Brittney Rigby
Mumbrella News
Sydney, NSW, Australia
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Past articles by Brittney:
The Works' Daresay makes three hires, including senior content editor
Daresay, the content and social agency sitting within The Works, has made three hires across its editorial and social media team, including senior content editor Matilda Duffecy.Duffecy joined in January from The Frameworks, a design consultancy in London at which she spent just under a year and a half. Before that, she was at advertising […] → Read More
HuffPost axes local team, disables Australian website
Buzzfeed has swung the axe through HuffPost’s Australian newsroom, once again leaving the title without a local team, a week after it made almost 30% of its US newsroom redundant and shuttered its Canadian operations, and a month after acquiring the media brand from Verizon.The HuffPost Australia website has been shut off, with the homepage […] → Read More
Natalie Barr's first day as Sunrise co-host watched by 248,000 metro viewers
Natalie Barr’s first turn as co-host of Sunrise drew an average of 248,000 metro viewers yesterday morning, and 439,000 with the regions included, well ahead of the 199,000 metro and 297,000 nationally who watched Nine’s rival Today show.Barr replaced Samantha Armytage, who announced her departure from Seven’s breakfast show at the start of last week. […] → Read More
Pepsi pitches Australia and New Zealand media account
PepsiCo has put its Australia and New Zealand media account up for pitch, three months after installing a new regional chief marketing officer across the snacks and beverages portfolio.Vandita Pandey assumed the newly-created role in December, and has wasted no time reviewing the brand’s agency relationships. Omnicom Media Group agency PHD has held the media […] → Read More
Mike Sneesby's elevation in focus: What’s next for Nine, Stan, and Janz
After a four month hiring process, Mike Sneesby is Nine's new CEO. Here, Mumbrella's Brittney Rigby unpacks what his departure from Stan means for the streaming business, whether there's any substance to reports of a fractious board, and why Sneesby's first big challenge will be getting his competitor applicants to stick around. → Read More
Nine names Mike Sneesby as CEO
Nine Entertainment Co has confirmed Stan boss Mike Sneesby will replace Hugh Marks as the media company’s CEO, effective 1 April.Sneesby has been with Nine’s streaming platform since its inception, joining almost eight years ago from Cudo, the group buying website part-owned by Nine.At an in-person media event at Nine’s new North Sydney headquarters at […] → Read More
Initiative boosts Perth team with five new hires
Initiative’s Perth office has expanded with the addition of five hires, including Steve Hare as group business director and Brianna Wells as senior investment partnerships manager.Hare will relocate to Perth from London, where he was head of publishing, digital trading, and cinema at the agency, working with clients including Amazon, Converse, Deliveroo, Lego, Patek Phillippe […] → Read More
OMD wins Victorian Government's $100m master media account
The Victorian Government has awarded its master media account, worth around $100 million, to OMD, Mumbrella can reveal, ending MediaCom’s relationship with the account.The government informed OMD it had won the account on Friday, Mumbrella understands, triumphing against Group M’s MediaCom and Publicis’ Zenith. The Omnicom Media Group agency’s appointment is effective from 1 June.Mumbrella […] → Read More
UM appoints Anathea Ruys as new CEO following Fiona Johnston's departure
Anathea Ruys will become CEO of UM Australia in April, after four years spent as the managing director of Carat across the USA’s west coast and mid-west.Last week, the Mediabrands agency announced Fiona Johnston would be leaving the market after four years as UM CEO to take up an international role at the holding company, […] → Read More
Media buyers say Facebook sans news remains attractive to advertisers, but publishers identify brand safety risk
Facebook’s decision to remove news from local and international mastheads and Australian users raises the question of whether a news feed without media produced news is still an attractive proposition to advertisers, but media buyers remain unconvinced the announcement weakens the platform’s commercial value.However, Guardian Australia’s managing director, Dan Stinton, urged advertisers to “ask… → Read More
