Mumbrellacast

In this cross-post interview from the Spinoff's At Large podcast, Mumbrella's Hal Crawford speaks with Toby Manhire about the under-16s social media ban.

Manhire is the NZ culture and news site's editor-at-large, and he wants to know whether the law is working, who's under investigation, and whether New Zealand should follow Australia's lead on the legislation.

Welcome to this week's Mumbrellacast, now available as a novella.

This week has seen some major executive moves at the media companies.

Nat Harvey went from Mamamia to Seven, former Seven revenue chief Kurt Burnette popped up at Vinyl Group, and Mia gave her son the good office.

Also, SCA presented its unique selling proposition to marketers at a mini-upfront delivered at breakfast-time with coffee and croissants; the bosses of News Corp, SBS, ABC, and Nine teamed up on stage at the Andrew Olle lecture to discuss the deals and battles with AI companies; and Mumbrella managed to help a creative get his Instagram account back after a dispute with Meta and FIFA, 'cos we're handy like that.

Delivered piping hot, just like you ordered.

Get the latest episodes here.

Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio.

When Mumbrella sat down with the outgoing and incoming bosses of women’s media network Mamamia — Nat Harvey and Luca Lavigne, respectively — we were relishing asking the obvious question: how is a 28-year-old qualified to run a business?

It turns out 28-year-olds, like all people, come in different configurations.

As he explained in the interview, Lavigne is living at an accelerated pace.

Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio.

Welcome to the Mumbrellacast, now completely created with AI, auto-tune, monosodium glutamate, agent orange, and Styrofoam.

This week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (or a very convincing robotic replacement) visited Sydney University where he announced he will establish an official Office of AI, which will be tasked with AI-related legislation, drafting new copyright protections, and basically saving the nation from digital invaders.

Elsewhere on the podcast, we discuss how and why the most-played song on Australian radio over the past few weeks was (reportedly) created using AI; Vinne Schifferstein Vidal joins us to argue that agencies should not be selling AI platforms as a point of difference; and the heated debate is back -- and has very little to do with AI.

We start the episode with Vinne's very solid argument that agencies are investing millions in AI platforms and marketing them as a competitive advantage … but there's a major hitch. She speaks with Hal Crawford about an issue that goes to the heart of agency strategy.

And we remain on the absolute cutting-edge with news that '80s pop star Madonna has released her latest album, and she's back on the top of the Australian charts!

But instead of one of her new tunes making waves, it's been a heavily AI-assisted dance cover of her 1989 hit Like A Prayer, released into the world by Brisbane DJ Josh Fawaz, that has captured the attention of Australian commercial radio. The belated 2026 answer to Madonna's prayer was blasted close to 2,000 times within a fortnight, and played more in that period than any other song released by human, robot, or animal.

The song's success, and its embrace by Australian radio, has caused quite the furor, with many angry torch-bearers calling for AI-created content to either be disclosed, completely banned, or something in-between

Lauren Joyce, who was previously the content boss at ARN, ignores all the controversy, and looks ahead to a future where AI-created songs will simply become another genre of music -- much like jazz, techno, rock, pop, or shoegaze-infused-dream-pop-plunderphonic-hauntology.

And even though we managed to sort out most of the AI issues facing the country during the first few minutes of this podcast, Anthony Albanese also threw around a few solutions this week. To quote our PM:

"Australian writers, musicians, artists and journalists must retain ownership and control of their work. Our laws will spell that out, plain as day."

Like most political speeches, it seemed declarative, but didn't offer too much of substance. Plus, don't our copyright laws already cover copyright? Anyway, we get right into all of that.

And to round out this bumper episode, we finally settle the old-age question: Can media companies be really good at more than one medium?

Recently we’ve seen audio network SCA and TV network Seven merge and then tussle for power at the top, Nine sold its talkback radio division and bought a bunch of billboards, and radio network ARN started hosting singles cruises, pop gigs, and short-lived Friday arvo knock-off drinks with Eddie, Karl, and caller seven from Rooty Hill. So, can it be done?

Tim and Hal battle it out primary-school-debate-style, a winner is declared, and next week should see some major media group mergers, or demergers -- depending on how convincing the respective arguments were. Happy listening!

Get the latest episodes here.

Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio.

Welcome to the latest episode of the Mumbrellacast, where we quiz the PM on his predilection for Aussie popettes.

Actually, we discuss Telstra's biggest PR disaster since the hazy, lazy days of 2018; look at Oztam's decision to take the official TV ratings measurement system to tender after a quarter-century with Nielsen; debate whether the NRL deal is worth the $5.3 billion being paid; and take a look at new commercials from Square, Mazda, and Mutti.

This week, Ben Willee from Spinach joins us, and we resist the urge to delve into why his initials contain more syllables than his entire name.

"Don't spin a story that you think will make us feel happy.”

That's Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine's advice for Telstra's marketing folk, who failed to communicate promptly or properly after this week's catastrophic network outage.

For a few dystopic hours on Wednesday morning, phone and internet access was unavailable to 25 million Telstra-connected devices around the country, which meant that many small businesses couldn't process card payments, trains ground to a halt, cars were locked in garages that were locked behind gates, traffic lights failed, people couldn't Uber, Milkrun, or make prank triple-zero calls, and Duolingo streaks were absolutely decimated.

As Donald Trump sagely/stupidly pointed out a few weeks back, in the modern age "everything is computer". We all bemoan the control that Meta and Google wield in the information age, but Telstra are our real overlords, and they have been brainwashing us with catchy whistled Bee Gees tunes.

After all, you can't google Google without internet access ...

Speaking of internet access, Australia's TV ratings system has long been criticised for using outdated methodology in an increasingly data-rich world.

How is it that overseas tech giants know our blood types, religious beliefs, and what Spice Girl we prefer (Geri) from our search histories, yet Oztam (a joint venture between Ten, Seven, and Nine) can't get a realistic read on how many Australians watch Home and Away at 7pm?

Questions like this may be the reason Oztam is now looking for a new partner to drive its rating system, after 25 years with Nielsen. Legendary media analyst Steve Allen explains why this decision is long overdue.

Now, to sports news.

This week, the National Rugby League managed to squeeze an incredible $5.3 billion from Nine, Foxtel, and Sky NZ for the broadcast rights to the competition until 2034.

Mathematically speaking, this equates to "a long time" that the networks are on the hook, and with gambling advertising money possibly drying up -- if you think it could never happen, remember the NRL used to be called the Winfield Cup -- Tim Burrowes and BW debate whether or not the deal was worth it.

And to close out another bumper episode of the Mumbrellacast, we play some advertising, which is usually your cue to hit the 15-second skip button, but in this case the ads are part of the show.

We review the latest campaigns from Square (starring Naomi Watts), Mutti (starring Sam Kerr), and Mazda (starring a choir with Californian-cult vibes). Simple, yeah?

Okay, that's enough reading for you today - happy listening!

Get the latest episodes here.

Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio.