THE The Numbers

AARON FRANCIS

James Packer is unhappy with speculation on his arrangements

Boston out ofloop on rostersIT is no secret that Boston Con-sulting Group is central to NewsLimited’s restructure and trans-formation. It was appointed bychief executive Kim Williamsvery early on in the process. But itsprecise role appears to be some-thing of a mystery and a companyspokesman would only confirm itsongoing involvement. Diary haslearned from one senior executivethat BCG has been heavily in-volved in developing News Lim-ited’s digital strategy and the keygoal of eliminating duplication onmetropolitan masthead websites.BCG has not been involved in thecreation of seven-day rosters,Diary has learned. The hard yardson that were done during a seriesof clandestine meetings in Bris-bane between editors-in-chiefMel Mansell (South Australia),Phil Gardner (Victoria) andDavid Fagan (Queensland) in thepast six months. Diary has beentold these meetings were con-sidered the key to keeping the edi-torial side of the business in theloop and happy with the changesthat are in progress.

Packer punchQUOTE of the week is surelyJames Packer’s response tospeculationCrownandMalaysianbillionaire KT Lim’s GentingGroup are working on a plan tocarve up the ownership of casinorival Echo Entertainment. ‘‘I haveno comment on that other than tosay that I have no arrangementswith KT Lim. I have no arrange-ments with KT Lim,’’ the Crownboss told The Australian’s DamonKitney. ‘‘And the pissants fromThe Sydney Morning Herald writ-ingmoreof thecrap that theyhavewritten for more than 10 years —which is why the Herald is goingdown the tube — doesn’t surpriseme. You can quote me on that.’’Diary is told Packer went furtherand actually nominated a few ofthe pissants in question, but let’snot go down that path.

Kelly crackTHIS isn’t bad either. On Fridaynight, Sirius Fund Managementmanaging director Kieran Kellyhad a crack at Fairfax chairmanRogerCorbettonSky’sAustralianBusiness. ‘‘Listening to that inter-view, that’s the reason you neverput a grocer in charge of a mediacompany,’’ Kelly, a former Austra-lian Financial Review journalist,said of comments by Corbett lastweek. ‘‘He made his money sellingcabbages and bananas to house-wives, and then he did a 10-minuteinterview and he didn’t use theword content once. Fairfax’s greatstrength has always been its con-tent, and media companies aredevilishly difficult to manage andit’s because you have to enhancethe value of that content and workout ways to sell it, and you’ve got asituation where Corbett is defend-ing Jack Cowin’s expertise atplaces like Channel 10. Well Iwould say to Roger Corbett heshould open one of his own publi-cations like The Australian Finan-cial Review and look at one of theshare tables. He may not knowwhere to find them because, let metell him, Channel Ten’s perform-ance has been less than stellar.’’Corbett had in an earlier interviewwith Australian Business given avery flattering appraisal of newFairfax board member andHungry Jacks boss Cowin and,among other things, his achieve-ments at Ten.

Ten tanksDIARY can help Corbett out. OnFriday, Ten stocks hit a recordlow, down 6.38 per cent, falling 3cto 44c. That means shareholdersJames Packer, Lachlan Murdoch

and Gina Rinehart have done alotofdoughontheir investment inthe network. And this comes afterTen announced it was killing offThe Circle (Friday was the finalbroadcast) but was keepingBreakfast’s life support plugged in.Ten management is showing agreat deal of faith in Breakfast,despite ratings last seen minglingwith penguins and eccentric hostPaul Henry telling people theshow was about to be axed. BothBreakfast and The Circle exist tobring in revenue and The Circlesimply failed to fulfil this brief fol-lowing an exodus of advertisersafter host Yumi Stynes’s com-ments that Victoria Cross winnerBen Roberts-Smith was ‘‘dumb’’.

$100m contractMEDIA buyers are scrambling tolodge paperwork for the accounteveryone is talking about — the$100 million contract News Cor-poration in Australia has put outto tender. The account includesNews Limited titles — includingThe Australian — Foxtel, News-LifeMedia magazines and the20th Century Fox film business.The pitching process is being runby Hamish McLennan, who join-ed News Corporation in Februaryas executive vice-president in theoffice of chairman Rupert Mur-doch. McLennan divides his timebetween New York and Sydney.

Watch this spaceSPEAKING of Hamish McLen-nan, his previous gig was runningYoung&Rubicamglobally.Head-ing the local operation is RusselHowcroft, chief executive of Y&RBrands and one of the stars of theABC’s Gruen Transfer series.Diary hears Howcroft, who hasproved something of a media tal-ent and last year filled in a week-end slot at Melbourne radio sta-tion 3AW, has developed a tastefor the world of media and is con-sidering an executive positionwith a media company.

In the familySERGE Macklin is a producer atTen’s Meet The Press and is apretty handy operator, Diaryhears. But a Canberra sourceclaims the young journo rang theopposition a fortnight ago forsome research and questions toaim at that Sunday’s guest, gov-ernment disabilities reform minis-ter Jenny Macklin . . . who justhappens to be Serge’s mother.Diary understands Serge didn’t letthat stop him from deliveringsome suitably tough questions forpresenter Hugh Riminton.

Two crossoversFAIRFAX has lost two journos tothe News Limited network newsand features team. They are Jes-sica Irvine, who takes the positionof national economics editor, andJoshua Dowling, who becomesnational motoring editor. Irvine,who is perhaps known as much forher econometric approach toweight loss as she is for her econ-omic analysis, broke the news on

Twitter before News announcedit. ‘‘Thanks for all your lovelymessages. I am looking forward tostanding at bus stops with@1RossGittins without gettingthe urge to push ;).’’ Ross Gittins iseconomicseditorat theSMH, a jobIrvine obviously aspired to. Andhere’s a taste of what readers canexpect, from her column on Fri-day: ‘‘When writing columns todeadline, I pump myself up bylistening to the soundtrack ofGlee, an American television showin which a cast of high schoolcharacters performs classic songswith a modern twist (I’m doing itright now).’’ Irvine tells Diary sheleaves Fairfax without a redun-dancy package.

Seven speculationSEVEN’S new news director inMelbourne, former Herald Suneditor Simon Pristel, hit thegroundrunning lastweek,wastingno time ‘‘settling in’’. His appoint-ment has kicked off the rumourmill once again about the future ofother Seven news directors nat-ionally, including Chris Willis inSydney and the often talked aboutfuture head of news and currentaffairs Rob Raschke.

No future newsNEWS Limited’s Future of Jour-nalism website hasn’t been up-dated since March, when SteveRubel from Edelman visited Aus-tralia. Let’s cut them some slack;things have been busy.

Olympic overloadRADIO National listeners are aninfamously strident bunch, un-afraid of complaining to the ABCabout perceived failures of thenetwork.Andcomplain theyhave,Diary has been told, about cover-age of the Olympic games creep-ing into the normal broadcast pat-tern. RN listeners apparently feelovercome with Olympic news onhourly and half-hourly newsbroadcasts in addition to AM, TheWorld Today and PM. A spokes-man denied this to be the case butdid say international listeners ex-periencing ‘‘Olympic-relatedgeoblocking’’ had complained asthey were temporarily unable toaccess content.

Bio gigDIARY hears The New YorkTimes has commissioned Tas-manian author RichardFlanagan to write a profile ofDavid Walsh, the professionalgambler and founder of theMuseum of Old and New Art.

Twitter warningDESPITE denials from Ten it hascounselled some Canberra staffabout their Twitter activities andissues of bias against certain polit-ical parties, Diary hears an emailwas sent out after last week’s storyreminding political journalists topost only comments they wouldbe happy to see go to air on thenightly bulletin. Nothing to seehere, move along.

5 City Metro, Week 31

The Numbers

The Games of the XXX Olympiad kicked off in London last week with a critically acclaimed Opening Ceremony. The event saw Queen Elizabeth II debut her acting skills, helping to set the theme of a light-hearted look at Britain, celebrating its exports of pop music, its natural countryside, and the industrial revolution. The games dominated media, with the ongoing troubles in Syria and new allegations in the Peter Slipper case also attracting coverage.

TOP STORIES LAST WEEK – MEDIA MONITORSMost mentioned issues: press, radio, TV and internet

MEDIA WORM

TONY ABBOTTSTORY OF THE WEEKSPORT STORY OF THE WEEK

JULIA GILLARD

THE TOP 10 TV PROGRAMS {’000} Overnight data (Live + As Live)

