The app lets users find out what shopping deals and retail promos are nearby their current location.

Rebekah Horne, DMG’s chief digital officer said: “Combining the location services of the smartphone and power of broadcast radio, we will have a very compelling offer for both our clients and audience alike.”

A free app, ShopperNova aims to capitalise on Nova’s 18-39 targeted listenership with deals able to be shared on social media and provide an advertising opportunity for sales clients.

Horne said: “For the first time we are going to see the ability for clients to highlight an in-store offer on air, and then follow it through to the point of purchase with a location based app.”

The location-based technology was developed by Sydney mobile agency Creative Licence Digital, the founders of QuickerFeet, on which the concept for ShopperNova was based.

Darren Winterford, director of Creative Licence Digital, said: “Smartphone use in this country has exploded. Each month almost 2% of the population buy a smartphone, and as competition with online heats up, the app will prove itself to be the powerful weapon that retail has been looking for to attract shoppers and drive them into store. Combining it with leading radio will further increase its power.”

The launch comes the day after Google released a survey revealing smartphone penetration in Australia is now at 52%, and that 24% of Australians take their phones with them when shopping to research products. However, 22% of them change their minds while in-store.

Felony is written by, and set to star Joel Edgerton. The film will be directed by Matthew Saville.

Executive producing the film will be Lisa Wilson and Myles Nestel of The Solution Entertainment Group who will handle international rights to the film at the Cannes Film Market.

Rosemary Blight of Goalpost Pictures said: “Felony is a distinctive project with exceptional creative talent attached, with Joel Edgerton as both actor and writer and Matthew Saville directing. We are thrilled to be working with The Solution on this exciting film.”

A thriller, Felony sees a decorated police officer, played by Edgerton, run a young cyclist off the road in his car after celebratory drinks with his colleagues for busting up a major gang. As he administers CPR, and on-duty police arrive, he changes his story about the accident which will alter all their lives.

Shooting is due to begin in October.

Saville last week won two awards at the Australian Directors Guilds Awards for best direction in a mini-series for Cloudstreet, and best direction in a series for The Slap. He was also the director of Noise, with Brendan Cowell and tele-movie The King.

Edgerton also co-wrote The Square with Matthew Dabner. The film was directed by Edgerton’s brother Nash.

Roadshow Films will distribute in Australia and New Zealand.

Creative Artists Agency is handling the US rights and introduced the film to The Solution.

PostClick also has offices in Sydney and Auckland.

PostClick MD Andrew Lockwood said of the Brisbane offering: “We believe the online media industry here is definitely ready for an ad network dedicated to local advertisers and publishers.”

Dodd was previously communications director at MEC London where he led planning across clients including Lionsgate Films, Colgate, Sony Ericsson and whiskey brand The Famous Grouse. Prior to MEC he was a communications planner at the UK’s Goodstuff Communications.

He will work on brands including MasterCard and Brown Forman and report to UM national chief strategy officer Stefan Burford.

Burford said: “We are very excited to have someone of Tom’s talent onboard to be part of the team.”

Dodd starts on Monday.

Time-coded over three episodes, the series’ top episode was the seventh highest rating show for the night.

With just over 1m metro viewers, Celebrity Apprentice – Winner Announced took 1.036m, according to preliminary metro results from OzTam.

The finale was down by nearly 0.6m on last year’s finale when 1.6m viewers tuned in to see comedian Julia Morris win.

News of this year’s winner Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson published briefly on Nine’s website on Tuesday night could be a reason for the drop in ratings.

Ben Watts, head of TV and video at ninemsn said: “A video clip showing the winner of tonight’s Celebrity Apprentice season final was accidentally published on the website late last night.”

The other two episodes from the series to air last night, The Boardroom and The Challenge placed 11th and 12th respectively on 0.901m and 0.837m viewers.

While Seven News won the night on 1.369m, followed by Nine News on 1.24m and Today Tonight on 1.174m, Nine’s The Block was the highest rating non-news or current affairs show in fourth place on 1.104m followed by Australia’s Got Talent on 1.072m.

Ten’s top show was Masterchef Australia, under 1m, on 0.933m, behind ABC News on 0.951m.

More to follow

Prior to her new role at the ABC, Sedgwick was director of the Adelaide Film Festival which backed the award-winning film through its investment fund.

