I’m a Reporter, Get Me Into There!
Neither Channel Ten nor ITV Studios Australia want to talk about it, but they have enlisted the help of the media in a rather unusual way to make I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! a success.
Ten has paid for a contingent of Australian reporters to fly to South Africa and report on the show – luxury accommodation and all expenses paid, of course. The Sydney Morning Herald’s senior writer Peter Munro is there, and has filed stories and interviews from the jungle set as well as a first-person piece on his exploits in the game reserve in his underpants. Tucked at the end of the report is “Peter Munro travelled to South Africa courtesy of Network Ten”. While Fairfax tells its audience the reporter is on a junket, we can’t see any acknowledgment from News Corp or TV Week. Holly from TV Week is filing on the romances the contestants left behind and those that are developing in the jungle, as well as tweeting excitedly about the action in the show.
The News Corp reporter Shannon Molloy is said to be being replaced by the entertainment reporter Jonathan Moran when his tour of duty is over. We asked Ten and ITV if the transcription service would remain up and running for the run of the show, expected to be six weeks, but they declined to tell us.
Now, it is not uncommon for the networks to fly journalists interstate to cover events or make set visits – even the ABC does it. It is essential to get coverage for your show as no one has the budget for travel anymore. (I went to the Big Brother set in 2002 on the Gold Coast when it was screening on Ten, for example.) But sending a bunch of scribes overseas for an extended stay takes the practice to a whole new level. The line between news and entertainment just became a lot more blurred.
#ImACelebrityAU EP Stephen Tate and Holly from #tvweekmag on set today! pic.twitter.com/yBD7Wnjly4
— TV WEEK (@TVWEEKmag) January 31, 2015
The jungle show appeared to be a triumph on day one when it pulled the biggest audience Ten had seen for a long time, 1.1 million. By day two, when it was in competition with the juggernaut that is My Kitchen Rules on Seven, it had dropped to 755,000. On Tuesday night it was 685,000. But with the genius casting of former Brady Bunch star Maureen McCormack (Marcia Brady) the show is pretty entertaining and well-produced and should still do well for Ten.
The Age deletes Bruce Jenner blunder
The Age has been forced to apologise and delete a tweet after posting an insensitive remark about the Olympian and Kardashian family member Bruce Jenner who is reportedly undergoing a transformation to live as a woman. The Age Twitter account used the phrase “Jenner Bender” when linking to its report and was jumped on by critics on Twitter. “Apologies to those offended by our Bruce Jenner tweet. Feedback noted. No offence was intended. We have deleted the tweet.”
ABC takes chunk out of news
Budget cuts to the ABC late last year didn’t just mean cuts to staff. (About 90 people took a package and have left already, and there are more to come.) It also meant, surprisingly, that radio news bulletins were chopped in half from 10 minutes to five minutes duration across every network except Triple J. Apart from the early morning bulletins at 7am and 7.45am, radio news is just five minutes long, which some ABC staffers say is shorter than the commercial radio bulletins. The way this saves money is in staffing, and Aunty was able to lay off radio reporters, producers and editors across the states and make the radio newsreaders write and produce their own bulletins.
We got our hands on an internal memo about how to make this new cut-price news work. Include “less detail”, staff were told, and keep reports to just three paragraphs with a short grab of no longer than 15 seconds. “We will have to maintain context – a difficult balance,” management helpfully adds. “A story which in the past would have rated a wrap may not do so now,” the memo says.
What this means for listeners is they are less likely to hear audio from the scene, whether it be the reporter telling a story or a grab of Tony Abbott. Newsreaders will throw to grabs of audio without any input from the reporters. Sources say with stories confined to just three paragraphs reporters are less likely to be sent out to cover events. Fewer reporters on the ground will have an impact on local radio shows on Sydney 702 or Melbourne’s 774 or Brisbane’s 612 which rely on crosses to reporters who have covered an event for an eyewitness view.
New boss for Four Corners
As we tipped last month, Sally Neighbour has been appointed executive producer of Four Corners, and will take over from the veteran producer Sue Spencer when she leaves in March. “I am thrilled and honoured to be taking over the reins at Four Corners,” Neighbour said. “It is an enormous privilege and challenge to become EP of Australia’s finest and longest standing public affairs program.” Her departure means finding a replacement for 7.30, which joins the list of programs looking for a new boss: Foreign Correspondent and Australian Story. The Australian Story executive producer Deborah Fleming, who set up the brilliant program in 1993, has resigned.
Back to Four Corners: Neighbour has a strong personality and some Four Corners staffers are more than a little perturbed at the prospect of having the crack investigative reporter as their boss. We predict even more movement in the wake of this announcement.
Nine and Seven go head to head over Sydney siege specials
Channels Seven and Nine are still playing cat and mouse over their respective Lindt cafe hostage stories to be aired on Sunday night. They have each paid tens of thousands of dollars for exclusive rights, even as the inquest is still under way. Nine has signed up eight hostages and Seven has six, but Seven claims it has footage no one else has because of its location opposite Martin Place. Nine says this is nonsense. Trying to get to air before Nine, Seven announced Seven News – Inside the Siege: The Untold Story had been programmed for 6pm – in the news slot. A few days later Nine announced Special Report: The Siege Survivors would screen on Sunday but left out the small detail of what time. This fight for ratings could go down to the wire.
A taste from Nine’s release focuses on Fiona Ma, 19, student and cafe worker: “It was Fiona’s sixth shift at the cafe. She was going to switch shifts with her sister but decided against it the night before. That morning her pants hadn’t dried from washing, so she contemplated being late for work, but decided instead to show up on time with damp pants.”
Lateline running late
With all the ABC shows returning in the past few days, some of us were wondering where Lateline was. Because Lateline is being transformed from an ABC to an ABC News 24 program it will return with a “refreshed” format and a new set – but not until March. A spokeswoman said more details about the show would be announced closer to the launch.
Another set that has been rebuilt is the Q&A backdrop. The reaction on Twitter was mixed: there were those who said it looked like the set of Star Wars and others who likened it to QI. Others said it was too busy and some even said they shouldn’t have wasted the money. For the record, the set was built in-house on a modest budget and after seven years the Q&A lounge room was due for a makeover.
Frozen circulation
With newspaper circulation in freefall, papers are always trying to move extra copies not just with good stories but with clever marketing and giveaways. News Corp’s Sunday Telegraph has historically been the master of this, using everything from caps to plastic toys to entice the buyers. Now News Corp Australia has partnered with Disney to give away 14 Read to Me Storybooks and CDs of Disney classics such as Bambi, Peter Pan and Snow White. But we reckon this Sunday’s giveaway of a Frozen book with the Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Herald Sun, the Sunday Mail and others will prove to be the most popular, even though the Frozen craze is getting a little old.
Jones heads north
Beware Queenslanders, Alan Jones enjoyed his intervention in the state election so much he is coming back for more. Fairfax Radio Network’s 4BC has announced that from this week Jones would be a fixture on 4BC’s daily schedule, with The Alan Jones Hour broadcast from midday every weekday.
Asian Cup boost
A final word on the Asian Cup, which is understood to have cost the ABC $1.25m in broadcast rights. Despite a mauling from News Corp for daring to bid for the TV rights and snatching them away from SBS, the total cost has been worth it when the ratings are taken into account. From figures we’ve seen here at the Beast, the cost of each match the ABC broadcast – and there were six – was just $208,000. Not bad when you consider a Socceroos match usually has a price tag of $1m.
