisation of $169m while Southern Cross Austereo lost 0.7%, landing on $177m.
Vinyl Group, owner of music platforms and entertainment industry publications, gained 8.3%, closing on $163m.
The overall Unmade Index closed down 0.11% on 553.4 points.
More from Mumbrella…
Time to leave you to your Saturday.
If you’d like to hear a little more from me, our latest episode of MediaLand from ABC Radio National is now in the usual podcast catchers. We discussed the influencer question, looked at the media industry agenda facing the next Labor government, and discussed the BBC’s plans to turn off the transmitters.
We’ll be back with more on Monday.
Have a great weekend
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade + Mumbrella
tim@unmade.media
