In this edition of Media McKnight:
- Pauline Hanson: ads on the ABC?
- ABC’s YouTube livestream ad controversy
- 9News’ World Cup graphics blunder
- YouTube copyright war: Australian TV archivists
- I’m A Celebrity lands at Seven, Ninja Warrior to 10
- 4BC axes breakfast team after shock ratings
- Nine not bringing back SHARK!
You can watch the video edition of Media McKnight in the YouTube player below:
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PAULINE HANSON: ‘I’LL PUT ADS ON THE ABC’
Pauline Hanson says she will allow ads on the ABC when she turns it into a subscription service – if One Nation forms Government at the next Federal election.
She made the remarks to me in a wide-ranging interview on McKnight Tonight, backing up her statement recently at a National Press Club Address where she declared she would axe SBS and turn the ABC into a subscription service in metro areas.
“It is a culture problem, but you’ve got $1.3 billion that’s funded to them, right? So that’s a hell of a lot of money too, Rob” Senator Hanson told me from her Parliamentary office.
When I asked her if she’d allow ads on the Government Broadcaster, there was no hesitation.
“Course I would. Why wouldn’t you?”
“Do subscription and put it, put out ads. Why wouldn’t you do that to fund it?”
The idea of ads on the ABC might horrify loyalists, but commercials are already infiltrating ABC broadcasts on YouTube… leading to situations where commercials are playing in the middle of press conferences during events of national significance.
During the recent Telstra outage, while Communications Minister Anika Wells was updating the nation, a commercial appeared in a split screen and replaced the audio of the Minister.
It’s pretty outrageous that can be allowed to happen during a Government update on a serious issue.
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I have never seen that happen on the livestreams of any of the commercial networks – the fact this happened on the ABC’s YouTube livestream is unforgivable.
And I still don’t understand why the ABC is allowed to add commercials to its broadcasts on YouTube.
Help it make sense.
And regarding Pauline Hanson’s plans to allow the ABC to air commercials, I’d expect a LOT of pushback from outlets like News Corp, radio stations and TV Networks.
Media companies here in Australia are already facing declining profits due to a cluttered market, and a big player like the ABC taking a share of advertising revenue would only cause chaos – and substantial losses for other media companies.
There’s no doubt the impacts of that idea have not been fully realised, but the implications are huge.
GRAPHICS BLUNDER
9NEWS in Queensland suffered an embarrassing blunder during its lead story on Monday night.
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Presenters Melissa Downes and Joel Dry were introducing a story about the Derryn Hinch State Memorial, but the graphics behind them were about the World Cup.
Media McKnight understands a last-minute rundown change was made because the story had not been finished in Sydney in time for it to run as the lead in Brisbane.
And it’s not the first time it has happened.
There have been a few occasions where 9 Brisbane has had to change the lead story at the last minute because Sydney has failed to deliver it in time.
I guess that’s what happens when you make 16 editors redundant, although why a story about a match that took place much earlier in the day wasn’t ready in time is anyone’s guess.
YOUTUBE COPYRIGHT CLAIMS OVER AUSSIE CONTENT
There are very few content creators on YouTube who haven’t received a copyright claim, but there’s a big argument brewing between Aussie TV lovers over one user’s claim over copyright they don’t actually own.
Several users have been sent copyright claims after uploading promos and idents from commercial television stations.
But those copyright claims haven’t come from the networks themselves but from Australian Television Archive, which is run by James Paterson.
Look, it’s a great service, and I’m all for Australia’s rich TV history, but I question the legitimacy of someone claiming copyright over work that doesn’t belong to them, just because they uploaded it first.
It’s one thing for automatic copyright claims to be issued — that does happen — but another to enforce those copyright claims when they are challenged by users just trying to share the same content, which none of you own.
Zampakid – one of the users who’ve had copyright claims made against them posted on social media:
“This past week a certain Video Restoration Company is taking advantage of what they digitise and decided to takedown one of my videos that contain a TV ident he doesn’t legally own. Not only that, he’s also targeted other archivists who uploaded the same ident.”
“Now, I also don’t legally own the ident or anything that I post on here (apart from a few personal videos that are on here) but they all fall under fair dealing and no money has been made for what I do. If I were to do the same thing he did, I’d be scum of the earth but he gets to get away with it.”
I’ll just pull Zampakid up there on one thing. None of that falls under Fair Dealing — that’s not what Aus Media Archive does, not what you do.
Posting clips isn’t covered under Fair Dealing.
Fair Dealing is when you use a clip like I do here on Media McKnight, but I make commentary about it, or I’m using it to tell news — that is fair dealing.
Simply posting a clip is not fair dealing. Having said that, I would like everybody to be able to do it, and that’s why the copyright issues are a bit of a problem here.
I tried reaching out to James — he didn’t want to talk on the record, so I won’t reveal anything he said here.
Petarko’s Media Archive, who alerted me to this story, told me:
“I hope that a resolution can be found because this just isn’t about me but it’s the other people of have been affected by this as well.”
“People who share the same passion as James’, putting in the effort of archiving Australian TV history to preserve it but they should not be subject to false copyright claims because one person wants to be the only archive.”
“James’ false copyright claims need to stop and he needs to work with fellow archivists, not against them.”
I’ve reached out to YouTube for comment and will update this article if I hear back.
Now, I’m obligated to approach them for a statement, but it worries me that by bringing this to their attention, it could backfire — for everyone.
I’m warning you all – the more noise this makes the more risk there is of YouTube removing all of these channels – including yours James.
You don’t own the copyright and you have no right to claim the content — unless you’ve done a deal with the networks, which I’d be very surprised they’ve handed over copyright for.
It’s quite possible YouTube could decide to delist all of the videos hosted by these channels, meaning you’d all lose out – and so will us TV fans.
So here’s my advice – play nice before it’s too late.
BIG PROGRAMMING CHANGES BUT #McKnightWasRight
There’s been a lot of programming announcements over the past week, and if you’ve been paying attention to Media McKnight you would have known about one of them ages ago.
Let’s start with news that I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here has been picked up by Channel 7, after Channel 10 ‘rested the show’
I first revealed the news the show had been axed by Channel 10 on 14 May 2026.
The network refused to confirm my reporting at the time, only saying:
“Decisions regarding the 2027 program schedule including I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! will be made in the coming weeks.”
It was a statement they pushed out to all news sites but the news was officially confirmed just a week later.
And, as per my reporting, production company ITV made it clear they would be talking to other networks.
And they did, with Seven ultimately winning.
Now, there has been some reporting 10 changed its mind and tried to retain the rights, but ultimately missed out.
I’m hearing screentests are taking place for hosts, despite many assuming Dr Chris Brown will return with, perhaps, Sonia Kruger.
And, of course, others assumed Robert Irwin would return as host because of his hosting role at the upcoming TV Week Logie Awards on Channel 7.
But that seems unlikely after it was announced Irwin would be hosting the return of Australian Ninja Warrior, which is moving to Channel 10.
And I can also reveal the two shows are likely to be shooting at the same time.
And it looks like Seven may have just been a bit late doing the deal with Irwin, who ultimately decided to stay with 10.
You might remember I hypothesised Ninja Warrior would be coming back in a previous edition of Media McKnight.
And, in the interests of fairness, another writer posted an article about the return of Ninja Warrior on the very same day as that editorial from me.
It just also happened to be on the TV Blackbox website by Kyle Laidlaw – we had been working independently on the same story, which is hilarious.
At least you know you can trust TV Blackbox!
But this is where we are in Australian television. One network axes a show, another picks it up. And we keep going with the same shows just going from network to network.
There are very few shows coming from scratch — we’re not making any show, we’re not creating shows, and ultimately every format is going to get stale.
How many times can we recycle the same shows?
We need some programmers with some gumption who will create new products.
Having said that, I get how hard it is — there’s no money, you can’t afford mistakes, and there’s no second-guessing. If you make a dud, you have to live with it. So taking a chance on a new format is extremely hard.
Unfortunately, this is why Australia is falling behind the rest of the world. We’re not trying anything.
THE COST OF ‘LIVE AND LOCAL’
We were reminded last week of just how tough times are in the media industry with radio station 4BC making some big programming changes after some really bad results for Survey 4.
The station has axed its breakfast team of Dean and Sofie and moved the rest of the presenting team around… with the Afternoons program replaced by a networked show from 2GB.
It’s disappointing to see live and local programming replaced, especially considering only a few years ago the station seemed to be firing on all cylinders and growing audience.
An interesting insight was printed in the Australian on Monday by Steve Jackson who reported:
Confidential internal network analysis, obtained by The Australian, reveals the embattled outlet needs to command between 6.2 and 6.4 per cent of the city’s overall available audience to break even based on its “current costs”.
With most shows ratings below a 3% share, it starts to make sense why management moved so fast to axe the breakfast team – which had only been in the role for 6 months.
The question will be what Tapt radio does next.
They will obviously keep an eye on the remaining radio ratings for the rest of the year, but if these numbers continue, will they scrap their current presenters and start again, or network from Sydney.
I certainly hope 4BC keeps bringing us live and local programming – it can work, it’s just a matter of finding the right people.
NO SECOND BITE FOR SHARK!
Whispers have already started reaching Media McKnight that it’s highly unlikely Nine will air a second season of SHARK!
You might remember before the show had even launched, sources were telling me — and I quote — “the show is dull and boring.”
Viewers seemed to agree. The ratings were dire and the show was plagued with problems. Nine couldn’t air the show in WA because of a spate of shark attacks and the network came under fire when it refused to pull the show on the East Coast after an attack in Sydney.
All in all, it was a disaster.
So, it’s not surprising to learn Nine will not be bringing the show back for another season.
I’m hearing the production team has moved on to other projects, and Nine has made the decision to pay the hefty financial penalty associated with failing to commission a second season.
Production companies don’t make money until the second season due to the upfront costs of starting up a show, so networks agree to a two-season deal.
Failure to honour the two-season deal results in a network having to cough up a big chunk of change – but it’s still cheaper than airing a stinker.
Nine wouldn’t confirm the show has been chopped, only telling us “We’ll be making all of our programming announcements at Upfronts”.
Pretty much what they all say.
Media McKnight is published on YouTube every Tuesday at 8pm AEST at YouTube.com/@McKnightTonight.
The article goes live on the TV Blackbox website every Wednesday morning.
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