Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade.
Today’s edition features an intriguing conversation with one of the most connected executives in the television industry - Fetch TV boss Scott Lorson. Further down, the Unmade Index’s Santa rally roars into a second day.
If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, there will never be a better time. Until the end of this week, our annual membership price is reduced from $650 to just $377 - that’s a saving of 42%. That discount will be locked in for as long as you stay a member. Upgrade today.
Scott Lorson: The man who may understand the TV landscape better than anyone else in Australia
Scott Lorson has outlasted the bosses of every other major media company in Australia. In an industry riven by disruption, Lorson has been a constant at the helm of Fetch TV for nearly 15 years.
The aggregation service - delivered via the company’s Mighty and Mini set top boxes has hung its hat on elegant navigation and convenient aggregation of all the major streaming services, both free and paid.
Last year, in one of the most significant moments for Fetch TV, Telstra bought a $50m, controlling stake from Astro Holdings. It will see customers of the Telstra TV service migrate to Fetch, taking the service into more than a million households.
In today’s podcast conversation with Unmade’s Tim Burrowes, Lorson discusses the relevance of Fetch against the increasing smartness of smart TVs, how the next step might be to integrate the Fetch interface into televisions, the current reform of prominence legislation, and where the TV market goes next.
Uniquely, Lorson deals with all the players, not just locally but globally, and in both the free and susbscription markets. It means he arguably has a better understanding of the dynamics of the television industry than anyone else in Australia.
Sleighbells still ringing for the Unmade Index
The Unmade Index’s strong Santa rally continued for a second day on Wednesday, with another 1.14% added to the index, which rose to 626.7 points. The lift in media and marketing shares once again outstripped that of the wider ASX All Ordinaries which lifted by only 0.62%.
Shares in Seven West Media rose by another 1.85% as the market digested Tuesday night’s revelation that the Kerry Stokes-led Seven Group Holdings had crept up the SWM register by another percentage point.
At the big end of town, Domain had the best day, rising by 3.33%, while Ooh Media was close behind with a boost of 3.21%.
ARN Media’a resurgence also continued, with its 3.09% rise taking the company’s share price back up to a dollar for the first time since its takeover bid for Southern Cross Austereo began.
Time to leave you to your Thursday.
There’ll be more from Unmade on Saturday, with Best of the Week, in which I offer my verdict on the best ASX media and marketing performers of the year.
Editing was courtesy of Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.
Message us: letters@unmade.media
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade
tim@unmade.media
Connected: How Scott Lorson steered Fetch TV to Australia's prime streaming aggregator