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1 week ago | 
mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford
Brisbane Times editor Sean Parnell is stepping down after more than three years in the job. Parnell, who worked at The Australian’s Queensland bureau for years before taking on the role with Nine’s digital-only masthead in 2021, said in an email to subscribers that he was moving away from news. “I’m saying goodbye to Brisbane Times and taking on a new challenge, and opportunity, outside of journalism,” he wrote.
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1 week ago | 
mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford
Details of alleged misconduct by the former managing director of The Brag, Luke Girgis, have come to light in court documents filed as part of his contractual dispute with Vinyl Group. The allegations include making fake salary payments in order to get a bank loan, and funnelling an appearance fee for Poppy Reid to his own talent agency rather than to the Vinyl Group.
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1 week ago | 
mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford
How do you market a business that can’t name its clients, reveal the location of its premises or put its brand on the product? That’s the challenge faced by Lise Kay, VP of marketing at Airtrunk, an Australian data centre company worth $24 billion. To be fair, Kay does not see it that way. When the driven, effusive marketing boss spoke with Mumbrella, she painted a picture of a job that had taken everything she’s got and been worth it.
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2 weeks ago | 
mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford
LinkedIn has quietly evolved into an important comms channel as professional and private lives merge, according to a new report that pulls out key reputational trends. The report from We Are Social also advises businesses to tread the line on diversity initiatives, be prepared for a general lack of trust, and treat internal business communications as external.
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2 weeks ago | 
mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford
Let’s be frank: for a while there, it felt like Google was playing catch-up in the great AI race. But after the sheer volume and ambition on display at Google I/O 2025, it’s clear they’re not just back in the game, they’re playing with a vengeance. Now, if you’ve followed my previous, sometimes pointed, commentary on Google’s recent performance, particularly around Search, this upbeat take might surprise you.
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2 weeks ago | 
mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford
Media owner Antony Catalano has attacked activist investor Sandon Capital over a tactical manoeuvre that may help unseat the Southern Cross Austereo board. Last week Sandon, which owns just over 5% of SCA, applied for permission for fellow shareholder and SCA competitor ARN to use its full vote in a board member spill. ARN is not allowed to do that because it broke ownership rules in acquiring a chunk of its 14.8% SCA holding last year.
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2 weeks ago | 
mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford
Google has rolled out a new AI Mode within its main search interface in a radical change that could have big implications for businesses that rely on search traffic. AI Mode was announced by CEO Sundar Pichai at the Google I/O annual developer conference along with a raft of other AI projects. The tone of the conference and the breadth of projects indicate the search giant has seized back ground in the AI war that has been threatening its core business.
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2 weeks ago | 
mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford
Ooh Media’s big problem, the one that comes with scale, complexity and a history of acquisitions, is that it has the reputation of being difficult to deal with. It is Mark Fairhurst’s job to change both the reality and the reputation. That’s a big ask at Australia’s biggest outdoor company, and Fairhurst’s role as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) has a big remit: he has responsibility for “all things that touch the customer”.
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2 weeks ago | 
halcrawford.substack.com | Hal Crawford
Two years ago I looked into The Economist’s global subscription pricing structure and found a labyrinthine mess that seemed irrational and unfair. For exactly the same digital content, delivered over the internet, prices varied by over 300% depending on the subscriber’s nationality. Subscribers in poor nations like Pakistan and Burundi were paying double the rate of rich nations like Canada and South Korea. This inversion was not systematic.
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3 weeks ago | 
mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford
Competition watchdog the ACCC has opened a review into Omnicom’s proposed acquisition of IPG in Australia and is calling for submissions from interested parties. The global mega-merger will see Omnicom and IPG’s agencies come together later this year to form the world’s biggest holdco, with around US$20 billion in net revenue. That will only happen in its entirety if the deal is approved in many separate jurisdictions, including the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia.
