The Mound - #7 - News Wars
Welcome to The Mound, a weekly newsletter in which we at Good One Creative pitch— for free — our solutions to the world’s problems
According to the AFR this morning, billionaire James Packer has invested millions into his mate’s conservative network, the Alan-Jones-backed Australian Digital Holdings (ADH) - online home to some of your favourite programs like ‘The Church & State Show’ and ‘Save the Nation - with Professor Flint’.
Packer’s hope is seemingly that with enough support ADH might one day be capable of challenging News Corp's Sky News for their right-wing audience.
It seems their strategy is to deliver a superior product, and in looking at the ADH’s almost Monty-Python-esque programming schedule, it’s clear that to a man like Alan Jones, a mightier program is a right-ier program. (Hammers, nails etc.)
Pursuing the blue ocean of a right-er wing audience is a little risky for our liking. After all, if there were enough demand for it, Sky News would be there already. In all likelihood, Sky News have taken it as far right as you can go and still be on television. Any further and you risk losing more casual, curious, or centrist viewers - like Alan and the Professor have only gone and done.
Yes, it appears Alan has fallen prey to the allures of positioning. In an attempt to differentiate himself, to out-Sky-News even Sky News, he’s pushed himself into a niche with almost zero growth potential. There’s a lesson here for marketers, though - for anyone who, trying to stand out, has accidentally exited the building.
Here’s how we fix it.
What Alan needs is to expose himself to larger audiences. We propose that in a world first, Alan Jones secure exclusive arguing rights with another platform. Be it Sunrise, The Project, or Today, Alan should be going onto another program to argue about whatever it is that’s got his face redder than usual. Whilst terrible for humanity, it’d work great for his (and his arguing partner’s) ratings.
It’s important to note that very, very few viewers are loyal to the one channel. If ADH are to escape from their audience, the ungrateful almost-dead, and to win against News Corp, they’ll first need to dispel the myth of the man who watches Sky News and that alone. As Andrew Ehrenberg put it, “your customers are really other people’s customers who occasionally buy from you”. And if you think that conservative news, mainstream news, and progressive news are completely separate markets with completely separate audiences, then you’ve never seen my family argue over the remote.
With this in mind, we understand that to beat Sky News Alan will have to steal market share from - not just Sky - but channels Seven and Nine as well. But how? Well, he’d strike a sneaky deal of course.
By running some pretty simple duplication of audience tests he could learn which programs with whom ADH does and does not share much audience. Right now - due to his size - Alan would be unlikely to share much audience with any news platform, be they right- or left-wing. He could prove this to the, say, Seven News production team - then offer to them his services as an occasional red-faced guest on their program. He and whoever’s presenting that night could get into some god-awful argument about wokeness or what have-you, and the Seven presenter could appear the level-headed hero before ending the livestream and throwing to the story of Australia’s worst landlord.
This’ll obviously rate well (who doesn’t love a spectacle?) and will allow ADH to do what no news program has ever done before, which is to advertise themselves on another news program - one with whom Sky News actually shares an audience (which is again proven by a duplication of audience test). And that right there is again valuable to Seven because, by collaborating with ADH (a competitor of zero threat), they could actually harm Sky News (a competitor of actual threat).
I wouldn’t be surprised if, as all this is going on and they start losing market share, Sky News make the same mistake ADH is currently, pushing further and further to the right in an attempt keep the right on-side until they get trapped in some niche market or an internal email gets leaked and they’re all jailed for crimes against both humanity and language itself. This could very well become the natural lifecycle for the conservative news channels of Australia.
You are born from some crag of a far-right niche, you suckle at Seven until you get too big, and you are then sent back to the crag until you’re small enough to return. It’s beautiful, really.
You’re welcome, Australia.
