Latest / The Front / Nine Entertainment’s top women feel the heat

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Nine Entertainment’s top women feel the heat · The Front

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, August nineteen, twenty twenty five. Federal Court Justice
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  Speaker 1: Michael Lee has slugged Quantus a whooping ninety million dollars
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  Speaker 1: for unlawfully sacking eighteen hundred ground crew during the COVID pandemic.
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  Speaker 1: Fifty million of that will be paid to the Transport
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  Speaker 1: Workers Union and forty million to be shared by the workers.
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  Speaker 1: The big wigs of economics and politics gathering Canberra today
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: for Jim Chalmers and Anthony Albanesi's Economic reform roundtable. You
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: can follow the news live all day at the Australian
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  Speaker 1: dot com dot A huge cultural change is underway as
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  Speaker 1: nine Entertainment tries to fix its bloky image and now
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  Speaker 1: its senior female figures feeling the heat. Today, Media Diary
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: editor Steve Jackson on the drama inside nine's culture revamp.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Steve Jackson writes the Media Diary column in The Australian,
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  Speaker 1: and this week he's broken a story about a former
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  Speaker 1: senior executive at Channel nine, Amanda Patterson, who received a
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  Speaker 1: big discount at a clothing store. JACKO, what's this story about?
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  Speaker 2: Amanda Patterson was in charge of Ninth News operations in
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  Speaker 2: Queensland for the better part of a decade. She became
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  Speaker 2: a big story last year when she was unceremoniously sacked
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  Speaker 2: via a zoom call by the network's new head of
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  Speaker 2: News and Current Affairs, Fiona Dear. That led to her
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  Speaker 2: suing the company for an unlawful dismissal. She received a
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  Speaker 2: big payout we understand confidential payout in February this year.
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  Speaker 2: Fast forward a few months and she's out having a
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  Speaker 2: lunch in inner city Brisbane with a couple of girlfriends
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  Speaker 2: and they decide let's go do a little bit of
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  Speaker 2: clothes shopping. Amanda apparently had a suit she wanted to return.
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  Speaker 2: They've gone to quite a high end boutique, Colors and
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  Speaker 2: Patty on James Street in Brisbane, and Amanda's picked up
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  Speaker 2: four thousand dollars worth of clothes, a red velvet suit
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  Speaker 2: and a couple of jackets. And all this is by
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  Speaker 2: the by its find just you know, three women out
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  Speaker 2: doing a little bit of shopping. But when she's gone
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  Speaker 2: to pay for it, there's been something of an incident. Now,
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  Speaker 2: there are a few different versions of what happened. Some
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  Speaker 2: people say that Amanda requested a Channel nine discount worth
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  Speaker 2: fifty percent, so a markdown of two thousand dollars.
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  Speaker 1: And this is designed for people who are on air,
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  Speaker 1: because it's an amazing way to promote your clothing, right.
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  Speaker 2: The idea is that their dresses or the garments are
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  Speaker 2: seat on air or on a TV star social media,
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  Speaker 2: and it's effectively a very cheap ad for them. So
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  Speaker 2: there's some suggestions she requests a Channel nine discount. Of course, Patterson,
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  Speaker 2: she tells me that she was simply offered, that she'd
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  Speaker 2: gone in, and that the sales assistant had said, hey,
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  Speaker 2: weren't you at a fashion show a year ago sitting
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  Speaker 2: on a nine table? I recognize you. Would you like
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  Speaker 2: the Channel nine discount two thousand dollars off? Now this
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  Speaker 2: interaction has gotten back to Channel nine and they're not happy.
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  Speaker 2: Obviously they've parted ways in acrimonious circumstances with Patterson, and
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  Speaker 2: they've gotten in touch with her and said, hey, you
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  Speaker 2: can't go around pretending you still work for us, or
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  Speaker 2: claiming you still work for us. Patterson says she never
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  Speaker 2: claims she did. What's undeniable is that she knowingly accepted
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  Speaker 2: a discount that was reserved for Channel nine staff. So
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  Speaker 2: it's whether she has been letting people think that she
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  Speaker 2: still works at the network, or, according to some people,
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  Speaker 2: even allowing or wanting people to think that she's still
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  Speaker 2: some sort of media powerbroker for the network.
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  Speaker 1: Did she repay the money in the end?
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  Speaker 2: My understanding is no, she hasn't repaid the money, but
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  Speaker 2: nor has anyone actually requested her to repay the money.
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  Speaker 1: There's another senior nine entertainment figure who's been featuring in
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  Speaker 1: your column. This is Amy McCarthy, the executive producer of
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  Speaker 1: A current affair, famous for very elbows out journalism. Akka
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  Speaker 1: is a show which takes no prisoners. It's very aggressive.
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  Speaker 1: It delivers great results often for its viewers and for
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  Speaker 1: the talent who it has in its stories.
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  Speaker 2: Do you have any comment you'd like to make?
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  Speaker 1: Do you think you should be allowed to continue working
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  Speaker 1: in childcare? You've been living in this property while Margie's
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: been trying to sell it to pay for Philip's age care.