Also joining Sedgwick are Sarah Shaw and Anna McLeish from Warp Films Australia, who produced the controversial film. They will be joined by Allison Meadows, senior casting director, Mullinars Casting Consultants.

Snowtown tells the story of Adelaides bodies in barrels murders. Unusually, the casting included a large number of local people who had not acted previously.   

While the film was controversial because of its dark content, it has won several awards including best direction in the Australian Film Institute’s AACTA Awards.

The session will be moderated by Mumbrella managing editor Brooke Hemphill

Mumbrella360 takes place on June 6 and 7. More details and tickets are available on the Mumbrella360 website.

With magazine circulations plummeting, FHM closing and rumours rife on future ownership of ACP Magazines, Paul Merrill says the only way forward is launching new titles.

Eight years ago in the UK, nearly a quarter of all magazine sales came from magazines that were less than four years old. In Australia, the figure was slightly lower, but still significant. Today, the situation is very different. For a start there are so few new magazines. Yes, Masterchef briefly flared, and Top Gear made an initial impact. But Grazia and Alpha fizzled, and now ACP has shelved their plans to launch Elle.

In any industry, innovation is the lifeblood. Without it, existing markets falter and decay without the renewal essential for survival. And the magazine market is decaying faster than most.

Yes, there has been investment in the digital sphere, but that just isn’t enough.

The men’s market is a case in point. Four years ago, there was a weekly selling 120,000, and two monthlies both bubbling just under 100,000. Now one monthly (Ralph) has closed, another (FHM) is closing and the weekly (my old mag, Zoo) has lost nearly half of its sale in those four years.

It’s not the fault of the individual mags, as they all have a finite life cycle, but it does mean the sector could soon be wiped out as there is nothing to take their place. Even the still-buoyant Men’s Health is showing signs of plateauing.

The volume of women’s mags has declined by a smaller percentage, but by a bigger volume. Where will the next major weekly come from? Zoo and Famous were the last two six years ago.

The recession is partly to blame, but it is no excuse to stop investing in the future because the future has a nasty habit of becoming the present.

And if some of our biggest magazine publishers are keen to sell, a prospective buyer might wonder about investing in a company so shy about ring fencing its own long-term future.

Most recently the editor of Zoo Weekly, Paul Merrill has been in magazines for 18 years.

•  This piece first appeared in the April issue of Encore. Subscribe to the print edition here or download the iPad edition here. 

From July 27 to August 12, the Australian media will go sport crazy as the Games of the XXX Olympiad, aka the 2012 London Summer Olympics, unfold. The games will be the most televised sporting event of our time as broadcasters look to master every manner of technology at their disposal.At the front of the media pack are those who hold the official rights for the broadcast and here on Aussie soil the three key commercial players are Channel Nine, Foxtel and the Macquarie Radio Network. Also broadcasting from the event is ABC Radio. At the centre of it all is Gary Fenton, head of the Olympic Unit.

The International Broadcast Centre at London’s Olympic headquarters

“This is the largest off shore broadcast in Australian television history,” says Fenton. In order to secure the rights, he explains: “Nine and Foxtel decided to make a joint bid to the International Olympic Committee four years ago.” They won the bid before negotiating with the Macquarie Radio Network to give them access.

The modus operandi of the IOC dictates that a representative for the broadcasters must facilitate the relationship with the committee and other Olympic organisations. “They seek a gatekeeper for each of these contracts,” says Fenton, who is ideally qualified for the role of heading up the Olympic Unit having worked for the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games in 2000 and covering a number of Olympics in association with the Seven and Nine networks. His job entails overseeing a number of initiatives key to the broadcast including the build of studios and facilities as well as the all – important accreditation of personnel.

“The Olympics have gotten big, bigger and bigger,” Fenton explains. “Accreditations are at a premium.” Foxtel alone has a crew of 150 they are taking to London to facilitate the 3,200 hours of content it will broadcast on eight different channels as well as streaming via a tablet app. There are only 400 passes to divvy up between the various broadcasters and it is therefore necessary for the networks to share resources. The Macquarie Radio Network, who in addition to broadcasting the event on Sydney station 2GB will also provide content to 80 regional stations, plans to share behind the scenes staff with ABC Radio and Fox Sports. On-air talent is also multitasking with commentator Ray Hadley calling the swimming for both Foxtel and 2GB.

