The media landscape has changed enormously over the last couple of decades, largely due to the arrival of digital giants include Google and Facebook. But News Corp continues to be a hugely powerful player in the Australian media, reaching more than half the national population every month.
Sean Aylmer speaks to News Corp Australia Executive Chairman Michael Miller in a wide-ranging interview, covering:
– How News Corp embraced Threads, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and more to reach younger audiences
– The delicate balance of power between social media and publishers
– The public’s growing willingness to pay for content
– Why clients will pay for data
– Doubling down on purpose and the investment in journalism
– Political perceptions of media organisations
Find out more: https://fearandgreed.com.au
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Sean Aylmer: Welcome to the Fear & Greed Business Interview. I’m Sean Aylmer.
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Sean Aylmer: The last couple of decades have seen enormous change in the
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Sean Aylmer: media landscape. I saw it close up, having spent a
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Sean Aylmer: long time working at what was then Fairfax, the arrival
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Sean Aylmer: of the digital giants, the rise of social media, the
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Sean Aylmer: shifts in media consumption, and the pressure on advertising and
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Sean Aylmer: the changes just keep on coming. I’m joined today by
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Sean Aylmer: our guest who knows all of this very, very well.
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Sean Aylmer: Michael Miller is the Executive Chair of News Corp Australia,
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Sean Aylmer: which owns publications including The Australian, The Daily Telegraph Herald Sun,
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Sean Aylmer: Courier Mail, Adelaide Advertiser, et cetera. Of course, the company’s
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Sean Aylmer: interests go beyond newspapers. Affiliated businesses include REA, Foxtel, Fox Sports, HarperCollins,
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Sean Aylmer: Sky News. The company reaches about 15 million Australians each month.
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Sean Aylmer: News Corp is also the platinum partner of Mumbrella360, Australia’s
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Sean Aylmer: largest media and marketing conference, which is on this week
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Sean Aylmer: in Sydney. Michael Miller, welcome to Fear & Greed.
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Michael Miller: Hi Sean. Good to hear from you.
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Sean Aylmer: So, how do you run a media company when the pace of change
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Sean Aylmer: is so ferocious and relentless? How do you keep up?
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Michael Miller: The technology available now is definitely an aid. Some may
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Michael Miller: say it is ever prevalent in our lives, but it
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Michael Miller: definitely helps run the business.
Media companies have always put
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Michael Miller: their audiences first, their customers, their communities. And the amount
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Michael Miller: of data we have now is instantaneous. We can see
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Michael Miller: who is reading what, where, how they’re engaging what they
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Michael Miller: read prior, what they read next, and it gives you
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Michael Miller: a lot of insights into not just what is trending,
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Michael Miller: but what is not just driving subscribers, but driving audiences
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Michael Miller: across our newsletters, our videos.
So it starts off with
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Michael Miller: the data, but I also apply the old techniques of
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Michael Miller: nuance and calling people. I’m a constant phone caller, whether
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Michael Miller: it be in the car or early in the morning,
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Michael Miller: I take the calls and I make the calls. Because
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Michael Miller: it’s often important to triage what you’re seeing in the
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Michael Miller: data with the insights that people are seeing on the
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Michael Miller: ground. So there’s nothing like a good contact together with
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Michael Miller: what the macro technology is telling us.
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Sean Aylmer: Okay. So let’s talk about social media and how it
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Sean Aylmer: interplays with journalism. And I suppose it’s distribution versus journalism. Pre-
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Sean Aylmer: social media, the content providers were also the distributors. That’s
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Sean Aylmer: changed with social media. Is the balance right yet, the
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Sean Aylmer: balance between what social media gets access to, in terms
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Sean Aylmer: of The Daily Tele or The Australian and how they
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Sean Aylmer: distribute it and what you receive in compensation effectively?
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Michael Miller: Yeah, it’s a issue that is now live in so
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Michael Miller: many parts of the world. We saw the Canadian government
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Michael Miller: make decisions in the past month regarding the media companies
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Michael Miller: there being fairly remunerated. A lot of people have compared
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Michael Miller: that to the Australian laws, which were introduced two years ago,
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Michael Miller: and that there are differences between the two. It’s a
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Michael Miller: must negotiate in Canada. In Australia, they haven’t moved to
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Michael Miller: a designation per se. But to your question around distribution,
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Michael Miller: journalism needs to be discovered to grow its audience, and
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Michael Miller: that we have in Australia dominant players in search, being Google,
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Michael Miller: and in social being Meta. And we are dependent upon
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Michael Miller: those particular channels to have our journalism discovered to reach
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Michael Miller: audiences to ensure that they equally pay and fairly for
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Michael Miller: the investment that we make in not just journalism, but
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Michael Miller: in supporting communities and giving those without a voice a voice,
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Michael Miller: holding those to account, but also celebrating giving solutions in
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Michael Miller: tougher times. So, is it fairly balanced? The algorithms I’d
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Michael Miller: love to know more about, but that’s something which we’re
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Michael Miller: unable to lift the lid on. And that in some
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Michael Miller: ways we’re seeing those platforms also develop competing products. Ever
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Michael Miller: since the law has changed in Australia, it is now
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Michael Miller: a fairer playing field. They are now partners in ensuring
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Michael Miller: journalism is discovered and that the journalism would show is
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Michael Miller: important to their audiences is being recognised and remunerated for.
