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.
