Mumbrellacast

It’s results season, and this week Nine, SCA, and ARN all reported the various fortunes of their companies.

The night before they announced their financial results -- and the very next business day after the retirement of chair Kerry Stokes -- SCA's board decided to dump boss Jeff Howard, who used to run Seven, and was very briefly CEO and managing director of the newly merged Seven/SCA. The timing of this decision sent quite a message to the market.

Former SCA boss John Kelly (back when they were "all about audio") is now interim CEO of the company's TV and audio divisions, and decided to use the SCA investor call as a gentle audition to shareholders for the top role.

He looks in with a good shot. After all, it was very clear which of the two companies involved in the Seven/SCA merger is doing the heavy lifting in financial terms, and it's not the one that screens three hours of Home and Away each week ...

Hundreds of thousands of hateful comments are sitting on the Facebook feeds of Australian news publishers, according to a scan from a social media startup that is using multiple AI models to understand comment intent and context.

“Conversational intelligence” company Sence scanned 4.8m comments on 114 publisher pages and found virulent racism and violent threats among around 400,000 harmful comments attached to news stories.

The New Zealand operation — which has signed up The All Blacks, NZME and Radio New Zealand in its home market — is now pushing into Australia and is using the scan as an illustration of the extent of the problem.

Apple has shaken the world of podcasting again this week (let's not forget the "pod" part of the word comes from the iPod) with the announcement that it is adding videos to its podcasting platform, with an option for listeners to toggle between video and audio-only.

Youtube is the top platform for podcasts in the world, and Spotify has been focusing on video-led podcasts of late. Yet, CRA's Podcast Ranker -- the"only official measurement system" for podcasts -- doesn't count video plays in its count, meaning it's leaving a lot of the audience out of the equation.

Eleanor Dickinson wrote about this topic, speaking to Karl Stefanovic's podcast producer Keshnee Kemp and Spotify ANZ head of podcast Prithi Dey. We discuss the topic further on the show.

Also discussed is Joe Aston's investigative commentary publication Rampart which, he disclosed to Tim, is making “multiples” of $500,000 in revenue after its first year, and was profitable by month two. It's an example of a thriving media company in a market that has seen so many others fail of late. (You can listen to that full interview here.)

Is it good business sense for a business publication to sue its own subscribers? That's what Todd Scott, the owner and publisher of New Zealand premium finance masthead NBR is doing, taking some of its biggest customers to court if they don't ensure their employees all have their own logins. Scott reckons he's make “hundreds of thousands of dollars” from publicly shaming these companies -- so it appears to be good business sense, indeed.

And finally, Tim chats to newly minted Ooh Media CEO James Taylor about whether his out-of-home business is being undervalued by the market.

Former Australian Financial Review columnist Joe Aston sat down with Mumbrella's Tim Burrowes for an Unmakers Edition of the Mumbrellacast.

The pair covered a lot of ground, including a probing discussion on the economics of Aston's operation, his interview guest list, the character of former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce, and his plans to expand beyond "the Joe Aston Show".

12 February 2026

In this week's Mumbrellacast, our hosts discuss the spray ACMA chair Nerida O'Loughlin copped from Sarah Hanson-Young over the media watchdog's lack of regulation regarding the Kyle and Jackie O show's continued infringes; the merging of WPP's creative agencies; NZ retailer The Warehouse's eight-week advertising blackout; and Hal's conversation with The Guardian Australia's Liz Wynn on the publication's move to require its most dedicated users to log-in to the site to access its news.

Join Hal Crawford, Nathan Jolly, Eleanor Dickinson, Tim Burrowes and Abe Udy for a look at everything under Australia's media and marketing umbrella.

4 February 2026

Thanks to Earmax Media for sponsoring this episode. Click the link HERE to see podcast advertising campaigns that really work, or email [email protected] directly.

Be sure to check out Tim's chat with the team at Earmax — Andy Maxwell and Ralph van Dijk — HERE.

In today's Mumbrellacast, our team reviews new advertising work for Coopers, Mirvac, Westpac, Bupa and Colorbond; discusses a spate of closures in Australian print media; and Eleanor interviews ex-Clemenger BBDO talent, Vinne Schifferstein, who co-opened a new AI agency, MC&V.

Join Hal Crawford, Eleanor Dickinson, Tim Burrowes and Abe Udy for a look at everything under Australia's media and marketing umbrella.

30 January 2026

We are interrupting our normal schedule to bring you an emergency Mumbrellacast, after both Nine and Nova delivered major news to end the working week.

Join Nathan Jolly, Tim Burrowes, Hal Crawford and Abe Udy for a look at everything under Australia's media and marketing umbrella.

28 January 2026

For this week’s Mumbrellacast, we have a live recording from the Perth edition of the Compass roadshow, where we heard from the cream of the Western Australian media and marketing community.

At The Globe, Tim Burrowes moderated a panel where Block Branding co-founder and creative strategy director Mark Braddock; Social Meteor managing director Luke Whelan; chief marketing and growth officer at HIF Australia Kristina Green; and marketing consultant Alice Manners discussed ChatGPT's impact on the world, whether bravery still exists in marketing, and the reliance on gambling advertising dollars in the media.

21 January 2026

In this week's Mumbrellacast, we head to Adelaide for the Compass event, where four of the city's leading lights in the marketing and media world talk about recent changes in government policy, the struggles of running an agency, and how Adelaide is a bellwether for the rest of the industry.

From the surrounds of the wonderfully named Elephant British Pub, Tim Burrowes moderates an all-star panel that features Sean O’Brien, managing director at Nine Adelaide, Katheryn Korczak, co-owner of Nation Creative, Michael Healy, CMO of the Royal Automobile Association, and Adele Gibb, managing director at Carat.

This week’s Mumbrellacast is a live recording from our Compass Melbourne event, where a panel of media and marketing insiders discuss the challenges of the year ahead.

The panel — Thinkerbell's chief executive officer, Margie Reid; Southern Cross Austereo's head of marketing, Naomi Gorringe; Atomic 212's chief strategy officer, Asier Carazo; and Mondelez International's vice president, marketing ANZ, Ben Wicks — talk about the opportunities and challenges around the encroachment of AI, how to capitalise on a viral moment, the gaps in diversity hiring, and the perils of attracting younger generations to an unsteady industry.