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Michael Miller: More can always be done, but we’re in a far
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Michael Miller: better place than we were maybe four or five years ago.
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Sean Aylmer: Okay. So do you think that the media organisations themselves, News Australia,
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Sean Aylmer: for example, the Nine Network and all its affiliations have
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Sean Aylmer: done enough to be discoverable to find a younger audience
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Sean Aylmer: to use those distribution means to grow their audience?
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Michael Miller: Again, you’d always do more, but I think we’ve learned
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Michael Miller: that communicating on our own channels is only part of
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Michael Miller: the story. The majority, 72% of our audience now is
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Michael Miller: off platform. Recently you’re seeing Threads launch. All of our a
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Michael Miller: hundred plus brands were on Threads within 12 hours and
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Michael Miller: very active in those first three or four days in
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Michael Miller: terms of communicating and galvanising to those audiences. News.com.au was
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Michael Miller: one of the first to really embrace TikTok when others
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Michael Miller: were questioning it. Vogue, which we had the franchise off
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Michael Miller: in Australia, has a very large social media following on TikTok,
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Michael Miller: on Insta and on Snap. And so it’s those off platforms you
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Michael Miller: need to work closely with and understand how you may
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Michael Miller: re-edit and repurpose and curate differently for those audiences a
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Michael Miller: similar story. And in terms of appealing to those younger audiences,
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Michael Miller: I look pretty closely at the story is right, it
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Michael Miller: may be curated differently, but you need to purpose it
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Michael Miller: for the platform you’re going to distribute it on.
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Sean Aylmer: Stay with me, Michael, we’ll be back in a minute.
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Sean Aylmer: I’m speaking to Michael Miller, Executive Chair of News Corp
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Sean Aylmer: Australia. Okay, now I’d imagine news, and let’s take The
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Sean Aylmer: Daily Telegraph would have a far bigger audience than it
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Sean Aylmer: ever has, certainly compared to newspaper days, I would presume
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Sean Aylmer: that’s correct, Michael.
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Michael Miller: You’re correct.
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Sean Aylmer: The economics, though, of the big media organisations is where
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Sean Aylmer: it’s tough because certainly more people are looking at your content,
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Sean Aylmer: viewing it, reading it however, than ever before. Are the
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Sean Aylmer: big news organisations in a place where the economics, you
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Sean Aylmer: said it’s better than it was, is it sustainable for
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Sean Aylmer: the long-term?
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Michael Miller: Yep. So one of the metrics I use is do
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Michael Miller: we have a growing audience? And while you may have
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Michael Miller: your knockers and your detractors and activist groups and others
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Michael Miller: wanting to disrupt, and you’d see that a lot of
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Michael Miller: specialist players come in, you’ve mentioned the audience figure there,
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Michael Miller: we reach over half of Australians every month and that’s growing.
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Michael Miller: And so that’s ultimately, are we meeting the needs of
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Michael Miller: our audiences? Yes. I think what is available now to
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Michael Miller: publishers are far more revenue streams than just a cover
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Michael Miller: price and an advertising stream. And in fact, I call
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Michael Miller: it a client category, not an advertising category. And so,
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Michael Miller: many organisations, and we’re not quite there yet, but publishing
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Michael Miller: organisations are 50-50 consumer to client revenue. We’re heading in
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Michael Miller: that direction. We’ll be there in a few years time.
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Michael Miller: That’s really been aided by people’s propensity to pay for
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Michael Miller: streaming of content, that ability to subscribe to not just
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Michael Miller: media companies now, but to your local supermarket and other
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Michael Miller: regularly purchased items. And so people are prepared to pay
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Michael Miller: and subscribe, and that has definitely helped the news media industry.
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Michael Miller: And last year we reached a million paid digital subscribers,
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Michael Miller: and that is the one of a dozen publishers as well that have met
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Michael Miller: that market, but the highest per capita in the world.
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Michael Miller: And that’s been an area of, I suppose, paying for that journalism.
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Michael Miller: The other area in terms of client is that our
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Michael Miller: clients are not just paying for advertising, they’re paying for data,
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Michael Miller: particularly with the closure of cookies, the having first party data,
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Michael Miller: which a lot of publishers have. Every company now has
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Michael Miller: an investment in their own content, but they don’t always
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Michael Miller: do it well. So agencies that we own, such as
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Michael Miller: Medium Rare (Medium Rare Content Agency) and SUDDENLY, Visual Domain and video, often producing content
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Michael Miller: on behalf of Qantas, of David Jones, of Coles amongst
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Michael Miller: many others. Ecommerce is an area that we’ve been big
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Michael Miller: participants in recent days on Prime Day, affiliate revenues. So
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Michael Miller: you’ve got a lot more levers to pull if you’ve
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Michael Miller: got an audience to reach, which we do. And so
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Michael Miller: the economics, while still emerging, are looking very positive in
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Michael Miller: terms of how we can assist Australian businesses reach their
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Michael Miller: business goals, but also ensure Australians are consuming quality and
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Michael Miller: trusted content.