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  Speaker 1: How about you sue? What name we're using today? Who
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  Speaker 1: is it today? Sir?
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  Speaker 2: I can't keep up with all of these names.
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  Speaker 1: What's the story? About Amy McCarthy.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's quite interesting Amy McCarthy. She's been in the
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  Speaker 2: current affair running the show for the past better part
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  Speaker 2: of a year now, so she went along to the logis.
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  Speaker 2: Now she's decided to do something that I think most
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  Speaker 2: people now appreciate isn't a great idea, and that's going
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  Speaker 2: to a work event and juggling it with social media,
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  Speaker 2: never a great formula for success. She's at the logis
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  Speaker 2: and she's posting about how you know she's going to
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  Speaker 2: get drunk, and she's letting her hair down and updating
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  Speaker 2: it to say lucky her phone died because all the
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  Speaker 2: incriminating evidence from the supposedly big night hadn't been detailed. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 2: one part of it had been, and that was a
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  Speaker 2: photo she'd taken of Jimmy Barnes performing on stage with
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  Speaker 2: the message deserves a spot on the grid hashtag would
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  Speaker 2: still do him. Obviously, this was something that was a joke,
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  Speaker 2: you'd imagine, but it's been shared throughout the office and
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  Speaker 2: the network. By the time I was made aware of it,
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  Speaker 2: I think it had done the rounds of pretty much
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  Speaker 2: every newsroom in the network in the country, and the
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  Speaker 2: issue at stake was he's a female boss posting messages
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  Speaker 2: about Jimmy Barnes. If a male boss had made similar
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  Speaker 2: comments about someone like Marsha Heinz or Delta Goodroom, how
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  Speaker 2: would that have been received. So the issue Nine had
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  Speaker 2: to deal with as a result of this is they've
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  Speaker 2: made a very strong stance on cultural reform at the network.
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  Speaker 2: They want to modernize it, ensure that everyone works in
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  Speaker 2: a respectful environment which has to be admired and one
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  Speaker 2: rule for some one rule for another. That's not going
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  Speaker 2: to wash with their staff. So something that has been
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  Speaker 2: talked about a lot within Nine and a lot of
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  Speaker 2: questions raised about the appropriateness of making these comments, whether
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  Speaker 2: they're a joke or not.
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  Speaker 1: The context of this is Nine Entertainment has two point
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  Speaker 1: six billion dollars in revenue parandum. It's an absolutely massive
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  Speaker 1: organization which owns the Nine network, television station, the stand
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  Speaker 1: streaming platform and print mastheads including the Sydney Morning Herald
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  Speaker 1: and the Age. It's a huge employer in Australian media,
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  Speaker 1: but profit is down thirty percent to one hundred and
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  Speaker 1: eighty nine million dollars at the last annual report and
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  Speaker 1: it's had to go through a huge cultural change since
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  Speaker 1: the highlight our audience would remember of former chairman Peter
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  Speaker 1: Castello knocking to the ground the Australians reporter Liam Mendez
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  Speaker 1: when he tried to ask Peter Costello about cultural issues
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  Speaker 1: at the network. You've just assaulted me, You've just pushed me.
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  Speaker 1: It's all on camera, mister Cassello. They commissioned to report
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  Speaker 1: about what was going on internally at the company, which
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  Speaker 1: said that female staff felt that they weren't listened to,
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  Speaker 1: that there was a culture of bullying. Now they've got
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  Speaker 1: senior female executives who are allegedly behaving in the ways
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  Speaker 1: that maybe male executives behaved in the past. It's a
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  Speaker 1: tricky spot for nine, isn't.
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  Speaker 2: It It is? I think once you go down that
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  Speaker 2: rabbit hole of going we're taking this politically correct line
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  Speaker 2: zero tolerance on comments of this nature. Be they jokes,
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  Speaker 2: be they serious with the current chief executive. If Matt
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  Speaker 2: Stanton basically has said zero tolerance, we're just not going
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  Speaker 2: to have any of this. And if there's zero tolerance,
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  Speaker 2: everyone knows the rules and there'll be no problems. But
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  Speaker 2: once you go down that path, there's very little wiggle
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  Speaker 2: rooms So what it means is, I suppose the jocular
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  Speaker 2: era journalists are quite famous for having gallows humor in
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  Speaker 2: their newsroom. Those days are gone. It's a very corporate atmosphere,
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  Speaker 2: so I have to say credit to them. If you're
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  Speaker 2: going to apply the rule to some people, it's going
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  Speaker 2: to apply.
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  Speaker 1: To everyone coming up. How do you fix a culture
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  Speaker 1: like Nines? It's a huge ship to turn around the
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  Speaker 1: culture of an organization like that, isn't it? Because Nine
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  Speaker 1: was famous under the ownership of the Packer family for
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  Speaker 1: being not only extremely successful and a place where you
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  Speaker 1: might say that standards in the workplace were a little
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  Speaker 1: more loose than in other places. That was drinking on
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  Speaker 1: the premise. There were huge parties, There were lavish gifts
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  Speaker 1: from the employers to all the staff, immense marketing campaigns
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  Speaker 1: where we take over Bronte Beach and spend three days
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  Speaker 1: shooting an ad campaign. How do the new managers of Nine,
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  Speaker 1: who have got to run at like a twenty first
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  Speaker 1: century company, tone down that culture of excess?
