Margaret Simons’s round-up of this year’s biggest media industry news, movers, shakers and changes.
Foxtel
Tips and rumours: Tips and rumours: SBS teams with Foxtel
Will SBS, thanks to its highly successful World Movies channel, parter with Foxtel for a new Arts pay-tv channel? Plus, Anna Bligh and a hilariously placed street sign.
New SBS arts channel in the works
Pay-TV arts channel, Ovation, has been given the flick by Foxtel and Austar to make way for a new arts channel from SBS, which hopes to attract a younger and more male demographic.
Foxtel’s Kim Williams responds to Margaret Simons
Margaret Simons oversimplifies my suggestions about future models for publicly funded broadcasting and the role of the ABC, writes Foxtel CEO Kim Williams.
Foxtel and the strange case of BBC World News
The BBC World News has been demoted from its prominent place on the first screen of the news and documentaries channel listings on Foxtel, writes Christopher Scanlon.
Conroy won’t budge on broadcast regulation
There is a push on at the moment for the federal government to bring forward a planned review of broadcasting regulation, particularly that relating to Australian content. But it’s not proving too successful.
The Battle of the Kims: Williams v Dalton
In one corner, Foxtel chief Kim Williams arguing for de-regulation of the TV industry. In the other corner, ABC’s Kim Dalton. The umpire? Stephen Conroy.
Pay TV’s biggest nightmare is GO
Nine Network’s new channel GO last night hit a unique milestone: it equalled the share of SBS’s main analogue channel. Was it just because last night didn’t have any high profile sports events?
Sports, TV and anti-siphoning laws: tripe for the picking
Major sporting organisations claim that anti-siphoning laws are bad for viewers, Foxtel argue it would be bad for sporting codes to have their sports shown to as many people as possible, and Rupert Murdoch is threatening to force his US cable rivals to pay him for carrying his Fox TV network.
Pay-through-the-nose TV: Foxtel prices may double
Big changes are afoot at Foxtel: new channels, a curious new name, a free iQ for most customers… and a possible price hike from $50 to $88 a month.
Optus accidently spills new Pay TV channel details online
Optus has accidentally revealed details of the new Pay TV channels that will be launched later this year, including five new movie channels and one dedicated entirely to makeovers (no, really). The leaked info was quickly removed, but Media Spy has it all saved.
Telstra to be split up
Stephen Conroy has today announced the government will require Telstra to structurally separate its wholesale and retail arms to increase telecommunications competition. Full text here. Telstra shares have dropped sharply in response.
Stokes-Murdoch “showdown” a damp squib
It’s back to business as usual in the Australian media, with Stokes and Packer dividing up the juiciest bits of the industry, just as Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch did a decade or so ago.
Tips and rumours: Tips and rumours: Old is new again at Myer
What brand is Myer rehashing as it prepares to flog the business later this year? Also, is there really a worse transport company than our airlines? Apparently so…
The Packer-Stokes war hots up
The dinosaurs are restless again. Australia’s last remaining putative media moguls, “Little” Kerry Stokes and “Big” Kerry’s son James Packer, are locking horns over the rump of the media empire that Kerry Packer built.
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: Crikey readers’ Friday arguments
Indigenous disadvantage … Free TV … On Unions … Michael Jackson … back pain … Rundle’s Russia … Optus … Dog and Christianity.
Why is free-to-air TV still hogging sports coverage?
The Federal Government’s anti-siphoning list amounts to direct, government-approved theft from sports bodies, writes Bernard Keane. When is that going to change?
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: Snail mail from Almighty Fodder
Crikey receives a letter (on paper and everything — how quaint!) from Almighty Fodder, an email from the CEO of Foxtel, and comments on Iran, Malcolm Turnbull, racist hiring practises and more.
Hypocrisy watch: Foxtel lectures Free to Air TV on competition
Foxtel CEO Kim Williams spoke yesterday about the need for greater competition in TV. Perhaps the problem is more that he’s just about to get some.
Rebecca Gibney shaded by shadowy bankers
The banks are the real powers behind Australia’s commercial broadcast media.
Freeview launches phase two with some deja vu
Freeview launched the second phase of their campaign with a new-look website and roadblock TV ads, but there’s a striking similarity between the new Freeview ads and a previous Foxtel campaign.
Telstra’s year zero Foxtel fiction
Telstra’s claim that Foxtel is worth nothing in its books is surprising given its status as the country’s number one Pay TV business, writes Glenn Dyer.
A-pac hits the airwaves, beats ABC to the punch
The ABC and pay television are going head to head in a battle for access to that most valuable of natural resources, the broadcasting spectrum, writes Margaret Simons.
Media briefs: The other tropical paradise job… Somebody save NY Times…
What’s making headlines among the headline-makers today.
Foxtel outfoxes the ABC — again
Foxtel has again dealt a devastating blow to the major core competence of the ABC, News and Public Affairs, writes Peter Cox.
