Ben Willee, Executive Director of Media and Data at Spinach Advertising, talks to Scott Haywood on 2GB Radio’s Money News about the end of ‘Q and A’ and ‘The Project’ and the Kyle & Jackie O Melbourne experiment.
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Ben Willee, Executive Director of Media & Data for Spinach Advertising
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Scott Haywood (Host)And it’s been another huge fortnight in media movements. While we said goodbye to Q and A and The Project from our TV screens, another weak set of ratings numbers for Kyle and Jackie O might have their Melbourne experiment closer to the end. To dissect it all with us is Ben Willee, Executive Director of Media and Data for Spinach Advertising.
Ben, always great to have you back on the show on this Thursday night.
Ben WilleeG’day Scott, thank you very much for having me.
Scott Haywood (Host)Let’s start close to home, and I will point out there were amazing rating numbers for Money News in the last survey, so thank you to all of our passionate listeners who do love Deb Knight and what Tommy Story produces. But Kyle and Jackie O, how long will they last in Melbourne now?
Ben WilleeWell, I’d also like to start by congratulating the Money News team some great audience growth, especially in Brisbane, doubling audience share. That’s fantastic, So world done team. But you’re right, the real story here is Kyle and Jackie O, and they’re getting paid a lazy ten million a year each, and what’s really interesting is their audience in Sydney remains excellent 12.5% share, just behind this station 2GB Breakfast. But in Melbourne their share has fallen from 5.8 to 5.1%, putting them eighth in the all important breakfast slot in the largest radio market in Australia. There’s lots of layers to this. It’s been a year and a half now, and you know, Kyle, you can come up with all sorts of reasons why it’s not working in Melbourne, but I’ll give you two. Kyle blaming listeners and calling Melbournian’s pearl clutches probably doesn’t help, billboards around the city saying Kyle and Jackie are behaving when clearly they’re not. So the real question for me is Scott, is when will the ARN shareholders demand a different approach.
Scott Haywood (Host)Well, I don’t know the answer to that question. But Melbournians, like a lot of our Money listeners are very loyal and once they like something, they’ll stick to it. I want to talk about The Project’s departure from our screens time and we did touch her it last time, but Q and A has also gone now. The ABC isn’t beholden to ratings like the other networks are. But was it time for the ABC to move on from Q and A.
Ben WilleeI think it was. And I’m going to steal a line here and quote Tim Burrows from Mumbrella, who is a media and marketing journalist, and he wrote a great line about the decline of Q and A. He said it personifies the change of culture at the top of the ABC. From the bravery of Mark Scott came the incompetence of Michelle Guthrie and the timidity of David Anderson. Hard for any controversial live show to innovate in that environment. And that’s a great summary. It goes to the heart of the problem with the ABC, not just ABC TV but ABC Radio. It’s boring because they’re so desperate not to offend anyone. It’s like watching TV made by a committee of HR managers, lawyers, vibes consultants after they’ve come back from a three day diversity training course and you know something has to be done. And let’s hope those changes with the new management of the ABC are going to come into effect.
Scott Haywood (Host)Well, let’s get to arguably the greatest show on earth for those in New South Wales and now Queensland. Tell me about the success and the brand of the rugby league State of Origin and how last night’s Game two performed in the ratings. Now like this is an extraordinary event in Australia, isn’t it?
Ben WilleeOh it sure is? I love this story because it turns out despite all the doom and gloom about free to air TV in Australia, turns out that us Aussies will drop everything to watch quality live sport. And Game One and Game Two had a very similar total audience of about 5.6million and similar average audience of about 3.7million for the State of Origin games. And that’s up about between 11 and 17% year on year, depending on how to cut the numbers, and probably the most streamed show in the history of Nine streaming service Nine Now, so a great result.
Scott Haywood (Host)Gee, 11 to 17% growth. Like obviously, now the series goes to a decider in a few weeks, so will the media, networks and advertisers, they’ve been praying for a live series going into a third game, haven’t they Ben?