It’s a similar situation with Nine and Foxtel as the two broadcasters share their commentary team, including Eddie McGuire, who will present from the studio for Foxtel as well as calling specific events for Nine. “I’m hosting the Olympics for Nine and for Foxtel and I’ll be doing my radio show over there so I’ll be pretty busy,” McGuire told Encore in March.

A number of local technical staff will also be hired on the ground in London and tonnes of equipment needs to be shipped to the city. “Logistically, this is an enormous undertaking. Our team has been working on this since last year,” says 2GB’s David Kidd. Foxtel has had crew on the ground in London for the past year and Fenton says he’s been working on the broadcast for four years. “It’s a bit like D-day,” he says of the countdown to the event. For many of the staff involved, like Fenton, this is not their first rodeo.

“I’ve been to every Olympics since 1992. It’s the hardest work I do,” says Hadley, who will start each day at 6am and work through to midnight, London time, every day of the event. His long-time producer, Chris Bowen, will work alongside him.

As one of the most experienced members of the team, Hadley is more than just the voice of the broadcast. “The station looks to me to make decisions on the run,” says Hadley, and this will include choosing which events to cover when there are scheduling conflicts, a problem Foxtel does not have to contend with. “There’s been a lot of talk that these will be the social media games,” says Graham Burrells, Foxtel’s creative director and executive in charge of production. “But I think it’s going to be the multichannel games.” While Burrells says coverage by the free-to-air networks for past Olympics has been excellent, it’s simply not possible to cover every event with just one or two channels as is the case with Channel Nine who will broadcast on their main channel as well as in HD on the GEM channel. Compare this to Foxtel’s eight channels: each will be dedicated to a specific selection of sports. For instance, channel LONDON 1 will air all of the pool sports including the swimming, diving and water polo while LONDON 2 covers the cycling events to be held at the velodrome. With the Olympic venues spread across the city, this channel allocation makes sense for technical and logistical reasons. “The security will be very intense getting in and out of venues,” says Foxtel’s Burrells, who sees transport as one of the greatest challenges.

From a technical perspective, Foxtel’s content is being compressed for broadcast in London and being directly delivered to Australian audiences without additional processing back home. “As far as we’re aware, that has never been done before,” says Peter Campbell, Foxtel’s director of sports and Olympic games.

The time difference between Britain and Australia’s eastern seaboard has 2GB salivating as the scheduling of events, including Australian favourite swimming, falls in the prime timeslot of breakfast. “People will be waking up with a real appetite for Olympic results,” says Mark Noakes, Macquarie Radio Network’s group sales and marketing director. “It’s perfect for breakfast radio.” Noakes predicts many commuters will be glued to their car radios which makes for an easy sell to advertisers. Big brands, he says, are keen to get involved with the broadcast and many advertising campaigns are being extended to include airtime prior to the games.

Noakes says: “It’s certainly a sell that gets advertisers’ attention.”

While Noakes is busy selling ads, 2GB’s on-air talent have some issues to contend with also. “The challenge is to make sure you preserve your voice,” Hadley says. “That’s something you’ve got to be conscious of.” There is also the danger of getting caught up in the excitement of the event. “It’s important you don’t go too early,” Hadley stresses.

But perhaps the most notable concern for presenters at the games is pronunciation. With more than 200 countries competing, there are bound to be some curly names on the call sheet. Hadley says the best approach is coordinating with other Australian broadcasters so they are on the same page. “You like to get it right,” he says and often compares notes with Nine’s Ray Warren over a cup of tea at the International Broadcast Centre.

While this all sounds terribly collegiate, with the sharing of resources, pronunciation tips and the broadcasters describing their offerings as “complimentary services”, there is still rivalry between them, which is to be expected for competing media outlets. Foxtel’s Campbell says: “Everyone’s got their competitive pride.”

•  This piece first appeared in Encore magazine. Subscribe to the print edition here or download the iPad edition here. 

But it has brought international headlines for the Fitzy & Wippa breakfast show, not least in the LA Times.

(Hat-tip: @Rove)

Directed by Ben West, who comes from a visual effects background, the film follows the fortunes of a Japanese salaryman who turns into a puffer fish after eating a live one in a restaurant.

West’s production company @Radicalmedia, is shopping around for a distributor and considering looking for a sponsorship tie-up.