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  Speaker 2: The largest there has been a topic of legend for decades.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, we're talking about a TV network that famously
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  Speaker 2: had a wet bar up on the executive level that
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  Speaker 2: all staff were invited to on a Friday night. Now,
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  Speaker 2: the theory behind that was put on drinks for all
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  Speaker 2: your journals and execs on a Friday night, and they
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  Speaker 2: effectively do hours of free over time because they come
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  Speaker 2: up and they're talking about, oh, what story I should
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  Speaker 2: do and the idea was the bonding session. But really
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  Speaker 2: there for the price of a few drinks each spending
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  Speaker 2: hours extra. I think those days of go on for
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  Speaker 2: every enterprise you know, be there, a banker and accountancy firm,
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  Speaker 2: and it is a massive cultural shift. It's part of
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  Speaker 2: the process of audiences expecting a higher level of professionalism.
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  Speaker 2: But even the industry is itself being more professional and
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  Speaker 2: we're seeing this within nine going all right, well, this
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  Speaker 2: is what our shareholders expect, it's what our audiences expect.
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  Speaker 2: There is a responsibility on us to have impeccable behavior
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  Speaker 2: standards because we expect them from the people we report on.
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  Speaker 2: As you say, with the current affair, something dodgy happens
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  Speaker 2: in a workplace there at the front with cameras, How
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  Speaker 2: doare you do this? How do you think you were
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  Speaker 2: going to get away with this? Pushing cameras in people's faces,
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  Speaker 2: So if they're going to give it out, they've got
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  Speaker 2: to take it back if they do the wrong thing,
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  Speaker 2: and in all cases better just not to do the
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  Speaker 2: wrong thing. But as we've seen it, it is a
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  Speaker 2: gradual process. You can't just be the fun police and
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  Speaker 2: come in overnight and expect everyone to be straight e
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  Speaker 2: one eighty serious all the time. It's about finding that
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  Speaker 2: between what is appropriate bander in the workplace, more importantly,
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  Speaker 2: what's appropriate to put on social media, because that's the
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  Speaker 2: real defining thing here. You can have a joke with
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  Speaker 2: someone at the table next to you, obviously, but making
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  Speaker 2: these sort of comments publicly when you're known as a
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  Speaker 2: news boss and you are a representative of that organization,
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  Speaker 2: that's a very different question. And we saw that again
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  Speaker 2: this week with an email that was sent into a
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Current Affair asking could the host of a Current Affair,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Alison Langdon, refer to police officers as such rather than
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: calling them cops. The response they received was an email
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  Speaker 2: back from the Generica carent Affair account telling them not
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  Speaker 2: to be a n ark. So, you know, just in
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  Speaker 2: this day and age again zero tolerance, there's not much
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  Speaker 2: wiggle room anymore.
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  Speaker 1: But is there a risk that as media organizations kind
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  Speaker 1: of corporatize that they lose the magic. You know, do
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  Speaker 1: you end up crushing the magic of stars like say
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Karl Steffanovic, who said this year's logis he wish they
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  Speaker 1: were a little bit more fun. He's beloved by the
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  Speaker 1: audience because he's cheeky and quirky and different and a
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  Speaker 1: little bit edgy. Is there a risk there of making
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  Speaker 1: it too bland?
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  Speaker 2: Oh definitely. And Carl's a great example because at the
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  Speaker 2: end of the day, we're humans and the news is here,
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  Speaker 2: as we all know, it's to inform, but importantly it's
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  Speaker 2: here to entertain as well, So you can't take out
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  Speaker 2: that cheeky edge. I mean, that's why Carl's successful. It's
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  Speaker 2: why it's on three million dollars a year. Let's face
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  Speaker 2: it is because he's having fun and people see that
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  Speaker 2: and they have fun listening to him. So you don't
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  Speaker 2: want to make it boring, you don't want to make
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  Speaker 2: it bland. And these shows are still big money spinners.
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  Speaker 2: Current a Fair is the highest rating national news and
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  Speaker 2: public affairs program every night of the week. Still, Karl
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  Speaker 2: does a great job on the Today Show, and he's
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  Speaker 2: responsible the reason he gets paid so much as he
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  Speaker 2: brings and advertisers because people like him. It's a real
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  Speaker 2: balancing act that nine have to perform here to see
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  Speaker 2: how much is fun, how serious do we have to
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  Speaker 2: be and what do we expect from our staff? And
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  Speaker 2: there will be slip ups plus people also human. You know,
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  Speaker 2: if we lived in a world where no one had
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  Speaker 2: a few drinks and accidentally sent a message or posted
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  Speaker 2: something they later regretted, I mean, would all be doing well.
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  Speaker 2: But unfortunately that's not the world we live in.
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  Speaker 1: Steve Jackson's media diary is unmissible. You can read it
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: right now at the Australian dot com dot au