The circumstances surrounding the departure from Nine of its biggest personalities, Karl Stefanovic, points to the future of mainstream or traditional media and to the changing habits and economics of media consumption.
It also shows a growing disconnect between public views on politics and culture, the editorial settings of mainstream media businesses, and the increased opportunities for autonomous media players like Stefanovic to increasingly shape the political and cultural agenda through directly accessible new-media platforms.
It also has potentially significant implications for the media strategies of the major political parties.
Over the last 15 years, average audiences for the Today show have hovered between 250,000 and 320,000 and total reach (a less meaningful metric) around 800,000. Program ratings peaks tended to coincide with Karl Stefanovic at the helm. These numbers are far from stellar for a flagship program. Whilst the numbers are likely somewhat unreliable, Stefanovic’s eponymous new podcast show is said to have attracted around 7.9 million full episode views and over 3 million further streams in just a few months, off a standing start. The numbers tell a tale.
Stefanovic’s podcasts to date reveal a strong populist, anti-establishment bent, with his most recent interview of controversial UK nationalist Tommy Robinson the most obvious example.
I’ve never really jibed with Karl as a presenter or interviewer but he’s obviously very popular and his wise cracking larrikin style strikes a chord with audiences. It is my view that he’s unlikely to be damaged financially with his departure from Nine as his podcasts and general popularity will surely open lucrative future opportunities. His Nine contract was reportedly a healthy $2 million+, but this is far from massive for a talent of his standing and shows that the big money is no longer available in free-to-air television.
He will also be unshackled by Nine’s editorial concerns and possible advertiser backlash and be able to continue to pursue his irreverent, right-of-centre populist approach without constraint. He will have been watching Joe Rogan and the incredible popularity he has had in the US and likely seek to replicate it locally.
The mainstream Australian print and TV media is increasingly polarised in its political and cultural standpoints. Nine/Fairfax occupies a left-of-centre position with NewsCorp standing to the right. The ABC is overtly left of centre and has the most obvious partisan position across its full portfolio of media channels. Seven and Ten have no great pretensions to shaping the political landscape with a focus more on light entertainment, although Seven’s Sunrise will sometimes take on the incumbent government. Sky News Australia is up front and direct about its political leanings. In national newsprint media, over the last 10 years, the centre has been vacated and the middle ground position that Fairfax historically occupied has had not been replaced.
There are some lessons for savvy politicians from Stefanovic’s departure. The recent One Nation polling numbers and fragmentation of electoral support for the major parties reveal a waning influence of mainstream media over the national political agenda. Stefanovic’s move into an autonomous media role is symptomatic of this.
Politicians no longer need to court mainstream media. They have multiple outlets to get their message across. Whilst they will continue to appear on breakfast TV and AM morning radio for so long as they are useful formats, commanding these channels is no longer critical. A podcast with Karl Stefanovic can reach 10 times the audience of the Today show and the engagement levels from a podcast or YouTube program are much higher and richer. Re-posting onto social media, audience comments and bot activity allow ongoing exposure and messaging to interviewees, and the long format of a podcast provides opportunities for a more complete and nuanced narrative to be delivered.
Trump was able to successfully tap into this with his Joe Rogan relationship. Trump effectively neutralised the establishment media’s disdain for him and overcame strong editorial support for the Democrats. Reform Party leader Nigel Farage is the most media-exposed politician in the UK. He has a huge social media presence and runs a successful direct media strategy at the same time taking a hostile position to mainstream media, especially the BBC.
Closer to home, James Ashby and the other strategists behind One Nation have shown considerable creativity in using humorous subversive animated videos to appeal to younger voters and in exploiting Pauline Hanson’s and Barnaby Joyce’s retail appeal and willingness to go off script. If incumbent and establishment politicians continue to rely primarily on mainstream media for support and engage in curated ‘talking point’ presentations they will risk being outflanked by the populist politicians who have far catchier and more controversial narratives that attract a wide audience highly receptive to an anti-establishment, plain-speaking authentic narrative.
In this way a productive symbiosis will evolve between the autonomous media challengers like Karl Stefanovic and the political challengers like Pauline Hanson. Was it a mere throwaway line when Pauline Hanson said on a Sky News Australia program this week that Stefanovic was welcome to take up a role as an advisor to One Nation?
The populist political challengers who have historically been confined to the fringes of the media are now gaining equal airplay. As new media increases their exposure, traditional media can’t viably ignore them, so they are also better able to penetrate the established channels and grow their overall audience and credibility. Major players like Karl Stefanovic, who developed their following on mainstream media, have shown they can effectively carry their audience across to autonomous platforms and provide a powerful voice for political challengers like One Nation. This should be a big concern for the incumbents who seem a little flat footed in this new world.
