StW: Tech tax door cracks open; ABC's bold Media Watch move; Ooh Media reveals a down half

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Welcome to Start the Week, our Monday scene-setter for the week ahead.

In today’s audio-led edition, rumblings about a tech tax get louder; clues from earnings season as Ooh Media’s profits slip; and the ABC invites the Bruce Lehrmann defamation judge to host Media Watch.

If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:

• Member-only pricing for our HumAIn and REmade (October 1) conferences;

• A complimentary invitation to Unmade’s Compass event (November);

• Member-only content and our paywalled archives;

• Your own copy of Media Unmade.

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Digital levy drumbeat get louder; Is this the week ARN tries yet again to capture SCA? ABC thinks out of the box for Media Watch

The next Media Watch host? Justice Michael Lee declined

Publishers smell money in the air, and they’re launching a landgrab before the dollars drift to the ground. With the government dithering about whether to designate Meta under the News Media Bargaining Code, lifestyle publishers are arguing that what they do had a value too. If Meta or anyone else gets designated, they want to be allowed into the negotiations.

Also today, we check in on earnings season with Ooh Media reporting a down half this morning, and ARN likely to update the market on its SCA takeover ambitions when it does its half yearly update on Thursday.

And The Australian reveals that The ABC has been rebuffed in what would have been a wonderful casting move. It tried to interest Justice Michael Lee in replacing Paul Barry as Media Watch host. In a parallel universe it would have been a great idea.

And it was the morning after Larry Emdur won the Gold Logie.

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Further reading:

• The Guardian: The door to an Australian tech tax is clearly ajar. Can Labor make it happen?

• Unmade: A digital levy for platforms now looks likely

• Australian Financial Review: Lifestyle, culture websites argue for their slice of Meta’s pie

• The Australian: Financial markets say FTA advertising market won’t improve until consumer confidence lifts

• Unmade: Labor will do the TV industry a favour if it bans gambling ads

• The Australian: Southern Cross Austereo takeover deal is pie in the sky – for now

• The Australian: ABC’s pitch for Federal Court judge Michael Lee to take Media Watch hot seat declined

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Today’s episode features Tim Burrowes and Abe Udy.

Editing was courtesy of Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.

Time to leave you to start your week. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.

Toodlepip…

Tim Burrowes

Publisher - Unmade

tim@unmade.media

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