spinofflive
Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

OPINIONMediaJune 13, 2022

Thank god no one tried to out me

Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

First the Sydney Morning Herald threatened to out Rebel Wilson. Then they complained about being ‘gazumped’ when she refused to play by their rules. The sheer audacity, writes Mad Chapman. 

I’m trying to imagine what I would have done if a journalist threatened to out me. If a journalist emailed me to say they’d heard I was in a relationship with a woman and I had two days to confirm or deny before publication. I probably would have done exactly what Rebel Wilson did on Friday: share my relationship on social media so that it wasn’t news any more. Except unlike Wilson – who captioned the Instagram photo of herself and her partner with “I thought I was searching for a Disney Prince… but maybe what I really needed all this time was a Disney Princess” – I would have named the journalist and outlet and made sure everyone knew what they’d tried to do.

Wilson didn’t do this. Instead, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Andrew Hornery narked on himself with a column complaining that Wilson had “opted to gazump” the outlet’s planned story on Wilson’s new relationship, which was being celebrated by fans online.

“It was with an abundance of caution and respect that this media outlet emailed Rebel Wilson’s representatives on Thursday morning, giving her two days to comment on her new relationship with LA leisure wear designer Ramona Agruma, before publishing a single word,” he wrote.

“Big mistake.”

There’s something unbelievable about not only planning to out someone in 2022 (the editor has since denied that this is what the outlet wanted to do), but then complaining when that plan doesn’t work out. It’s literally unbelievable. I read Hornery’s words (it only took him 341 words to ruin everyone’s day) and genuinely did not believe that they were real. Does this sort of thing really still happen?

How Andrew Hornery’s column on Rebel Wilson began

I got my first real job in media (or anywhere) in 2016. I realised I was gay in 2021. Why it took so long is for me and a paid professional to figure out. But I certainly never factored a public outing into my thinking. In my time as a writer I have seen few, if any, instances like this in New Zealand. But they have happened. Alison Mau was simultaneously outed by the Herald on Sunday and Woman’s Day in 2010 (In 2017, Rebel Wilson won a defamation case against Woman’s Day). In 2014, Stuff ran a story about a sex video involving a New Zealand actor and a rugby player. Scroll down to the bottom of that article and it reveals the story was originally published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

I’m not famous like Wilson, but the process of coming out is still the same. Once I knew (a very unceremonious realisation one Saturday morning while hungover on the couch), I immediately wondered who I should tell and how. I was advised by a friend that I actually didn’t have to tell anyone, but I wanted to make sure people knew when I wanted them to, and not because someone saw something and told someone who posted a comment somewhere public. I had those thoughts as a 27-year-old random in Auckland. I’m sure Wilson had many more thoughts as a world-famous actor.

“Considering how bitterly Wilson had complained about poor journalism standards when she successfully sued Woman’s Day for defamation, her choice to ignore our discreet, genuine and honest queries was, in our view, underwhelming.”

The entitlement in this line from Hornery is astounding, not least because it reads as though he really believes it. The editor of the Sydney Morning Herald responded to the backlash by saying he hadn’t decided whether to publish a piece about Wilson’s relationship by the time she posted about it herself. They were just asking questions.

Hornery then went on (yes there’s more even though it was, as I said, only 341 words) to suggest that because Wilson had had a boyfriend in the past, “It is unlikely she would have experienced the sort of discrimination let alone homophobia – subconscious or overt – that sadly still affects so many gay, lesbian and non-hetero people.” Oh buddy. What a beautiful car crash of a sentence. To express something so ignorant while being semantically inclusive with “non-hetero people”. Like carefully polishing a massive piece of shit.

Ultimately, the Sydney Morning Herald could have published absolutely nothing and that would have been the correct course of action. Instead, they pulled the classic move of forcing, and then inserting themselves into, someone else’s coming out story. Some of us are late to our own queer parties, and some may choose never to talk about it. That’s the beauty of choice.

One thing’s for sure: anyone choosing to be open about themself and who they love will never “gazump” a media story about their own life. Hornery was pissed about that, and likely about the reader traffic lost as a result. Sadly, his self-own and the editor’s hamfisted response has resulted in maybe even more traffic for the website than if they’d gone ahead and outed her. Sex and sexuality sells. But so does ignorance.

Keep going!
Sky TV CEO Sophie Moloney and MediaWorks hosts Duncan Garner and Tova O’Brien (Image: Archi Banal)
Sky TV CEO Sophie Moloney and MediaWorks hosts Duncan Garner and Tova O’Brien (Image: Archi Banal)

MediaJune 7, 2022

Sky is in advanced talks to buy MediaWorks – what would that mean?