Source: OzTAM

Total Syd Melb Bris Adel Perth

Source: sentimentmetrics.com.au

0

10,000

20,000

60,000

70,000

50,000

40,000

30,000

Source: Media Monitors Australia

PRESS RADIO TV INTERNET

Jan

6

Jan

20

Feb

3

Feb

17

Mar

2

Mar

16

Mar

30

Apr

13

27 A

pr

11 M

ay

May

25

Jun

8

Jun

22

Jul 6

Source: Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia

THE TOP 10 MOVIES { Thursday to Sunday inclusive }

Screens$$$WeeksTitle $$$

to date

1 THE DARK KNIGHT RISES 2 7,412,822 628 26,707,385

2 MAGIC MIKE 1 3,819,593 332 4,117,461

3 TED 4 1,661,316 307 31,181,054

4 ICE AGE 4: CONTINENTAL DRIFT 5 558,268 292 26,036,055

5 THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 4 534,640 369 16,570,525

6 SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN 6 286,318 174 19,485,112

7 BRAVE 6 260,810 190 16,010,774

8 CARRY ON JATTA 1 159,899 20 159,899

9 A ROYAL AFFAIR 6 104,629 56 1,221,009

10 KATY PERRY: PART OF ME 4 62,227 98 2,896,455

NineSevenABCMetropolitan* Ten SBS Pay-TV

TV MARKET SHARE { % } Overnight data (Live + As Live) 6pm-midnight

SYDNEY 10.2 15.8 34.1 10.7 3.1 22.7

MELBOURNE 11.2 18.1 33.0 13.1 3.6 20.3

BRISBANE 9.6 17.0 30.1 12.6 3.0 22.0

ADELAIDE 11.0 21.0 33.6 14.5 3.1 16.7

PERTH 13.0 21.6 29.8 13.3 3.7 18.3

Source: OzTAMRegional: TAM

Network totals include digital channels where available *Pay TV – Foxtel, Austar, Optus

WIN/NBN

Seven/Prime

ABCRegional* S.CROSS/TEN

Pay-TVSBS

QUEENSLAND 7.8 22.7 29.9 12.7 2.7 17.1

NORTHERN NSW 8.4 12.5 25.2 8.5 3.2 19.5

SOUTHERN NSW 11.3 19.1 35.3 12.6 3.8 17.3

VICTORIA 11.6 22.0 35.7 10.4 3.3 13.3

TASMANIA 15.6 27.5 31.7 10.4 3.2 11.8

AUDIENCE SHARE { % }

All TV: 5 City Metro (6am-midnight) Week 31: July 29-Aug 4, 2012

Includes digital channels

Weeks 1-31

(Current week: Overnight Data – Live and As Live; Consolidated all other weeks) Source: OzTAM

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

29.4%

12.5%

2.3%

12.0%

Test Cricket 17,543

Test Cricket 17,543

Test Cricket 17,543

AustralianOpen31,479

AustralianOpen31,479

AustralianOpen31,479

Gonski11,907

Gonski11,907

Gonski11,907

Qld &NSW

floods22,784

Qld &NSW

floods22,784

Qld &NSW

floods22,784

WhitneyHouston

15,350

WhitneyHouston

15,350

WhitneyHouston

15,350

NSWFloods

8083

NSWFloods

8083

NSWFloods

8083

EasternStates floods36,701

EasternStates floods36,701

EasternStates floods36,701

SwimmingOlympictrials13,967

SwimmingOlympictrials13,967

SwimmingOlympictrials13,967

Gaymarriage5253

Gaymarriage5253

Gaymarriage5253

Syria10,712Syria10,712Syria10,712

A-Leaguegrand final

8453

A-Leaguegrand final

8453

A-Leaguegrand final

8453

Oscars10,588Oscars10,588Oscars10,588

SchapelleCorby15,543

SchapelleCorby15,543

SchapelleCorby15,543

Queen’sDiamond

Jubilee23,039

Queen’sDiamond

Jubilee23,039

Queen’sDiamond

Jubilee23,039

RBAcuts rates

14,800

RBAcuts rates

14,800

RBAcuts rates

14,800 Tour deFrance18,297

Tour deFrance18,297

Tour deFrance18,297

Coloradoshooting

17,160

Coloradoshooting

17,160

Coloradoshooting

17,160

Syria8,271Syria8,271Syria8,271

LondonOlympics

58,928

LondonOlympics

58,928

LondonOlympics

58,928Asylum

seekertragedy24,830

Asylumseeker

tragedy24,830

Asylumseeker

tragedy24,830

CarbonTax33,555

CarbonTax33,555

CarbonTax33,555

State ofOrigin III17,322

State ofOrigin III17,322

State ofOrigin III17,322

London Olympics

Syrian conflict

Peter Slipper case

Asylum seekers

Acting PM Swanattacks mega rich

58,928

8271

5866

5517

5298

0 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000 60,000

Jul 2

0

Aug

1

CHART OF THE WEEKNot all the wizardy in the Harry Potter book series can stop the rise of the soft-porn phenomenon, 50 Shades of Grey, from becoming the highest selling book of all time. The social chatter about the book, and the inevitable movie version, reached a 24-hour peak of almost six million comments this past week, with a daily average of 4.1 million. Little wonder the book has now sold more than 50 million copies worldwide, with celebrities like Robert Patterson tweeting that they would like to ‘lick the pages’; a ringing endorsement if ever there was one.

