Those still hunting for evidence ABC chairman Kim Williams continues to make key decisions at the national broadcaster will struggle to look past the appointment of incoming news director Simon Robinson.
Robinson, recruited days before outgoing ABC news director Justin Stevens tendered his resignation on Wednesday, moves to the ABC following a 16-year career at Reuters, based in London, where he has been executive editor of the news body.
Williams was, until January, chairman of the Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company, an independent body tasked with preserving the Reuters news agency’s independence and upholding its principals.
He was appointed to the position in January 2018 having previously, for two years, been a board member.
The two Australians – both of whom have been described as “change agents” – reportedly crossed paths at the news agency.
Despite ABC MD Hugh Marks’s public assurances that Robinson, who has reportedly already been sighted at the national broadcaster, is “one of the most experienced and respected newsroom leaders in global journalism”, on Thursday there was some confusion within the ABC’s ever-curious and protective ranks concerning Robinson’s credentials and expertise.
Some thought the new hire was in fact Reuters’ editor-in-chief Alessandra Galloni, the agency’s first female boss in its 170-year history and also Robinson’s boss. But no, the new appointment is not a woman.
Robinson is a former fact checker from Who Weekly who in recent years has overseen Reuters’ publishing and digital assets, though he has little direct experience heading up traditional free-to-air television and radio operations, the ABC’s bread and butter.
We predict this may create some problems from staff who consider themselves to be the broadcaster’s custodians.
Reuters does have a dedicated streaming channel, but it’s unlikely to bring much comfort to the ABC’s 2000-strong national workforce, the bulk of whom won’t have been exactly buoyed by MD Marks’ vision, as stated in Senate estimates yesterday, “to work out … what the future of the ABC is”.
Jackie O manager’s agency in tax trouble
Debts related to the collapse of the talent agency run by Jackie “O” Henderson’s manager – and much-hyped best friend – Gemma O’Neill continue to stack up
According to the latest filings from financial reporting advisory Grant Thornton Australia (GTA), the cost of appointing the liquidator to O’Neill’s failed business, Gemmie Agency Pty Ltd, has come in at $53,870.
In an updated report to company regulator ASIC, GTA also determined that O’Neill, the sole director of Gemmie Agency, presently owes the Australian Taxation Office more than $615,000.
This represents an increase of $71,452 on the liquidator’s previous February estimate of $543,548 due to accrued interest.
A second creditor is Jack Lawrence Accountants & Advisors, owed $3000.
As exclusively revealed by news.com.au in March, O’Neill’s talent agency went into voluntary liquidation in November.
The agency is famous for representing one marquee client, long time KIIS FM breakfast presenter Henderson, who had her $100 million contract with radio company ARN terminated in March, one year into its 10-year term.
The liquidator’s initial report revealed that between October 2023 and March 2024, Gemmie Agency received a massive seven-figure commission paid by an unnamed “key client” who O’Neill invoiced for $1,042,505.01 on February 21, 2024.
Despite her talent agency folding five months prior to Henderson ending her long and fruitful association with radio partner Kyle Sandilands, O’Neill represented Henderson in her final difficult and ultimately doomed meetings with radio bosses after “safety concerns” were cited as the reason for the bust up.
Henderson is now suing her former employer, ARN, for $82 million for wrongful termination.
Meanwhile, both Henderson and O’Neill have had to set aside their ambitions for a podcast, Her Best Life, launched in September 2024, after Henderson pulled the pin at the start of the year and her manager shelved the project in April.
Before signing off, O’Neill would use the podcast to respond to reports concerning her business falling over.
“I stand by my integrity, I stand by my work and I stand by how I’ve conducted myself in business over a very long career,” O’Neill told her podcast audience, refusing to elaborate further on the business collapse.
Gemmie Agency was incorporated in August 2021, two months before O’Neill and Henderson, who met over a decade ago when O’Neill joined the Kyle and Jackie O breakfast show as a producer, jointly founded women’s lifestyle and events company Besties Australia Pty Ltd.
In December 2021, O’Neill would be made redundant from her executive role at radio network Southern Cross Austereo.
Besties Australia, a venture conceived to promote luxury holidays, experiences and women’s pyjamas, hosted Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, to a one-off $3000-a-head “retreat” in Sydney in April.
Prior to that event, Besties only had one other speaking tour to its credit – the October 2023 visit by Hollywood star Gwyneth Paltrow.
Both “one night only” events were reportedly marred by slow ticket sales, however, O’Neill would deny rumours Besties had taken a financial hit on the Paltrow tour after the Goop founder addressed a half-full theatre at Sydney’s ICC.
“Look, we’re not professional events people and we are very new to this game … but we are really proud of the fact we wanted to do it and are having a crack,” she told this writer at the time.
A question remains as to whether the ATO will now pursue O’Neill for the purported $615,000 in unpaid taxes. A spokesperson declined to comment when approached.
Any debts owed by the agency might be wiped off if O’Neill were to sell one of two homes she currently owns.
One month before the administrators were called in, O’Neill splashed out $1,025,000 on a three-bedroom cottage at Fitzroy Falls in the Southern Highlands, a property she still owns.
The purchase of this property occurred four months after O’Neill’s business was presented with a Garnishee Notice from the ATO in June 2025 demanding repayment for unpaid taxes.
The agency would later, in July and August of that year, hand over $150,000 to the ATO in the hope of keeping the business afloat.
Those efforts ultimately failed however, with administrators claiming in their reports that O’Neill’s talent agency had likely been trading insolvent since December 2024.
The businesswoman also owns a four-bedroom clifftop waterfront apartment in Clovelly, with an estimated value of $4 million, located two doors up from Henderson’s own under-construction Gordon’s Bay mansion.
Property records show O’Neill offloaded a second apartment in the same exclusive complex in October 2022 for $3,430,000.
