Media

The Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) has iced any short-term plans to follow peak advertiser bodies in the UK and US for a cross-media measurement system using synthetic audiences designed to cut media audience reach and frequency duplication across all media and channels under a levy on media agency ad spend. 

Foxtel's sale to DAZN, the UK-based and soon-to-be Saudi-backed sports streamer, injects an extra layer of spin into Australia's sporting rights game just as other globals weigh the risk of overpaying versus slowing subscriber growth and ad business upside. It also offers an interesting undercard around Foxtel Media's increasingly close relationships with global streamers over video measurement and trading currency. Meanwhile Foxtel's advertising set-up and programmatic nous could prove a boon for DAZN's broader ad expansion locally and regionally.

It’s Christmas – the peak season for buried announcements, executive exits, staff offloads, mergers and acquisitions and big advertiser contract renewals – and the market is frantic with corporate action over the summer break. Here’s some of the rumblings for what might or might not happen when we return in January 2025.

US President Donald Trump’s advisors have been briefed and greenlighted Labor’s teethy return growl at big tech – Meta particularly – in the ongoing cat and mouse game of sustainable funding of local news content and journalism. But more platforms look set to be captured by the proposed new laws – LinkedIn the most likely – which are set for retrospective enactment in three weeks: January 1, once they’re passed. But there’s a catch. Pending election timing and the Coalition’s position, it may require a Labor win before the louder bark turns to a real regulatory bite. And there are already fast-forming views that the beefed-up policy to restrain the posse of global tech platforms won’t get through before the next election cycle.

The market is rowdy and Omnicom Media Group silent on expectations that a global hunt to replace current ANZ boss Peter Horgan has landed with local Chief Investment Officer Kristiaan Kroon. 

UPDATED: Six months on from the splashy defection of Initiative Media’s top three executives to lead Accenture Song’s assault on the media agency business, Initiative has opted for one of its own after a local and global search – a former 20-year marketer and Sydney Managing Director Jo McAlister. McAlister said there was a hunger back in the Initiative camp despite some large global account losses such as Amazon and Lego – led locally at the time by the team now at Accenture Song. “Often when you become very successful, you think you’ve got the recipe down pat – we’ve got to evolve it,” she told Mi3. Accenture Song responded earlier this morning to Mi3's questions - updated and published at the end of this story.    

Seven’s AI Factory trials in which it is fast prototyping dozens of ideas and initiatives in six-week bursts is providing the first new and needed evidence that lower adloads lift viewing times and holds the younger set for longer. It is AI and personalisation the broadcaster is banking on to blitz its broadcaster rivals and streaming services in 2025 with a ramped-up 7Plus ‘digital first’ strategy for premium video on demand (VOD) and new sports rights it forecasts will lift audiences and viewing times circa 25 per cent and take six share points from Nine and Ten. It also predicts linear audiences next year will be line-ball on 2024.