Sky TV CEO Sophie Moloney and MediaWorks hosts Duncan Garner and Tova O’Brien (Image: Archi Banal)
Sky TV CEO Sophie Moloney and MediaWorks hosts Duncan Garner and Tova O’Brien (Image: Archi Banal)

It’s merger season in New Zealand media, with Sky now in advanced talks to buy MediaWorks. Duncan Greive breaks down its impact on the market and audiences.

New Zealand’s pay TV giant Sky has confirmed this morning that it is in advanced discussions with the owners of MediaWorks, owners of radio stations like Today and The Rock, along with a large number of billboards and other out of home advertising sites. The move would combine two of our biggest media companies into one giant stretching into many areas of the traditional media sphere. It would have huge subscription revenues through Sky, as well as formidable advertising sales strengths through MediaWorks, and while it would require Commerce Commission approval to go through, that would appear to be little more than a formality.

Talks appear to be well-advanced, with major investment banks appointed to broker the deal, and a clearly energised Tova O’Brien talking up its prospects on Today FM this morning. The former Newshub political editor is part of a raft of former Three stars which make up the lineup on the new talk radio brand, and will be part of intriguing potential opportunities viewed by Sky’s newish CEO Sophie Moloney. Because there is almost no direct competition between Sky TV and MediaWorks, almost all of the business logic for the deal involves what they might do together. 

A 24-hours news channel?

New Zealand is a relative outlier in not having at least one 24-hour news channel. The obvious counter is that as a nation of around five million people, we don’t have the scale to sustain one. Yet in Today FM MediaWorks already has a lineup with heavy experience of live television – from O’Brien at breakfast, to Duncan Garner in the mornings to his former AM Show co-host Mark Richardson in the afternoon and Lloyd Burr during drive. 

It would be relatively easy to fill out a primetime roster and rig the studios for video as well as audio, and while production values might be limited, as RNZ’s Checkpoint shows, even a small audience can capture outsize influence when amplified through social media, particularly during major news events. 

Alternatively, shows like O’Brien’s and Burr’s could be funnelled into a revitalised Prime, the free-to-air channel which has been largely neglected in recent years. Regardless of how they play the talent, it would inevitably give Sky much greater local star power, which can be very helpful when courting advertisers. 

Tova O’Brien (Image: Supplied)

Subscription heft, meet a sales beast

Perhaps the most powerful synergy between the two organisations is the combination of Sky’s massive and relatively stable subscription revenues through its satellite TV and SVOD services, with MediaWorks’ huge sales operation, spread across radio and outdoor advertising. Sky brought in just $45m in advertising revenue, per its most-recent annual report, which is tiny compared to the likes of TVNZ and Discovery. This is in large part because its business focus has always been the subscription revenue it gains through satellite TV and services like Neon and Sky Sport Now. 

MediaWorks derives almost all of its income through ad sales, and its staff would doubtless welcome the opportunity to sell the vast and diversified channel lineup of Sky. The long tail of channels targeting different demographics also maps well to MediaWorks’ existing inventory, making integration easier than it might otherwise have been.

Ads on Neon? 

The big story of 2022 has been the bumpy ride for streaming platforms, most notably Netflix, which has suffered a two-third decline in stock price this year. Part of its solution has been to announce a cheaper ad-supported tier, in an attempt to grow the number of households which access its service. This opportunity exists for Neon too, which is a relatively pricey streaming service – an ad-supported version might be able to grow Sky’s subscription revenues while also opening up a younger and more covetable audience to advertisers.

MediaWorks CEO Cam Wallace. (Photo: Supplied)

All that inventory

One thing Sky will be eyeing is all that inventory. Between its radio stations and out-of-home sites, MediaWorks has a vast amount of ad spaces available. Its plan is to sell as much as possible, but invariably there are slots which go unsold. Sky has historically been one of our most significant advertisers, and if it were able to purchase any unsold inventory at discounted internal rates it would have an outsize presence in front of the New Zealand public, without having to pay market rate. 

If it goes through – and there is a sense that the deal is well-advanced – then it would represent an end to the epic saga of MediaWorks’ majority owner Oaktree’s relationship with New Zealand’s media. It has been here for more than a decade, and Sky got close to buying MediaWorks in 2015 for more than twice what it is likely to pay now (likely between $150m-$200m – though in 2015 it had Three as the centrepiece of the deal). It would represent a significant achievement for MediaWorks CEO Cam Wallace, who has had to rebuild the company after its separation from Three in less than two years, and for Moloney, who inherited a strategic muddle from former Sky CEO Martin Stewart.

It follows the TVNZ-RNZ merger as a potential major change in our media, after a decade of big transactions (Stuff-NZME, Sky-Vodafone) being thwarted by the Commerce Commission. And while little would immediately change, the potential of Sky and MediaWorks is tantalising, for talent, advertisers and audiences alike.


Follow Duncan Greive’s NZ media podcast The Fold on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast provider.

But wait there's more!