With Sam Pang launching a new show on the TV airwaves this week, are we about to see a new era of late-night talk shows?

Ben Willee, Executive Director of Media and Data at Spinach Advertising, talks to Deborah Knight on 2GB Radio’s Money News about Sam Pang’s new show, a new revenue stream for Nine, and Meta removing it’s fact checkers on the cusp of the Federal Election campaign, plus more.

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Ben Willee, Executive Director of Media & Data for Spinach Advertising

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Deborah Knight (Host)

Well, there’s really a dull moment in the world of media and marketing, especially in a fragmented market where the fight for dwindling ad dollars sometimes feels like The Hunger Games. Across it all for us is Ben Willee, Executive Director of Media and Data for Spinach Advertising. He joins us every fortnight here on Money News. Ben, welcome as always.

Ben Willee

G’day Deb. Great to be back.

Deborah Knight (Host)

So in the current media landscape, it’s more about shows being cut than launched. But the Ten Network dipped its toes into a nightly talk show this week, and I know there’s plenty of them in the US, in the UK, but here in Australia it feels like media is abandoned this format altogether. Until Sam Peng’s Tonight Show, why is it a format that we haven’t embraced? And what do you think about Sam’s new show? Will it work? Will it continue?

Ben Willee

Well, look, it’s a courageous move from Network Ten. And in a world where most Australian TV is, you know, reboots, reality, cooking shows, I think actual risk taking should be applauded and rewarded with some pretty good numbers. Total TV reach of about 1.57 million viewers made it the number five program for the night. But I think what really, behind the scenes tells a story is them putting it on Monday night, which is a really high rating night, tells us a lot about their confidence and their ambition for the show. So I think it’s fantastic and I want to see more risk taking from Australian TV networks.

Deborah Knight (Host)

Yeah, and Sam Pangs are great talent. I know there would have been nerves from him being the first show, but it’s when he’s a bit looser and ad libbing. I reckon that he’s at his best. I hope the show finds its feet because frankly, the more TV being made, the better for all of us.

Ben Willee

Yeah, couldn’t agree more.

Deborah Knight (Host)

Now, the owner of this radio station, Nine has found a new revenue stream, which is good news, selling ads on a new streaming service that it doesn’t own. Max is the name of it. How does that work?

Ben Willee

Well, it’s not as complicated as you would think. Obviously, there’s a lot of computers doing the trading, but this is a real coup for the Nine Group of companies. Because, the computers trade these ads in real time. So as you start a stream on one of these platforms, a call goes out and, you know, there’s bids for that ad unit. But what makes advertising powerful is the application of data. And what the people at Max have worked at is that the Nine Group of companies owns newspapers, radio stations, TV stations, and therefore has a lot of data. And that data is what advertisers want. So they’ve appointed Nine to help apply that to the Max platform and hopefully generate a little bit more than their share of ad revenue.

Deborah Knight (Host)

And what’s the thinking around Max? Is it going to upend things for Foxtel’s Binge in particular? Because Max is going to take some of Binge’s big shows, The Last of Us, Game of Thrones, to name a few.

Ben Willee

It’s a really great question Deb, I don’t know the answer, but I know that they’re pretty worried at Binge or at Foxtel. I mean, it’s HBO’s, you’re right, it’s some of their most viewed and best content and it’s soon to leave. So at the moment, Foxtel customers get Max for free. But for how long? And ironically, Binge and Netflix in Australia have just announced a partnership. So these partnerships are big in the US, where you buy one streaming platform and you get another for three months in a trial or you get a bundle. So I think what we’re about to see in Australia is that competition’s going to heat up, and we’re going to see a lot more of these bundles and a lot more offers in this space.

Deborah Knight (Host)

You almost need to bundle them all together. There’s so many of them at the moment, it’s hard to keep track of how many streamers there are within the market. But sport, though Ben, is still one of the big drawcards not just for the streamers, but for free-to-air. Disney, shaping up as a new player, looking at spending more money on domestic sports rights, which I know the sporting codes will like the sound of. But what’s it going to mean for sports lovers? Is it going to be more difficult to work out where you can watch your favourite games and your favourite players?