Fourteen months earlier, in August 2021, O’Neill and her then-husband, audio engineer Del Fordham, had bought the apartment next door for $2,600,000.
By December of that year, however, she was looking for work after a restructure at SCA.
Her marriage to Fordham, the father of her two sons, ended not long after.
In February, O’Neill wrote to administrators to inform them she was not in a financial position to make any contribution towards repayment of her business debts as she had no available personal savings, limited income, and previous attempts to refinance and otherwise raise funds had been unsuccessful.
Neither O’Neill nor appointed liquidators John McInerney and Lisa Gibb responded to requests for comment on Thursday.
Stage set for Seven-SCA love-in
A draft agenda for newly merged media company Seven/Southern Cross Media’s (SXL) first daylong strategic conference has made its way into our hands and what becomes immediately apparent is that the day, though chockers, looks to be seriously light on entertainment.
One can only hope the 45 executives invited by newly installed CEO Rohan Lund to Coogee’s refurbed Intercontinental Hotel took the opportunity to kick up their heels last night.
What legendary Seven CEO David Leckie might have once declared an epic yawnfest is being sold as a stimulating bonding exercise for the two formerly unaffiliated executive teams who will spend the day trying to conjure up a picture of what SXL’s newly forged business will look like going forward.
The morning will belong to Seven’s director of morning television with Sarah Stinson set to regale the room with the facts and figures relating to Seven’s top-rating breakfast television line-up underpinned by Sunrise and The Morning Show.
Also on the bill is Boston Consulting Group senior partner Anna Green, who will discuss the future of media.
Next up looks to be the company’s new chief finance officer Scott Butterworth, a chap appointed in February and still, we assume, on probation.
Butterworth replaced Seven CFO Craig Haskins, the first executive shed when the executive teams of the two media companies started merging in January in what has since become known as the company’s “red wedding”.
Television newcomer Butterworth is expected to speak on the costs of regional transmissions, a complicated subject given Seven inherited SXL’s regional contracts with BAI Communications after offloading a swag of regional assets.
This promises to be a test of the former banking executive and drier than the boxes of sauvignon blanc that, on Leckie’s watch, would have been perfectly chilled in preparedness for a long Friday afternoon lunch full of witty repartee and brutal observation. Radio – pfft.
Newly returned head of television and streaming Angus Ross is set to talk about his return to the network, his 2026/2027 programming strategy and, one hopes, his plans for the estimated seven-figure redundancy payout he received from the company in March which he gets to keep.
Head of TV revenue Katie Finney, who now reports to the company’s chief commercial officer Seb Rennie, is expected to address Seven’s sales revenue and the fact it has been getting 44 per cent of market share – a fact that might rile her radio counterpart whose budget is less than Finney’s.
Newly promoted group chief operating officer Stephen Haddad and transformation chief Toby Potter should have good stories to tell about the radio division’s LISTNR business app, associated revenue and SXL’s expensive $70 million software transformation, not to mention ongoing challenges facing the digital division.
Just who gets to raise the hairy topic of rebranding the merged enterprise, and the likely resurrection of the old Seven Media Group banner, formerly used by major shareholder Kerry Stokes, we don’t know – possibly new CEO Lund who only took the helm on May 1.
Audio division boss John Kelly, recently recast as the bride at this “red wedding”, is also expected to speak however given he’s been away in Malibu trying the fine dishes on the menu at Nobu and, we imagine, licking his wounds after being overlooked for the CEO role, it’s unclear what he might have to add.
Upon reflection, perhaps the day will be entertaining after all.
Tapt/Nine architects unmasked
It was a throwaway line that confirmed speculation the plan to sell Nine’s radio division to a publican had germinated within the radio division itself.
In a long and ranging interview with a financial paper this week, pub scion and former The Bachelorette contender Stuart Laundy outed the man who is rumoured to have been the architect of the plan to sell the broadcast operation that houses top-rating talk radio stations 2GB, 3AW, as well as 4BC and 6PR, to Laundy’s 85-year-old billionaire father, Arthur.
Laundy, who owns and operates more than 90 pubs and venues, reportedly handed over $56 million for the business in January after Nine indicated it wanted between $50 and $60 million for the assets for which it paid upwards of $250 million. (Insiders claim the breakdown was more like $39 million in cash plus $17 million in contra and synergies from famed penny-pincher Laundy.)
Calling himself the “deal doer, the transactions guy, the strategist” Laundy admitted the radio deal was in fact set in motion by his brother, former politician Craig, a sometime guest contributor on 2GB and the unofficial chairman of the Laundy family board.
Describing the purchase as “Craig’s show”, the deal came about via the brother’s long friendship with Nine Radio boss Tom Malone, a mate with whom the Laundy boys skied at Perisher as children, Laundy disclosed.
Malone, who had been making escape plans from Nine for years according to insiders, has since moved across to run the rebranded broadcasting outfit, now called Tapt Media.
Valentine farewelled
Radio commentator James Valentine will be farewelled today at a public memorial at Sydney’s Town Hall.
The ceremony for the popular broadcaster and musician begins at 12.30pm and, at Valentine’s request, will be broadcast on ABC 702.
“He just wants to be able to have a chat through the people he’s organised to speak at his memorial,” ABC 702 station manager Nick Lowther following the memorial confirmation this month.
Valentine’s colleague and friend, former ABC drive host Richard Glover, will host the ceremony which was largely organised by Valentine and his family prior to his death on April 22.
The broadcaster and one-time saxophonist with popular eighties band the Models passed away at age 64 with the help of voluntary assisted dying (VAD) following a two-year battle with oesophageal cancer.
Radio, television and music identities, as well as Valentine’s wife Joanne Corrigan and children Ruby and Roy, are expected to attend.
