Unmade: media and marketing analysis Tim Burrowes

Welcome to Start the Week, our Monday scene-setter for the week ahead. Today: ARN refuses to let its Southern Cross Austereo takeover bid die; and ChatGPT starts talking back - why that matters to the marketing world.
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The all-seeing, all-talking AI
In the space of two days, the pace of change in AI accelerated again. OpenAI unveiled its upgraded ChatGPT4o - complete with “multi modal” abilities to listen and look. And Google launched a whole series of updates to its Gemini AI system. In today’s edition of Start the Week, Cat McGinn, curator of Unmade’s HumAIn conferece explains what it all means for the marketing world. We then bring ChatGPT in on the conference call.
Also today, ARN Media refuses to give up on its battle to take control of Southern Cross Austereo.
Further reading:
* Unmade: A baller move from OpenAI, but who will end up paying for all this ‘free’ technology?;
* Guardian: CEO of world’s biggest ad firm targeted by deepfake scam
* Bloomberg: Apple Set to Unveil AI Strategy at June 10 Developers Conference
* HumAIn: Full program
* The Australian: ARN Media forges ahead with potential takeover plans of Southern Cross Austereo
* Australian Financial Review: ARN Media’s M&A record holds out for elusive win
Today’s episode features Tim Burrowes, Abe Udy and Cat McGinn (plus a cameo from ChatGPT-4o).
Time to leave you to start your week.
Editing was courtesy of Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
tim@unmade.media



This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade, in which we talk to the industry veteran in charge of delivering News Corp’s advertising revenues, Louise Barrett. Further down, a good day on the Unmade index for Australia’s TV players.
If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:
* Member-only pricing for our HumAIn (May 28) and REmade (October 1) conferences;
* A complimentary invitation to Unmade’s Compass event (November);
* Member-only content and our paywalled archives;
* Your own copy of Media Unmade.
Is it time for the news industry to revive the ida of a local premium content exchange? Louise Barrett thinks so
This week saw News Corp run it’s D_Coded sessions, the news company’s version of Upfronts, with a digital focus.
Among the new offerings shared with marketers and media agency executives were ways of making more of News Corp’s large logged in audience. Google’s long-delayed, but now imminent, deprecation of third party cookies on Chrome may work to the benefit of publishers and media companies with big opted-in audiences.
For News Corp that includes adding to the capabilities of its Intent Connect data offering, and the introduction of its ecommerce play Shoppable ScrollX.
Barrett’s conversation with Unmade’s Tim Burrowes also uncovered the information that the idea of a cross industry premium content exchange is back on the agenda. News Corp’s MD of client product Pippa Leary previously worked on setting up the APEX Advertising exchange which was a joint venture of Nine and Fairfax Media before those companies merged.
With increasing client concerns about programatic fraud and low quality Made For Advertising (MFA) sites, a premium content exchange potentially offers marketers the ability to reach a higher quality audience programatically.
In the UK, the Ozone Project, owned by news publishers including News UK, Reach, Guardian News & Media and Telegraph Media Group is well established. Barrett reveals that she and her colleague Leary held talks with Ozone during a UK visit. “I’m a big supporter of pulling something like this together. There are discussions happening. It’s a very strong ambition,” she says.
Also under consideration is the idea of setting up an academy aimed at educating new media agency staff about the strengths of print publications.
Good day on the index for TV and outdoor, as SCA tries to slam to the door on ARN.
A solid trading day for Seven West Media, Nine and Ooh Media helped lift the Unmade Index by 0.62% to 536.8 points on Wednesday
Nine rose by nearly 1% to return close to a market capitalisation of $2.5bn; SWM surged by more than 2.5% and Ooh lifted by 1.85%
Yesterday afternoon also saw Southern Cross Austereo attempt to slam the door on ARN Media’s takeover bid. The SCA board issued a statement saying the updated bid was unattractive for shareholders and would be costly to execute.
Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, editing and production.
Time to leave you to your Thursday. We’ll be back with more tomorrow
Have a great day.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to Start the Week, our audio-led Monday scene-setter for the week ahead.
Today: ARN Media fights to save its Southern Cross Austereo takeover as Anchorage Capital Partners gets cold feet; a crucial week in Parliament for TV sports rights; and is Open AI about to launch its Google challenger?
Producing independent analysis of the media and marketing industry that goes beyond press releases takes time and resources. If you like what we do, you can support us by becoming a paying member. Upgrade today
Can ARN Media save its collapsing Southern Cross Austereo takeover bid?
In a series of dramatic developments over the last 24 hours, ARN Media’s takeover bid for Southern Cross Austereo appears close to collapse.
ARN’s bid partner Anchorage has been spooked by declining revenues and has pulled the plug. Instead, ARN this morning told the ASX it has come up with a new, even more complicated, plan to go it alone before relisting a new version of SCA on the stock exchange.
In today’s podcast, Unmade’s Tim Burrowes explains what happened over the weekend, why Anchorage got cold feet, and how ARN is proposing to save the deal.
We also discuss what may be another huge move by OpenAI, with reports that it will launch a competitor to Google’s search, later today.
And we preview a key week for the TV industry in Parliament, with sports rights and due prominence legislation on the agenda tomorrow.
Further reading:
* Unmade: Is the SCA takeover about to die of old age?
* ASX - ARN Media: Update on Non-Binding Indicative Proposal to Acquire SCA
* ASX - SCA: Withdrawal of Consortium’s Proposal
* Reuters: OpenAI plans to announce Google search competitor on Monday, sources say
* Australian Financial Review: Showtime! Media CEOs’ last stand with Foxtel over future of TV
* Australian Financial Review: Greg Hywood - New laws risk the end of free sports on tv
* Unmade: TV gets a win
* Unmade: Maybe for the last time, the free TV machine wins on anti-siphoning
Today’s episode features Tim Burrowes and Abe Udy
Editing was courtesy of Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.
Time to leave you to start your week. We’ll be back with more tomorrow with a special post for our paying members explaining all the issues around today’s developments in the SCA takeover battle.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade
tim@unmade.media


