Local newspaper staff face massive job losses
Fairfax Media’s regional publishing business, Australian Community Media, is rolling out its NewsNow plan which involves stripping regional papers like the Illawarra Mercury, the Warrnambool Standard and the Newcastle Herald of subeditors and photographers and centralising production. Reporters have to take their own pictures and sub their own copy.
The Weekly Beast has seen a timeline for the NewsNow roll-out which will be completed across the country by December 2015. The new system involves a template-based, “write to the space” editorial model in which reporters sub, caption and headline their own stories. One source called it a “systematic gutting of regional newsrooms” which would take hundreds of jobs.
Local newspaper production staff, photographers and designers will not be the only ones to lose their jobs. Sales is being centralised too, so sales people are being made redundant in many regional centres across the States. Eight subeditors and layout staff have just left the Wagga Advertiser. But the communities have not given up without a fight. ACM executive John Angilley was hauled before Leeton council late last year and asked to give assurances the paper’s content would remain local despite staff being reduced from five to two: one journalist and one sales person.
Peter’s project
On Wednesday Seven announced the cast for its telemovie Peter Allen: Not the Boy Next Door. Young actor, Joel Jackson, who is soon to star in Foxtel’s Deadline Gallipoli, will play Peter Allen. Sigrid Thornton is Judy Garland and Rebecca Gibney is Peter’s mother Marion Woolnough.
Ratings wars for Campbell debates
The Australia Network may have been killed off by the Coalition in the May budget, but the rivalry between Sky News and ABC News 24 is still very much alive. The pay TV platform snared the only leaders debate of the Queensland State election and aired the People’s Forum on Friday, from 7 to 8.30pm. Premier Campbell Newman and Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk appeared with political editor David Speers in front of an audience of 100 undecided voters.
The two had declined to appear on the ABC, leaving the treasurers to headline the ABC’s news special, also on Friday. Speers said the forums were “an important way of helping voters decide who is best for the job” but given there were only 6,000 viewers we doubt it had much impact. In contrast, the ABC News Special, from 7.30 to 8pm, achieved an average audience of 75,000 across ABC and ABC News 24. The ABC will broadcast the leaders debate from the Queensland Media Club this Friday lunchtime.
The year starts in earnest
Speaking of politics, the ABC political chat show Insiders is back on air on Sunday, marking the real start to the year. On Sunday at 9am Barrie Cassidy returns to examine every detail of the Queensland election results, alongside panellists the Courier Mail’s Dennis Atkins, the Guardian’s Lenore Taylor and Fairfax’s Mark Kenny. Then on Monday night the popular ABC line-up of Australian Story, Four Corners and Media Watch returns for 2015.
One show which will debut before the 2015 ratings season begins on Sunday February 8 is Ten’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, which airs on Sunday February 1. The cast of celebrities who agreed to be dropped in the jungle will only be revealed on the night and they had better be worth watching. Ten has a lot riding on this show, which involved a big production and travel budget.
Margaret’s new movie show
A few months after quitting the ABC’s Movie Show, which she did with David Stratton for 28 years, Margaret Pomeranz is back on TV. The film critic has landed two gigs on Foxtel: a new weekly program, Screen with co-host Graeme Blundell for the new Foxtel Arts Channel; and she will present a movie of her choice each week on Foxtel Movies Masterpiece.
Blundell has something in common with Stratton, being also a regular in The Australian newspaper. Stratton is the paper’s film critic and Blundell is its national TV critic. Screen will be about movies TV and online content. Pomeranz: “I look forward to joining Foxtel and am thrilled to share my passion for film with viewers and movie fans all around the country. While movies are my first love, I am also genuinely excited to be working with Graeme and getting my teeth into the exciting television and online environment which is so diverse, popular and ever changing.”
Asian Cup a ratings winner
On Saturday the Socceroos will battle it out with two-time Asian Cup champions South Korea live on ABC TV, hosted by Stephanie Brantz with live crosses from the field by Francis Leach. Because of the Queensland election, the match will move to ABC2 in Brisbane, but will be on the main channel in other markets. Now that the matches are being shown live on the ABC the ratings are impressive. Tuesday’s AFC Asian Cup semi final between the Socceroos and the United Arab Emirates reached 3.1 million Australians. According to OzTAM the match averaged 1.1 million when metropolitan and regional figures were added. Sydney had the highest average audience and share with 336,000 viewers of the match, and 19.4% share in the timeslot.