Withdrawal 'isn't a threat; it's a worst-case scenario': Google and Facebook respond to senators' questions taken on notice
“The withdrawal of Search from Australia isn’t a threat; it’s a worst-case scenario that we’re working hard to avoid,” Google asserted in response to questions it faced from senators in recent committee hearings and took on notice (meaning it committed to responding later in writing).In the documents, the tech company said that with “straightforward” amendments, […] → Read More
Private Media gets first CEO in more than four years, promoting Will Hayward to role
Private Media – which publishes Crikey, Smart Company, and The Mandarin – has promoted Will Hayward to CEO, effective today.The publisher hasn’t had a chief executive since 2015, when Jason Kibsgaard departed and chair Eric Beecher decided against replacing him in favour of a “flatter … leaner, and more agile” structure. Hayward told Mumbrella the […] → Read More
Founding editor of Buzzfeed Australia, Simon Crerar, to co-launch local news startup
Buzzfeed Australia’s founding editor and former general manager, Simon Crerar, has partnered with three other co-founders to create a local news startup. PS Media’s purpose is addressing the market failure for local news, including establishing mastheads in communities where newspapers have shuttered, creating news deserts.Since early 2019, 194 local newsrooms have closed, Crerar told Mumbrella.… → Read More
Google, media buyers and publishers react to interim ACCC report: Not a 'nefarious anti-competitive conspiracy'
Google has maintained that “ad tech is a competitive market with low barriers to entry” in response to yesterday’s report out of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which set out the extent of the search engine’s dominance at every stage of the digital display ad process.A Google spokesperson countered the ACCC’s concern that […] → Read More
Holey Moley's EP on predicted ratings success, and the 'big investment' in a local course: 'It's all actually worked out favourably'
Holey Moley's executive producer, Andrew Backwell, is 'hoping for a big number' when Seven's new format launches on Monday night, up against Ten's The Amazing Race. In this interview with Mumbrella's Brittney Rigby, he explains why the big investment in a local course will pay off, and how the show provides necessary diversity to Seven's content slate. → Read More
Seven appoints former Nine exec Clare Gill to head regulatory and government affairs
Seven has hired Clare Gill as its head of regulatory and government affairs, coinciding with the intensification of the clash between news companies (and the government) and the big tech platforms.At the start of next week, Gill – previously Nine’s lead on regulatory affairs for four years before she departed at the end of 2019 […] → Read More
CarExpert backs Google and Facebook as smaller publishers continue to fear code's impact
The co-founders of CarExpert – who also founded CarAdvice, before it was bought by Nine and retired as a brand late last year – have waded into the contentious News Media Bargaining Code debate, throwing its support behind both Google and Facebook.CarAdvice owed much of its early success to Google, according to co-founders Alborz Fallah […] → Read More
Seven pits Holey Moley against Ten's The Amazing Race, confirming 1 February premiere
Seven has confirmed that Holey Moley, the ‘extreme mini golf’ series, will launch at 7:30pm on 1 February, going up against The Amazing Race on Network Ten, which first confirmed the season premiere time slot.The format was due to film last year in the US, but delayed due to COVID-19-induced travel restrictions, and ultimately filmed […] → Read More
Google trials burying commercial news as code stoush continues
Google has continued to escalate its campaign against the News Media Bargaining Code, experimenting with pushing down search results linking to commercial news outlets, and claiming submissions to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) prove the draft code is unworkable.According to an article in The Australian Financial Review today, the algorithm experiment means some […] → Read More
ABC closes out 2020 on top of Digital Content Ratings, cementing a year of dominance
ABC News once again led the pack in Nielsen’s December Digital Content Ratings, ending 2020 with a unique audience of 11.4 million, despite a 6.9% month-on-month drop.The public broadcaster – which first surged to the top in January 2020 and remained there for the entire year due to readers’ reliance on its bushfire and COVID-19 […] → Read More