Business of Media Summit

Written by Anthea Cudworth, IABC NSW VP Recognition & Communications Director, H.R.L Morrison & Co

The fourth annual Business of Media summit took place on 9 June, hosting senior leaders from across the media and entertainment sector.

With a broad range of speakers from organisations including the BBC, ABC, News Corp, Foxtel, Walt Disney, WPP, Nine, Optus, Oovvuu and TikTok, the topics were wide, but the themes were consistent.

Give them what they want

The move from advertising support to subscription services has prompted new business models and new revenue models to encourage more stickiness of consumers.

Each speaker described how they are focused on creating impact and influence, building trust with their subscribers so they remain a staple in their customers' media consumption habits.

Executive Chairman for News Corp Australasia, Michael Miller, described how digital growth remains the firm's number one priority.

"We want people to pay and stay," he explained, noting that strong brands with differentiated propositions extended their leads in 2020.

He talked about the firm’s readership tracker, which identifies what readers are responding to. They are finding subscribers prefer a curated feed, with some unexpected surprises.

Mark Thompson, former CEO of the New York Times, agreed that content was king. But he pointed out that the core principles of journalism haven't changed - you can only get good subscribers if you have content they love.

The 9.01 firing squad

All the major broadcast networks described the morning meetings when official TV ratings are discussed.  Adrian Swift, Head of Content & Production at Nine, admitted that the prevailing paradigm of decision-making in response to daily readership statistics should be refined.

"We need to think more about what we are saying to our audiences, rather than focus on who got the widest reach," he said.

The topic of a lack of diversity in the media was discussed at length. There was recognition that the motive for content providers should be to reflect your audience. After all, this is the commercial imperative for advertisers, who will abandon stations that are slow to acknowledge the shift.

Watch your audience

Data analytics is the game.

Consumers have an insatiable appetite for original content, and will happily shift to new platforms that offer interesting stories, but they are also increasingly fearful about privacy and security of their personal data.  

The speakers challenged themselves to understand how to deliver a more personalised experience to audiences while transparently collecting data on them to inform this experience.

An equitable playground

Michael Miller acknowledged the competition was fierce.

"There are too many players in our market," he added, "and there has to be consolidation."

While there was recognition that plurality and diversity of news providers is key to a healthy news industry landscape, there were calls for regulation to create a fairer playing field for global and local players alike.  

Rod Sims from the ACCC described the News Media Bargaining Code as broadly working out as intended, and felt it might be considered as a model for other international media environments.

“Journalism – the fourth estate – is so important to our society,” he reiterated.

However, Patrick Delany of the Foxtel Group disagreed that the Code was working.

“We urgently need regulatory reform to reach competitive neutrality. We're facing a huge onslaught from international players with global scale. Our regulatory framework is holding back new local heroes.”

He said that 2020 had shown the value of local content and local stories.  Yet, other speakers were adamant that Australian content remains under-indexed.

What keeps you awake at night?

The same question was asked to all panellists - what keeps you awake at night? The answers were varied:

·        Doing more with less

·        Teaching my kids to be aware of their digital footprint

·        The limited talent pool, given the country's closed borders

·        Reflecting the audience diversity – could we introduce a “no diversity, no commission” rule?

Finally, Mark Thompson shared some valuable “Rules of Transformation” from his experience at the NY Times:

·        Be big and bold

·        Test and learn

·        Think hard about your failures

·        Role model how you deal with set-backs - don't hide them

·        Celebrate success

·        Do you really know your customer? "If the audience isn't in the room, you're going to fail. Every person in the company needs to profoundly understand the audience. Every product, every strategy needs to begin and end with the audience."

Thanks to the IABC Asia-Pacific for the opportunity to attend.