Ben WilleeThey have, and they’ve been praying because it’s not just they’re their own biggest clients, so they can promote their own shows in this high engagement, but advertisers love it as well because it’s high engagement, high rating, and they’ll pay a premium to be there. So right now there are advertisers jumping over themselves to get into Game Three, which is scheduled for July 9, and they’ll be predicting similar, if not better, audience numbers, potentially making it the biggest live sports show of the year to date, which is fantastic for the Nine network and fantastic for the NRL.
Scott Haywood (Host)Now also in the world of sport, in the last twenty four hours, majority ownership of the NBA’s LA Lakers has been sold for ten billion dollars US. Now are sports brand’s worth the price tag and does owning the team allow a license to print money through new broadcast and advertising opportunities.
Ben WilleeIt’s just it’s incredible right, and according to ESPN, the family that owns the LA Lakers is selling their majority stakes for approximately ten billion US dollars. Now, this has got to be the largest amount ever paid for a sporting team, even eclipsing the 6.3million dollars Jeffrey Edelston paid for the Sydney Swans in 1985. But that’s a whole other story. But what a deal for this family. They’ve spent 67million on the Lakers in 1979 and they’ve now got ten bill. And the thing about it is, is it’s not really about basketball anymore. It’s about media rights, NFT collections and selling branded hoodies to teenagers in Tokyo.
Scott Haywood (Host)Well, I still don’t know how they can pay for all those players. But speaking of having a captive audience to sell to, we’re about to get ads on WhatsApp, which of course is owned formerly by Facebook now Meta. The messaging service had always promised to stay ad free, but when you’ve got 1.5billion users, is this a logical step.
Ben WilleeI’ll start by saying WhatsApp is the scourge of any parent who has a child in a sporting team and having to read those the inane messages. But that’s another story. But you’re right. WhatsApp, owned by Meta, who owned Facebook and Instagram, announced it’ll start rolling out ads in the updates tab. And if you cast your mind back to 2014, they’re founding philosophy, and there’s a famous photo of a handwritten note on the CEO’s desk that read no ads, no games, no gimmicks. So, Scott, we’re going to ask yourself, why are we surprised that a tech company didn’t tell us the truth? Shock horror.
Scott Haywood (Host)Well you know, 10 years is a long time in sport, you know, so I suppose ten years is a long time in social media. But how do you expect the ads to take shape? Well, as you said, there might be a button at the top they appear mid conversation with your contacts, or through some form of banners up the top or at the bottom. We’re all going to be frustrated by aren’t we.
Ben WilleeWell, they’re telling us it’s not going to be that frustrating because it’s only going to appear in the updates tab. And the updates tab is mostly branded content, a lot of it from news organisations, and it’s a little used area at the moment. But the joke’s on us if we believe a tech company in the first place. So they’ll start in the updates tab, and I would predict to expect to see ads everywhere, because if the product is free, you are the product.
Scott Haywood (Host)And just finally, Ben, the lastest release of the digital News reports from the University of Canberra did have some worrying information for us in the media. It seems that a quarter of us are now using social media as our main source of news. What do you take on that?
Ben WilleeYeah, This University of Canberra digital news reports are fascinating and you know what they’re telling us this time is social media has overtaken online news outlets, well credible news outlets, as a primary source of news and information for Australians. And that’s because young people are increasingly turning to Facebook, TikTok and Instagram to stay up to date and I’ve got to tell you Scott, I hope they’re teaching skepticism and critical thinking in schools because this is a real danger, right and it’s not just your dodgy uncle spouting conspiracy theories. A big part of this is young people consuming news from established brands. So my teenagers might watch a news report from Nine News on TikTok about a lunatic driving a car through a shopping centre. Now TikTok takes that content from Channel Nine, doesn’t pay for it, but makes money selling ads either side of it. So no wonder successive governments and have tried to get social platforms to pay Australian news publishers and it’s a big, big issue and if we want good quality Australian journalism, we’re going to need to do something with the current models because they’re not working.
Scott Haywood (Host)Just like the book that we read when we were going through high school, it’s a brave new world. Ben Willie, Executive Director of Media and Data for Spanish Advertising. Great friend of Money News. Thanks for so much for joining me on this Thursday night.
Ben WilleeWell, thanks very much for having me Scott.