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today we’ve an episode of our series focusing on industry startups, The Unmakers. We talk to the co-founders of fast growing influencer platform Fabulate. And further down, mixed fortunes on the Unmade Index.
If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:
* Member-only pricing for our HumAIn (May 28) and REmade (October 1) conferences;
* A complimentary invitation to Unmade’s Compass event (November);
* Member-only content and our paywalled archives;
* Your own copy of Media Unmade
Ben Gunn and Nathan Powell on Fabulate’s five year push into the technology of influencer marketing
A noticeable trend in adland is that nobody is making it big by starting another media company or advertising agency.
However, those working inside the legacy players have been perfectly placed to understand the problems of brands and publishers, and work out how to solve them. The technology based solutions have the ability to scale globally in a way that media offerings and agencies do not.
Recent examples include media mix modelling platform Mutinex, started by WPP staffers Henry Innis and Matt Farrugia; micro influencer platform Tribe started by then 2Day FM presenter Jules Lund, and retail media platform Zitcha, which span out of media agency Hatched.
A further example which deserves a higher profile is Fabulate, whose founders include former Nine staffers Ben Gunn and Nathan Powell, along with Toby Kennett. Today’s podcast focuses on the Fabulate story.
Five years on, Fabulate barely counts as a start up any more. It employs more than 50 staff and manages campaigns to the value of millions of dollars. In the conversation, chief revenue officer Gunn and content and strategy boss Powell are cagier about revealing the platform’s own direct revenue, but they drop some hints.
In March, Fabulate was named best influencer marketing technology service by AiMCO (the Australian Influencer Marketing Council).
With its roots in text-based branded content, Fabulate is now deeply in the short form video influencer space, including TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube. The platform connects influencers to brands and manages workflow for marketing campaigns. It is also planning to gear up around LinkedIn influencers.
Along with being integrated into IPG Mediabrands’s Kinesso social offering, Fabulate is working with almost all Australia’s influencer agencies, as well as major PR agencies including Edelman.
The wide ranging conversation - which is part of Unmade’s ongoing The Unmakers series - covers Fabulate’s first five years, an overview of the fast changing influencer sector, and insights into where the company goes next.
Previous episodes of The Unmakers:
Unmade Index flat as TV networks look up
The Unmade Index battled itself into equilibrium on Wednesday, with broad falls across most of the list counterbalanced by improvements from Nine and Seven West Media.
With the index moving up by just 0.2 points to 546.1, Nine did much of the heavy lifting, rising by 1.3%, while Seven was up 2.5%.
Meanwhile Ooh Media, IVE Group, ARN Media and Southern Cross Austereo all slumped.
Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, editing and production.
Time to leave you to your Thursday.
We’ll be taking a one-day publishing break tomorrow.
I’m in Sydney today at the Australian Associational of National Advertisers Reset conference (one question I’m considering: is the “growth” theme of the event in keeping with the mood music around sustainability? Your thoughts please.)
And tomorrow afternoon I’m jumping on QF1 to London for Advertising Week Europe. It looks as though the upgrade gods have not smiled upon me. Saturday’s Best of the Week will be brought to you from deep in the bowels of the cheap seats.
Have a great day.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade
tim@unmade.media

Welcome to Start the Week, our audio-led Monday scene-setter for the week ahead.
Today: Nine under pressure from investors as questions are asked about CEO Mike Sneesby’s behaviour to staffer; SXSW lineup unveiled
Today:
Nine boss Mike Sneesby gets ready to front the Macquarie investor conference, as The Australian reports that he puts pressure on one of his journalists over coverage of Stan. And SXSW revleas its first speakers for October’s Sydney event - it’s AI-a-gogo.
Further reading:
* Unmade: How news is becoming a collective industry
* Capital Brief: Nine facing pressure to cut TV costs amid ad market rout
* Unmade: Rock bottom delayed
* The Australian: Did Nine chief Mike Sneesby break an unwritten rule?
* SXSW: SXSW Sydney reveals first look at 2024 speakers and sessions
Today’s episode features Tim Burrowes and Abe Udy
Time to leave you to start your week.
Editing was courtesy of Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
tim@unmade.media


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today we’ve an episode of our series focusing on industry startups, The Unmakers. We talk to the latest entrant into the increasingly competitive marketing mix modelling sector, Jordan Taylor-Bartels, the co-founder of Prophet.

In today’s episode of The Unmakers, we talk to Jordan Taylor-Bartels about Prophet, the analytics platform he’s been quietly building for the last three years, before finally publicly launching it in March.
There were several industry investors attached to the launch, including Australian Community Media proprietor Antony Catalano, and ex-Dentsu (now Bastion) executive Cheuk Chiang. To add to the spice, Chiang was an early investor in media mix modelling platform Mutinex, although he parted ways early in the project.
Although recently an owner of indie media agency Magic, much of Taylor-Bartels career has been spent outside of media, including at a couple of Elon Musk companies in the US. At the start of his career, Taylor-Bartels studied media and journalism at RMIT and created his own culture magazine, Helmet.
In today’s conversation, Taylor-Bartels explains his approach to simplifying the variabilities of marketing, talks through the launch team and plots a path for where Prophet grows from here.
Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, editing and production.
We’ll be back with more tomorrow.
Have a great day.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade
tim@unmade.media



This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe