When the television and radio advertising blackout came into effect at midnight on Wednesday, the major parties had spent more than $11m in the seven weeks of the election campaign on broadcast ads alone. The estimate is put together by an advertising analytics company, Ebiquity, which monitors the spending across TV and radio. The final estimate will come in on Saturday.
The election advertising blackout kicks in three days before polling day and is designed to provide a “cooling off” period in the lead-up to voting. But the ban has been slammed as outdated and a joke by the commercial TV lobby, which loses millions in revenue as the parties turn to print, digital and social media to get their message out.
The law was passed by parliament in 1992, and predates the digital revolution and even pay TV. Election ads can still be run on news websites with accompanying videos, making the television ban seem redundant. The Liberals have topped the list with $6.08m, Labor spent $4.71m and the Greens’ spending is tiny in comparison, $492,304 at last count.
Election night on the ABC is going to be missing something this time around. Kerry O’Brien, a fixture of the ABC election panel for decades, will not appear as he no longer has an official role with the national broadcaster. O’Brien, a six-time Walkley Award winner, left Four Corners last year after five years as its presenter, marking an end to his more than 40 years with the national broadcaster. O’Brien and his familiar green pen have been fixtures on federal and state election nights since 1987. At the end of the 2013 telecast O’Brien told the nation that after 10 elections he had called his last but “the sun will still rise tomorrow”.
His swan song in 2013 led to Leigh Sales stepping back so she wouldn’t overshadow his last night. This time it’s Sales who will take centre stage as the anchor for the first time, alongside Chris Uhlmann, Barrie Cassidy, Sabra Lane, Fran Kelly, Marius Benson, Louise Yaxley, Greg Jennett, Annabel Crabb, Michael Rowland, Virginia Trioli and Julia Baird.
Sky News will be live from 5pm. When the polls close on the east coast, political editor David Speers will reveal the results of the Sky News exit poll, conducted by Newspoll. Commentators include Peta Credlin, Michael Kroger and Guardian Australia columnist Kristina Keneally. On Insiders on Sunday morning you can analyse the results with Cassidy and his guests: the AFR’s Laura Tingle, the Australian’s Niki Savva and the Courier Mail’s Dennis Atkins.
Food for thought as Cornish returns
Earlier this month Melbourne-based food writer Richard Cornish announced that his column, Brain Food, which appeared every Tuesday in the Age’s Epicure section and the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Food section, had been axed. Readers were outraged and let the editors know, writing hundreds of emails and letters expressing their dismay. Under pressure from readers cancelling subscriptions, Fairfax backflipped and announced that due to “an overwhelming reader response” the column would be reinstated. This week Brain Food returned and Cornish tweeted that “society wins”.
No such luck for arts writer Philippa Hawker, who was made redundant by the Age despite a petition to save her and a letter signed by actor Geoffrey Rush, writers Helen Garner and Christos Tsiolkas, comedian Magda Szubanski and broadcaster Phillip Adams. But good news this week as Hawker was picked up by rival newspaper the Australian and is now the News Corp broadsheet’s film writer.
Another victim of the widespread Fairfax cost-cutting is artist Glen Le Lievre, whose Saturday Review illustration accompanied SMH favourites Mike Carlton, John Birmingham and Wendy Harmer before they too disappeared. Carlton resigned after he was suspended, and Birmingham and Harmer were also victims of cost-cutting. Le Lievre will still be seen in other parts of the SMH and the Sun-Herald.
Case shut on defunct Tully Times
The Australian Press Council published an adjudication on Thursday in which the Tully Times was found to have breached four of the general principles in two articles about the NBN published last year, one headlined “No Brains Network”. Tully Times is a north Queensland newspaper owned and edited by John Hughes that had been in print for 50 years and employed two journalists.
The NBN had complained that the articles were misleading and not fair or balanced because they relied entirely on the opinion of one local businessman and cable technician, and contained no input from NBN Co. But the adjudication was published several weeks after Hughes died suddenly in May and the paper had shut down operation. We asked the press council why the adjudication was necessary given the paper had closed. The council said it was aware Hughes had passed away but any complainant would expect the process to be concluded “fully and properly”.
Cuts in the west
Ahead of a possible merger of the West Australian, owned by Kerry Stokes, and the Sunday Times, owned by News Corp, the West Australian is set to cut as many as 30 jobs from the newsroom floor. Stokes’s Seven West Media is cutting costs in preparation for the purchase. Chief executive Chris Wharton told staff a new organisational structure would strengthen the business, but that meant staff cuts.
“An unstable economic environment and changes to the media industry have presented many new and greater challenges for our organisations,” Wharton said in a staff email. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is examining the proposal.