West told Mumbrella: “It’s a film with edge, and is probably not for mainstream audiences. But there’s potential for the film to become a branded entertainment series if we get a sponsor.”

West used to work at post house Animal Logic on visual effects before moving into directing. Commercials he has directed include work for 5 Seeds and Australian Directors’ Guild.

Nicole Sheffield: making changes

In what could prove to be the biggest senior editorial changes in magazine publishing all year, the new boss of News Limited‘s expanded lifestyle publishing Nicole Sheffield has announced the departure of Vogue Australia’s editor-in-chief Kirstie Clements, lifestyle group editor Mark Kelly and editor of home and lifestyle title InsideOut, Richard Waller.

Sheffield is just two months into her role as boss of NewsLifeMedia.

Rival title Harper’s Bazaar editor Edwina McCann is to step into the role of Vogue editor. Clement had held the post for 13 years.

McCann moves to Vogue Australia in July, after three years at ACP Magazines high end fashion title Harper’s Bazaar. Harper’s recently announced its new deputy editor was Georgie McCourt-Abay, who had previously worked at Vogue Australia.

A spokesperson for ACP said in a release that “ACP had begun the search for McCann’s successor and would announce a new editor for the magazine in due course”.

Sheffield said in a release: “Edwina McCann is highly respected in the industry with a strong fashion background and extensive media experience. Vogue is an outstanding brand. Harnessing our multi-platform offering through Vogue Australia, our extensive digital solutions and events will change the style and fashion media landscape in Australia. Our centralised multi-platform approach will create unparalleled editorial and marketing solutions for all Australian women.”

The 90-second ad is currently screening before The Avengers in 3D in Australian cinemas.

There is also a complementary TVC, “South Pacific on $275″ and accompanying short documentary.

It is a continuation of the campaign that previously used the creative ‘Thailand on $222″ and “New York on $50″.

The campaign is presented by Expedia’s spokesperson Shura and was based on suggestions submitted by fans on the Facebook page.

The TVCs and online films will be supported by print, outdoor and online advertising, which launches across Australia and New Zealand this week.

Credits
Client: Expedia
Agency:BMF
Director: Craig Melville & Al Morrow
Production Company:
Jungle Boys
Post Production:Jungle Boys
Photographer: Ant Ong
Producer: Chloe Rikard
Music & Sound Production: Silencio
DoP: Lachlan Milne & Alex Dufficy

When the Australian Communications and Media Authority published its findings earlier this year, it said that it would be imposing a new condition of the 2Day FM licence. As well as making it a specific licence condition that the station complied with the radio code of practice guidelines on not offending generally accepted standards of decency, it also said it would introduce the following new condition:

The Licensee must not broadcast material that demeans or is reasonably likely to demean:

• women or girls generally; and/or

• any woman or girl in particular.

• When referring to women or girls generally or any woman or girl in particular in broadcast material, the Licensee must not place undue emphasis on gender, use overt sexual references in relation to a woman’s physical characteristics and/or condone or incite violence against women.

Station owner Southern Cross Austereo had claimed that the rule was too vague.

Today, ACMA put out a short announcement which reveals that the new condition has been withdrawn, although it does not explain why it had the change of heart. It said: “The licensee has had an opportunity to make representations to the ACMA and the ACMA’s action follows consideration of those representations.”

A further condition that the station implement a training programme for staff remains.

A statement from Southern Cross Austereo CEO, Rhys Holleran said, “Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) acknowledges today’s decision by ACMA and is reviewing all available options. SCA finds the decision broad reaching and its lengthy term unprecedented. SCA believes ACMA has not fully taken into consideration the extensive processes and procedures that the business has taken upon itself to implement with regards to comments made by Kyle Sandilands on 22 November 2011.”

Culture jamming is a 28-year-old term coined by the San Francisco-based band Negativland, who declared that the ‘Studio for the cultural jammer is the world at large’. The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought defines culture jamming more narrowly as: ‘The manipulation of the mass media by artists and activists. The intent, in most cases, is to critique the media’s manipulation of reality, lampoon consumerism, or question corporate power.’