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Sean Aylmer: I have to, my background, as you know Michael is
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Sean Aylmer: in journalism. I have to ask how important is journalism
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Sean Aylmer: in it all? And now I keep thinking of someone
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Sean Aylmer: like Hedley Thomas, who obviously is part of the news
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Sean Aylmer: stable at The Australian, an incredible job at The Teacher’s
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Sean Aylmer: Pet Podcast. He’s done video, he’s writing, kind of a
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Sean Aylmer: jack of all trades in a sense. At the heart
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Sean Aylmer: of that, though, was just a great story. Is that
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Sean Aylmer: something we’re going to continue to see?
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Michael Miller: One of the levers that we’ve pulled over the past
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Michael Miller: five years is doubling down on purpose. And that has
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Michael Miller: been a differentiator to other media companies and digital publishers
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Michael Miller: that are very focused on revenue models rather than giving back
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Michael Miller: to the communities that ultimately consume them. So whether it
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Michael Miller: be the Grace Tame story that’s told by news.com.au and
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Michael Miller: the The Mercury couldn’t cover her story, but #LetHerSpeak was
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Michael Miller: really important in terms of changing laws in that state. Yeah, Hedley,
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Michael Miller: through his podcast, what has been a “no body, no parole” law that’s
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Michael Miller: been introduced in New South Wales parliament is critical to
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Michael Miller: ensuring that families of victims now have an avenue to
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Michael Miller: pursue the truth. And so I think that’s a point
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Michael Miller: of difference for local media companies that focus on local stories.
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Michael Miller: And that doesn’t always pay, it costs a lot, but
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Michael Miller: it’s that giving back and making a difference, pushing those boundaries,
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Michael Miller: which ultimately I think is what your reputation is based on.
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Michael Miller: People buy your brand for your reputation and the positive
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Michael Miller: impact that you have on many. So it is more important
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Michael Miller: I think than ever. It’s always been important, but it’s
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Michael Miller: our point of difference.
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Sean Aylmer: My final question to you, Michael. News (News Corp Australia) has certainly, as has
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Sean Aylmer: the ABC, as has the old Fairfax, kind of been
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Sean Aylmer: considered a genre of journalism in terms of where they
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Sean Aylmer: sit in the political spectrum. So that’s the base case.
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Sean Aylmer: What’s the future look like, though, for these organisations and
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Sean Aylmer: specifically for News as the world changes? Do you think
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Sean Aylmer: media companies are as political as readers and viewers think
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Sean Aylmer: they are, the first part of it? And do they
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Sean Aylmer: morph over time?
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Michael Miller: I don’t know that our audiences see us as being
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Michael Miller: as political as both media commentators and political commentators like
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Michael Miller: to amplify. All those three companies you mentioned are essentially
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Michael Miller: mass market, reach very broad spectrums through our various brands
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Michael Miller: of the Australian population and are successful due to the
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Michael Miller: portfolios we run, whether it be Triple J at one
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Michael Miller: extreme at the ABC, and news.com.au or Vogue at one
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Michael Miller: extreme for News to The Australian to 7:30 (The 7.30 Report) to
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Michael Miller: Media Watch. And so I don’t think it’s a bad thing
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Michael Miller: that on any particular day you’ve got a small handful
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Michael Miller: of people at the ABC questioning News and a small
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Michael Miller: handful at News questioning the ABC. But in the majority, I
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Michael Miller: think both organisations are doing a good job at serving
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Michael Miller: their broader constituents. What we have seen around the world
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Michael Miller: is more niche players emerge. They don’t have big audiences,
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Michael Miller: but are positioning themselves as being alternatives to the mass
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Michael Miller: broadcasters and mass trusted media. And I think that’s where
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Michael Miller: the debate has kind of been amplified in recent years. Now,
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Michael Miller: I won’t name them, but those smaller publishers that are
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Michael Miller: trying to carve a niche through positioning their bigger competitors
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Michael Miller: against themselves. So I understand their business model, I don’t
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Michael Miller: particularly get enamoured by it, but it’s good that Australians
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Michael Miller: have choice.
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Sean Aylmer: Michael, thank you for talking to Fear & Greed.
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Michael Miller: Great to catch up, Sean.
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Sean Aylmer: That was Michael Miller, Executive Chair of News Corp Australia.
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Sean Aylmer: This is the Fear & Greed Business Interview. Join us every
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Sean Aylmer: morning for the full episode of Fear & Greed, Australia’s best
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Sean Aylmer: business podcast.
I’m Sean Aylmer, enjoy your day.