Ben Willee

Yeah for sure. And the fight for your eyeballs is hotter than a chilli eating contest in a sauna. And you know, nothing makes a TV executive cry into an expensive champagne lunch quite like a global streamer coming with deep pockets after their best content. So the question I’ve got is, we’ve already started to condition sports fans to know they need to go to multiple streamers to get the content they want. But I think the tipping point will be if you want to watch a big sport in Australia and you have to buy two streaming services to get access to it. And that’s the challenge that the team at the NRL are trying to unravel at the moment with their deal, is they know they can get more money by having more streamers, but they don’t want to piss off the fans at the same time. So watch this space, there’s a lot to play out.

Deborah Knight (Host)

Yeah, there’s a tipping point, you’re right. I think people will cop it to a certain extent, but then they’ll get unhappy.

Ben Willee

Yeah, absolutely.

Deborah Knight (Host)

Now we’ve got a federal election looming of course. The campaign that could be quite different to what we’ve seen before in this country with the rise of podcasts and with online and digital, too. And we’re already in faux campaign mode, we know that. But it’s interesting to see that the government ad spend so far has switched to digital media.

Ben Willee

The guideline SMI, which aggregate media agency booking data shows for the month of December, Government spend up 70%. And that’s not political advertising, that’s pseudo political advertising where they tell you what a great job they’ve done. But I think what’s interesting to me is government spend grew by 100 million in the five months to the election in May 2022. Political parties, industry associations, unions, etc. spend an extra 55 million in the same period. So that’s what really excites media owners. Is all of this extra money that comes into the market and believe-you-me, they need it at the moment, the market has been very soft and they’re struggling to compete with global players. So yes, expect a lot more political ads and faux political ads on your screens wherever you look.

Deborah Knight (Host)

And I know that media players will be smiling, with Clive Palmer saying that he’s set to spend more than $100 million in ads in the lead up to this election. And look, the Trumpet of Patriot ads, they’re already on high rotation.

Ben Willee

I don’t quite know what to say. I mean, here we go again. Clive Palmer’s election advertising, the not so subtle Trumpet of Patriots. What do you think he means by that Deb? I’m confused.

Deborah Knight (Host)

Well, I hope he gets more bang for his back this time round, because it only ended up with one senator being elected from all that money. So yeah, we’ll see what he comes up with this time round.

Ben Willee

I’m beginning to think that this is less about getting candidates elected and more about Clive making sure we all remember his name.

Deborah Knight (Host)

No. Surely not. Well, we’ll hear plenty of his ads and see plenty of his ads now Meta meantime, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has revealed that it has a plan to deal with misinformation and AI generated content during the election. But I reckon, Meta, should just keep it’s official fact checkers because it announced in January that they’re scrapping them. Surely that’s the first line of defence in dealing with misinformation, and not just during a federal election.

Ben Willee

You’re absolutely right. But I’m delighted that finally decided to let some independent people take a peek under the hood. And for years, they’ve been letting elections run like a dodgy pub quiz on their platform. So now they’re actually working with the AEC and a few other sensible and credible organisations to make sure it’s not just a breeding ground for conspiracy theories and political nonsense.

Deborah Knight (Host)

It’s understood, though, that they don’t even fact check political speech or politicians, so I don’t know how they’re going to deal with misinformation if they don’t do that.

Ben Willee

Well, you and me both. And that’s the real question. You’ve hit the nail on the head. Is this a genuine attempt at responsibility or just a PR exercise? So, I’m saying, hey, baby steps, they’re good, and it’s better than their usual approaches. Shrugging their shoulders and saying, oh, it’s not our problem.

Deborah Knight (Host)

Yeah, absolutely. We need more accountability and transparency from media across the board and they’re media players, even if they just say that they’re the platform. Good on you Ben, great to talk.

Ben Willee

Thanks again for having me Deb.

Deborah Knight (Host)

Ben Willee there from Spinach Advertising with our regular look at the world of media and marketing.