I prefer Negativland’s idea, as it doesn’t limit an act of culture jamming to only taking place in the mass media. Human behaviour doesn’t change much over time. It merely gets the opportunity to play itself out with newer and faster technology. The truth is that acts of parody and subversion has been around since year dot. But opportunists in every generation like to believe that they have invented something new and rebrand it with a new name, in our case the ‘culture jammers’ and, in the now and immediate future, the “hacktivists”.

Of course, modern acts of culture jamming are most effective in the mass media as it is a dynamic fertile playground, and also the most visible platform given the large potential to be seen. But they are not restricted to it. Our action atop the Sydney Opera House on the day of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was an act of culture jamming. But we were also culture jammed ourselves – by the media and advertisers.

The SMH’s Peter Fitzsimons was the first rework it four days later by changing the message to ‘NO WARNE’ as our drug positive spinner was expelled from the World Cup. On the other side of the fence there was Tim Blair’s ‘NO VISA’ in The Bulletin – a reference to my partner in crime’s British citizenship. Then in the same week we went to court, eventually to be jailed for our graffiti, St George Bank took out a half page ad in the SMH with ‘NO FEES’ on the Opera House. The ad was for the Freedom Account and the fine print referred to “our campaign for freedom”.

Depending on how people sat with the whole thing, the first two were funny or, in the case of Blair, an attempt at being funny. The St George ad, however, bore no relevance to the issue, its campaign for freedom was a campaign for customers, and all that was required to produce it was the plagiarism of an idea and a basic knowledge of digital manipulation. This led to the suggestion by Jane Caro in an SMH article on culture jamming that:

Advertising, being completely amoral, will latch onto anything that might catch someone’s attention. It’s always trying to stay fashionable and relevant. Unfortunately, once advertisers get hold of it, a movement is over.

Advertising is amoral, I agree. In the case of St George, they moved in on an incident that caught everybody’s attention. But there was a lack of relevance. So much so that it annoyed ourselves, people who supported what we did, people who hated what we did, and the Opera House management to the point that the latter forced the ad to be pulled after just one posting. It was hardly a movement ending moment and seemingly unprofitable (although I’d love to hear the inside story about the ad being pulled and whether St George thought it a winner).

Is it a given that advertising aimed back at culture jammers ends a political movement? Culture Jammers are not so much up against the ad industry but its clients. And billboards or websites are the best battlefields. But this misses the point.

Throughout history activists have always found a way, and it would be a boring and oppressive world if they had not. Spin is the indispensable and successful tool of the corporation. However, activists don’t set about their work naively and, like the Viet Cong over the US Army, a successful culture jammer will get far more bang for their buck than a corporate promotion.

Being culture jammed in reverse, if you’re an activist, is a tribute to your effectiveness. If you’re an advertiser, it probably means your promotion has drifted from the amoral to immoral.

Caro’s quote also misses the point that political culture jamming is a movement’s tactic rather than the movement itself, and people fighting for a belief or an idea are often exceptionally good at coming up with new tactics when the current ones no longer work. A culture jam is like the big hit in a footy game or a ball at the throat by the bowler, preferably followed by a good sledge. It won’t win you the game. But it will rattle your opponent.

Caro’s point is valid in terms of social movements in that music and fashion are readily made commercial (the ‘K-Mart Goes Grunge’ catalogue just after Nirvana toured in 1992 being one of my favourites) and the spiky parts of those movements softened. But political movements are more focused on an end game than social ones, the stakes so high that they will outlast an advertising campaign (especially if the client continues to commit atrocities) and the wider public is able to recognise an act of passion over an act of promotion.

For examples of culture jamming in Australia, have a read of a fellow culture jammer’s piece on the topic from a few months back.

The belief that a movement is over once advertising has grabbed hold of it cloaks a less self-indulgent reality. Advertising has always relied upon a large amount of stolen or plagiarized material. It may be clever. And of course it makes sense economically. But musicians and artists are probably bigger victims of the advertising industry than political movements and culture jammers (John Butler being a recent one). But the beauty of Carl Orff has not been made redundant by a Carlton ad or Mozart by Air France.

What Caro fails to see is that culture jamming is a tradition as old as humanity. Even in the most repressed and obedient of societies there will always be those who question. For culture jammers it’s not about the advertising industry. It’s about the less noble of its clients with behavioral problems in corporate social responsibility. These campaigns are likely to last a lot longer than a marketing contract. Especially if the mud sticks.

Dave Burgess is a campaigner at Total Environment Centre