Industrial Strength: September 20
YOUTUBE WATCH TIME UP 40% IN AUSTRALIA
The amount of time that Australians watch YouTube has increased by 40% year on year, rising up to 55% on mobile. This was one of the figures released at its big showcase event Brandcast held at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney to pitch for more advertisers by outlining its effectiveness.
72% of Australian’s 18 to 54 years say they use YouTube at least weekly. Its monthly reach, according to Nielsen was 73% of light TV viewers, 81% of high-income earners and 73% of main grocery buyers. 7 out of 10 viewers prefer to watch online video on YouTube. Telstra’s use of YouTube has grown from 30 videos in 2013 to more than 700 last year.
AUSTRALIA SOLD AT MUSIC MATTERS
Australia made an impact at the 11th Music Matters conference/ showcase in Singapore. Sony Music’s Denis Handlin in a keynote reiterated that there has never been a better time to sign new acts but as long as piracy was contained, and how he continually encouraged his staff to “swim outside the flags.”
The “Gateway to Australia” panel, held on the last day, also drew a positive picture of the music scene – the enthusiasm of consumers to find new music, the role of triple j and community radio in breaking new acts, how the live music industry is working with authorities in cities as Melbourne and Adelaide increased gig opportunities, and the closeness of some Australian cities to do business with.
Standout showcases were by The Veronicas (their In My Blood was last week released through Asia) while New Zealand sweetheart Aaradhna had the most tongues wagging. The Aussie BBQ featured NT duo The Merindas and Alice Springs’ Resin Moon, Sydney’s Bad Pony (fresh from christening the new Leadbelly club in Newtown), from Perth, Sydnee Carter (who was that week also celebrating 3 million Spotify plays) and Rag n’ Bone (who then flew on to China, first stop Shanghai’s Concrete and Grass festival where they almost got coaxed to a tinder house party), Melbourne’s Maefire and EDM act Slumberjack.
SCA LAUNCHES NEW SCOOPLA WEBSITE
Southern Cross Austereo has launched a new website for Scoopla, its women’s light entertainment brand. It sees the mobile-rich brand deepen its social integration and expand its editorial coverage beyond celebrity and pop culture to include food, technology and travel.
MARLON WILLIAMS IN MOVIE
One-time Melbourne-based NZ-born singer-songwriter Marlon Williams is making waves in his home country in the movie The Rehearsal. He plays a shape-shifting gay acting student who is also a musician. Williams tackled Shakespeare and musicals before but the film, based on Eleanor Catton’s novel about a sex scandal about a tennis coach and an underage student, is his first major role.
“It’s about the reality of morality and how society perceives you,” explains Williams.
Williams with co-star Benedict Samuels
TASH SULTANA SETS UP OWN LABEL
Fast rising Melbourne singer-songwriter Tash Sultana has set up her own record label Lonely Lands Records. First release is the unexpected release this week of a six-track EP. It includes the triple j hit Notion, while the video for new single Jungle, shot in her bedroom, ticked over 2 million views and 22,000 shares on Facebook in a week.
Sultana, who arrived in Berlin for the start of a European and UK tour to find the airline lost her guitars, was at least mollified by the fact that shows in London, Berlin and the Netherlands had sold out. Her Australian tour, which starts this week, has sold 10,000 tickets – without a marketing budget or publicist or radio plugger.
JULES LUND’S TRIBE TO EXPAND GLOBALLY
Following a capital injection of $5.4 million, radio and TV personality Jules Lund’s influencer marketing technology platform Tribe is set to roll out globally in early 2017. It has its eyes set on 53 markets, with Singapore to be the first, followed by the UK, Germany, France, Ireland and Brazil. The capital raising was primarily through Sydney venture capital fund Exto Partners and brings Tribe’s total investment to $8 million. It has worked with more than 500 brands since launch and has more than 4500 influencers on its files.
ADELAIDE HOSTING THEATRE FORUM
As part of the OzAsia Festival, the Adelaide Festival Centre is hosting the fifth biennial Australian Theatre Forum between October 3 and 5, 2017. Up to 400 artists, presenters, producers, commentators and policy makers will attend to discuss and stimulate new ideas.
FINALISTS REVEALED FOR MELBOURNE MUSIC BANK
Finalists for the Melbourne Music Bank are Sal Wonder, Anna Oliphant Wright, Ayoob Meeragani, B Cardamone, Batz, Birdhouse, BLOOM, HeavyHeads, James Franklin, Sienna Wild, Tempus Sun and Zii Music. Voting is open until October 9. Winner gets four days of recording, two film clips, album artwork, printed CDs, styling, media training, and a photoshoot for the release. There’s also management and mentoring, publicity, radio plugging, tour bookings and festival appearances.