GREY MATTER

Jul 28 29 30 31 Aug ` 2 3 4

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

Million

1 LONDON LIVE: D2 EARLY EVENING 2,141 696 594 412 245 194

2 LONDON LIVE: D2 EVENING 1,918 642 606 321 197 152

3 LONDON LIVE: D3 EARLY EVENING 1,819 544 541 372 192 171

4 LONDON LIVE: D4 EARLY EVENING 1,790 573 511 364 189 153

5 LONDON LIVE: D8 EVENING 1,750 545 522 310 196 177

6 NINE NEWS SUNDAY 1,738 557 522 336 173 150

7 LONDON LIVE: D5 EVENING 1,705 560 510 291 184 161

8 LONDON LIVE: D5 EARLY EVENING 1,672 529 464 333 161 186

9 LONDON LIVE: D8 EARLY EVENING 1,569 476 453 287 175 179

10 LONDON LIVE: D4 EVENING 1,539 465 456 295 174 149

17.0%

24.6%PayTV

MEDIA 29THE AUSTRALIAN, MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 2012www.theaustralian.com.au/media

TENQUESTIONS

Rod ‘Rocket’ Allen moved from sports journalism tohandling the media for some of the biggest sporting eventsin the world. He spoke to Sally Jackson from the LondonOlympics

What’s your background? How longhave you been in sports journalism?Trained as a News Limited cadet, Iworked for 11 years at News Limited(The Daily Telegraph, News LimitedCanberra group bureau) and 11 years atFairfax (The Sun-Herald, The SydneyMorning Herald). I have worked in allareas of journalism, including finance,state and federal politics and was achief of staff for six years. For the lastfive years at Fairfax before I left, I wasmanaging editor sport.When and why did you leave sportsjournalism and what are you doingnow?I left Fairfax straight after the Beijing2008 Olympics after I had managedthe Fairfax combined coverage. It wasthe first digital games. The writing wason the wall when we got back that thetimes ahead in the industry would begetting tougher. My plan was to startmy own consultancy business, nowcalled The Rocket Group, and workwith sporting organisations andsports-related businesses in the areasof media and communicationsstrategy, management and socialmedia. We are now also producingaffordable-entry, television-qualitypanel discussion shows for sportingbodies called Rocket Group TV.What’s your job at the Olympics?I am serving as the manager of theAustralian Olympic Committee’soffice in the main press centre.Fundamentally, the team in the MPCoffice publishes the websiteOlympics.com.au and Aspire magazineand services the needs of theAustralian and international media.We help out with a wide range ofinquiries, ticketing and other requests,and facilitate the daily 9am mediaconference.Tell us about AspireAspire is primarily produced for theAustralian athletes and is publishedevery day of the Games. It is deliveredunder their doors every morning and itcaptures all of the news aroundAustralians in Olympic competition. Itis a great boost to team unity and theathletes really appreciate it.

How big an operation is the mainpress centre?There are 21,000 journalists andphotographers covering the Games inLondon and 15,000 athletes. The MPChouses offices for the internationalnews organisations.What are the logistics of the dailypress conference?About a dozen television cameras andabout 20 Australian and 10 overseasjournalists attend each morning. It iswhere the chef de mission is availableto discuss the issues of the day and aformal way of making athletesavailable to the general media.Generally the athletes that appearthere have won a medal or achievedanother major milestone.Are athletes difficult to deal with?This is a huge occasion for every teammember and they are usually veryhappy to do whatever they can withthe media. But, of course, their mainfocus is on their performance incompetition.Who’s the most difficult athlete todeal with? (Go on, you can tell us!)I can honestly say they are a fantasticbunch. They are so thrilled to be hereto represent their country that they area dream to deal with.Are you getting to watch much sportyourself?Our accreditation allows us to get intothe media tribunes of most events andsometimes we can slip in for an hour orso to events that are being held nearthe office in Olympic Park.Your favourite moment of the Gamesso far?Aussie 18-year-old Jess Fox winningsilver in the women’s canoe/kayakslalom. It was a big surprise from alovely young girl. She actually out-performed both her parents who werealso Olympians. The pride shown byher father was very touching.

