Fairfax Media and News Corp have found something more profitable than journalism and they’re diving right in: property. As journalists and photographers walk out the door in droves and newspaper profits fall, legacy media is embracing the property boom. But property listings websites Domain and realestate.com.au are not enough so they have both announced this week a plan to extend the property brands further by joining the mortgage-broking business.

For the traditional readers of the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age it may come as a shock that Fairfax is drumming up business for the loan brokers. Fairfax says it won’t be a problem because appropriate disclosures will be made in editorial whenever relevant, just as they are now.

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On Thursday Fairfax announced it had entered into a joint venture with startup Lendi to offer an online portal to 30 leading lenders including major banks. “We will actively market our home loan solution to our large and highly engaged audience of more than four million a month in a highly relevant, personalised and timely way,” the Domain CEO, Antony Catalano, said. “Domain is well positioned to utilise its popular consumer technology platforms to enter into a partnership in the Australian home loan broking market, which generates about $2bn a year in commissions, and to expand beyond its current home loan lead referral business.”



Earlier in the week REA Group, which is majority owned by News Corp, dropped $67m to buy 80% of mortgage-broking business Smartline, with a view to offering a home loan portal of its own. It looks like Fairfax might beat News Corp to hanging out its broker shingle with plans to go live in July. Domain is also about to launch its first education and training program for real-estate agents called Domain Academy, and has plans for other businesses including removalists, storage and connecting utilities.

TV news still on top

General consensus is that newspapers will be around for a few more years despite the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017 saying only 36% of Australians still access printed newspapers and magazines for news. Radio also attracts 36% of people, social media 46%, 74% of people go online for news and 63% watch TV for the news. Overall interest in news remains strong with about 63% of Australian participants saying they were extremely or very interested in news. But it’s television news that still dominates the way Australians get news – although age plays a big role. Younger people prefer online and social media.

Parents cry foul over Play School

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Don’t fear, parents: Play School screens four times a day on ABC TV. Photograph: ABC

On Monday Australian parents will have to adjust to a monumental shift in their routine: a change to the ABC’s Play School schedule. From 3 July Play School will air at 9am, not 9.30am. As expected some parents are crying foul. “My younger children miss out on arvo Play School because of school pick up & now they’re going to miss out on morning Play School because of school drop off. & don’t feed me that line of new stories & new styles of shows or it being available on abc iview,” wrote one disgruntled mum on the ABC Kids Facebook page.



The ABC told Weekly Beast the change has been made because research shows it will be a more popular time slot. “There are lots of parents who have responded positively about the change and are excited they’re now able to enjoy this series with their child. While some parents are concerned they’ll miss the show as they are doing school drop-off. So that these families don’t miss out on this much-loved show, we’ve let them know that Play School screens four times a day (6am, 9am, 12pm and 3.30pm) or they can watch it at a time convenient to them on ABC Kids iView.”



Junkee has a fair go

The new Liberal party-funded website The Fair Go – designed to take on the popularity of digital campaigns run by GetUp – is run by people with impeccable connections to conservatives past and present.

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It’s edited by Parnell Palme McGuinness, a communications consultant and only daughter of the late journalist Padraig “Paddy” McGuinness. The rightwing contrarian, columnist for Fairfax and the Australian and former editor of Quadrant died in 2008, aged 69.



Also writing for the site is Camden Liberal councillor Penny Fischer, who is the daughter of NSW Liberal minister Pru Goward and the sister of former model Kate Fischer, now known as Tziporah Malkah bat Israel.

On Thursday The Fair Go attacked GetUp head on, accusing them of using foreign donations to fund political campaigns.



Unimpressed that The Fair Go looks a lot like its own website, the pop culture site Junkee analysed every inch of it and concluded it was as though the Fair Go mob turned up to a party dressed in the same outfit as Junkee.



“It turns out that the Liberal party went to a lot of effort to try and make their new website look a lot like Junkee’s, and when we got in touch with them to ask about it they decided to … change it very quickly.”



Tributes to ABC publicist

The ABC staffer who publicised Q&A and all the other news programs is Chris Chamberlin, a popular media figure who died while suddenly while holidaying in India. Tributes to Chamberlin poured in from ABC personalities who had worked with him including 7.30 host Leigh Sales.



Leigh Sales (@leighsales) I'm so very sad to learn of the death of my colleague @popculturechris - just a delightful person to be around. Condolences to his nearest.

The ABC’s director of audience, Leisa Bacon, said Chamberlin spent most of his ABC career as a senior publicist across news and television, and he was a star at his job, as he really loved media.



“Chris has managed campaigns for projects across all TV genres – news, factual, entertainment and children’s programs,” Bacon said. “The list of credits is enormous and Chris knew everything there was to know about developing publicity opportunities for marketing campaigns. He built strong relationships with on-air talent, through to production teams, and key media outlets.”