FIFTH NZ WOMAN INDUCTED
Moana Maniapoto of Moana & The Moahunters and Moana & The Tribe fame, becomes the fifth woman to be inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame. The honour takes place at the APRA Silver Scrolls awards on September 29 in Auckland. Maniapoto says that when she got a letter from APRA she panicked thinking they were giving her grief over some plagiarism issue. Having got over that panic attack, her first response was to turn down the offer because she didn’t think she deserved it.
JAZZ’S MIKE STEWART REMEMBERED WITH AWARD…
JazzSA Inc and Helpmann Academy are inviting applications for the Mike Stewart Memorial Award. Valued at $7500, it provides an early career jazz muso with a helping hand and to one day attain leader status. Stewart was a globally known South Australian jazz performer who was a fierce advocate of jazz.
…AND ALLAN BROWNE WITH CONCERT
The legacy of late Melbourne jazz drummer Allan Browne will be celebrated at Athenaeum Theatre on Friday (Sept 23). Presented by Melbourne Jazz Co-op, it will include top names as Paul Grabowsky OAM, Barney McAll, Bob Sedergreen, Tim Stevens, Andrea Keller, Julien Wilson and Margie Lou Dyer, and also serves as a fund-raiser for Browne’s family.
DOTCOM JUDGE QUESTIONS US GOVT. LAWYER
As Kim Dotcom and two associates’ appeal began in Auckland as to whether Mr. Dotcom should be hustled overt to America to face money laundering charges, the lawyers representing the US Government got a grilling from the judge.
Defence lawyers had argued that the trial judge had erred in not allowing Dotcom’s team from presenting evidence that the US Government had behaved illegally. This included seizing items, creating a sense of urgency to cut through procedural red tape, a cop giving wrong information to the court and sending clones of hard drives overseas.
The US Government’s lawyer, Christine Gordon, stated the evidence was not relevant to the extradition case, and would not have been enough to destroy the initial case against the men.
Justice Murray Gilbert made the comment that if Gordon was wrong about the irrelevance of the evidence, would that mean the extradition hearing had not been fair. “The stakes are high here, aren’t they? So high levels of fairness are required,” he asserted.
91% say I wouldn’t get a fair trial in the United States. pic.twitter.com/yBsNzIhmNK
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) September 17, 2016
OCTAGON BUYS MILKMONEY
IPG’s Octagon Sports and Entertainment has bought a majority stake in eight-year-old branded content company Milkmoney. The latter will retain its name. Its staff will move into IPGs Sydney offices and expand its teams in London and Singapore.
NUMBER CRUNCHING
6 minutes for the Mornington, Victoria, show for the John Farnham-headlined Red Hot Summer to sell out.
$870 million that JB Hi-Fi paid to buy rival The Good Guys.
4000 attended Canberra’s Gamma Con convention over two days.
285 performers confirmed for Buskers By The Creek in Currumbin on October 15 and 16.
VALE
Kevin Oxley received an OAM in 2014 for his services to performing and visual arts on the Sunshine Coast. He was Director of Art and Cultural Development at the Sunshine Coast Advancement Network, and a lecturer at Sunshine Coast University. Kevin Oxley was 75.
AND A FEW OTHER THINGS …
The word is that Australia will not get the Pandora Plus service until next year.
As reported in Industrial Strength last week, Amazon’s streaming service won’t be popping its head up in Australia until next year either.
The ABC has launched ABC ME, a digital and broadcast service for Australian primary school children. It’s available on broadcast and via the ABC ME App available to download from the App Store for iPad and from Google Play for android tablet devices.
In last night’s Australian Story on ABC TV, country singer Beccy Cole and cabaret singer Libby O’Donovan discussed how they will wed as soon as the law is changed to allow same-sex marriage. The duo met at a gay pride event in Adelaide, just months after Cole came out as gay on Australian Story in 2012. They became engaged in January when Cole popped the question at O’Donovan’s 40th birthday party. “There obviously have been some baby steps in this country towards equality. If they let us, do you want to?” Cole said as part of her proposal.
In between Jon Stevens recording his next album with Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics, the two will also play a show in Los Angeles at the Troubadour club next month. It is not known if their good buddy Ringo Starr, who’s also on the record, will play. The three jammed together onstage at Starr’s 76th birthday celebrations two months ago.
When in New Zealand to spruik the Bruce Springsteen dates there, did Frontier Touring’s Michael Gudinski meet with Christchurch’s mayor to see if the city could get a half day holiday on the February 21 show day? It’s on the eve of the anniversary of the city’s devastating 2011 earthquake, and The Boss’ My City Of Ruins became its unofficial anthem.
During a British radio interview, Lady Gaga described one of her Perfect Illusion collaborators, Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, as a “real musical genius.”
Sydney’s Oxford Creative Academy holds an Open Day this Saturday. The public can tour Hercules Street Studios, watch a live mixing session and a presentation from Matt O’Connor (Warner Music, The A&R Department).