PREMIUM CONTENT

Read the answers infull at

www.theaustralian.com.au

THEDIARYNICK LEYS

No place on podium for trolls and bullies

STEPHEN BROOKTWITTERATI

What happened todiver Tom Daleywas particularlynauseous

A WEEK notable for, amongother things, Twitter getting itwrong.

It was the first social mediaOlympics and a lot of it wasn’tpretty. The racists, the trolls andthe bullies were out in force.

A Greek triple jumper saidWest Nile mosquitoes could eat‘‘homemade food’’ in Greece be-cause there were so manyAfricans living there, while aSwiss footballer said the South

Koreans were a ‘‘bunch of men-tally handicapped retards’’. Bothwere sent home.

Meanwhile, the InternationalOlympic Committee was ex-tremely heavy handed when ath-letes had the temerity to thanksome of their faithful (non-Olympic) sponsors, an absurd fussthat embroiled a few of our Aussieathletes (see story on page 30).

Trolls were plentiful. Whathappened to British diver TomDaley was particularly nauseous.Daley bombed out of the eventand sent followers this tweet:‘‘After giving it my all . . . you getidiots sendingme this . . .RT@Ri-leyy—69: @TomDaley1994 youlet your dad down i hope youknow that.’’

Daley’s father died last yearafter a long fight with brain can-cer. After the Beijing Olympics,Daley’s father had removed his

14-year-old son from a localschool where he was bullied.Courtesy of the social media site,they could still get to him.

Many started a campaign to getTwitter to ban @Rileyy—69. Oneaccount that Twitter did ban be-longed to Guy Adams, The Inde-pendent’s Los Angeles correspon-dent, who fell foul of the site aftercomplaining about US TV net-work NBC’s delayed Olympicscoverage. He posted the email ofan NBC executive. Adams(@guyadams) later wrote ‘‘Myban on Twitter was a violation ofthe site’s core values’’. It wasreversed.

While all this was swirling

around, a media executive con-demned social media as ‘‘giving avoice to idiots’’. He said he wouldadvise most brands not to botherwith it.

The fuss around NBC seemedto prove his point. As The WallStreet Journal pointed out, theweek started with plenty of nega-tive hashtags surrounding NBC’sOlympics coverage, which de-layed events for hours until primetime. The tags included#NBCFail and #NBCStinks. Butpretty soon they were supplantedbyanother:#NBC$$$.Fordespitethe complaints, NBC’s strategy todelay events until prime timeboosted ratings and ad revenue.

‘‘We are aware of it (the nega-tive comments on social media)and consider it a small but vocalgroup,’’ said an NBC spokesman.

There’s a big lesson in that.@sdbrook

CLICHE OFTHE WEEKCHRIS PASH

AGAINST overwhelming oddsthe Olympics kicked off with afairytale ceremony marking thepinnacle of an athletic life and aroller-coaster of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.

An Olympic Games is anintense time for sports writerswith many tempting avenues forthe use of cliche.

‘‘(Leisel) Jones, winding downher pinnacle swimming career ather fourth Olympics, said thatshe was overwhelmed by thepublic support she hadreceived.’’ (Agence France-Presse, July 29)

‘‘It’s been a roller-coastercareer for (Canadian Emilie)Heymans.’’ (Waterloo RegionRecord, July 30)

‘‘Astonishing as her

(Monique Gladding) story ofrecovery may be, she is notthe only member of Team GB’sdiving team who has battledoverwhelming odds to wintheir place.’’ (The Guardian,July 26)

‘‘Of all the honours thatan American woman canwin at an Olympics, the goldmedal in the women’sgymnastics all-around is theone that most completes thefairytale.’’ (The Forth WorthStar-Telegram, July 30)

‘‘The US Olympic swimmingtrials are like a Fiona Applealbum: an emotional roller-coaster with soaringarrangements that drown outthe melancholic stories.’’ (NewYork Times, June 27)

TALKINGTURKEY

‘We were, and still are, interested in what Kevin has tosay about pedophilia and if you suggest otherwise, I’mgoing to write a letter to your editor’SEVEN REPORTER MIKE DUFFY’S RESPONSE TO A QUERY FROM THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIANMAGAZINE’S CAROLINE OVERINGTON ABOUT WHY HE HAD NOT REPORTED CLAIMS OFCORRUPTION IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH MADE BY SYDNEY PRIEST FATHER KEVIN LEE