AG: So you’re basically saying you won’t be able to build a good business online as an entrepreneur in the publishing space?
SM: From a journalistic point of view I think it’s very, very difficult. There will always be people giving away stuff for free. People wanting to see their name on the computer screen or in the paper will inevitably put downward pressure on the rates that journalists can command for writing online and equally there’s an endless amount of inventory which puts inexorably downward pressure on what you can charge for advertising. I’m quite pessimistic about the viability of advertising funded or charged journalistic content online.
AG: So you started off as a journalist then of course you ran your own venture but how do you feel about that?
SM: About?
AG: About the demise?
SM: I think it’s very sad and I think that it’s very sad for democracy and my personal view is that the main fight now for people who are interested in democracy needs to be about legislating, mandated release of information that makes journalism and analysis of the information easier. A good example is the legislative changes where companies have to reveal the most highly paid executives at that company. Back when newspapers were in their heyday, there was no disclosure of that. There were only anonymous bands for salaries and you didn’t really know what people were paid even though you had much better resourced journalism, so the system now is far better and it doesn’t take an investigative journalist in a smoked filled room to extract that information. That information is mandated by law. So I think that the debate needs to shift to absolutely maximising the mandatory disclosure of public benefit information and then a lot of free people, whether it’s the Wikipedia style service, will then analyse that and literally a thousand flowers will bloom online – but not many people will make much money out of providing all that online analysis.
AG: Surely it’s just because you’re from the old print background and you can’t imagine the new innovations and technologies that will emerge. I mean, online is still in its infancy, surely in any new industry revolution like this (and you know this industry is centuries old and really hasn’t changed that much) we just can’t see the future yet.
SM: I think there’s no doubt that technologies will emerge but I just think the culture online is so profoundly expecting content for free and so much of the value has been scooped up by the aggregators and the search side of it that I think there should be pressure on Google and I asked this question at the last Seek AGM: “What are you guys putting back into funding journalism for our democracy?”
AG: Did they laugh?
SM: The Basset brothers sort of looked at each other and they literally said “I don’t know how to answer that question”.
AG: They don’t understand that question. They’re not journalists.
SM: So clearly the people who are undermining the revenue that has funded journalism traditionally need to be placed under maximum pressure to put a bit back into democracy by supporting information release and good analysis of the information.
AG: Now there’s a whole industry around providing advertising to reach communities. If you look at the future and decide government needs to play some role in that, how does that work? I mean the first thing government does is want to divest itself of a relationship with a commercial player.
SM: Well I think the best example of that, is the government funding the ABC and ABC increasingly moving and expanding its online offering which it’s doing. I’m not suggesting that the Government go in and buy newspapers. I think that newspapers are only heading one way and it is so environmentally damaging, newspapers, that I really don’t think that there should be any form of nostalgic argument to prevent the inevitable happening with newspapers.
Clearly pay television is one of the great upsides of journalism and diversity of content. Foxtel is probably the most successful growing media business in the country at the moment and it is providing a massive diversity in terms of media offerings. I have three Foxtel subscriptions at home and I think that’s an example of great diversity and new business models emerging. So as some mediums fall, others rise and I don’t think the government should be too directly involved in it, except for continuing to expand the funding and the online development of the ABC and SBS.
AG: You’ve started your new business, The Mayne Report, which is a shareholder activism online venture. Were you hoping to do another Crikey there?
SM: No. I sold Crikey in part to redouble my efforts on shareholder activism. I literally only managed to go to one AGM in 2004 and last year I went to 65 AGMs, which was a record in my sort of 10 to 12 years of attending AGMs. I passionately believe Australia needs a greater culture of shareholder pressure and there aren’t enough shareholder activists, so The Mayne Report was primarily a vehicle to properly promote that. I’ve sort of stumbled along looking for different revenue models and never really finding one properly. So I’m basically settling back into a free model where The Mayne Report is more into the influence business, maximising a message and providing an archive of all things that have happened in shareholder activism and that I’ve been involved in over a decade, rather than it particularly being a commercial venture.
AG: But then you’ll just lose money?
SM: My biggest source of income is from paid speeches, so in a sense The Mayne Report is partly marketing for that and I distribute content through a wide variety of other better known channels. I mean, I still write occasionally for Crikey, I write for Fairfax, I commentate for the ABC, I was in Sydney (recently) for a pre-recording of Compass and so I get paid and I’ve got a book contract with Harper Collins. So, I’m basically distributing content through a wide variety of channels, attempting to maximise a message and The Mayne Report is basically an aggregation of all that content distributed through different platforms. Plus a little bit of my original content on the governance side of things.
AG: So you’re still living the dream but it would be hard though?
SM: The Mayne Report has convinced me just how hard it is to build even a niche subscription revenue model around a niche area of corporate governance. You’ve really got to do it full time and properly, to really be able to justify some revenues, and I was increasingly finding that I wasn’t doing it full time and properly. Then when I got elected onto Manningham council, I basically realised that that was going to be some income for me as well. And that was going to be about learning about a non executive director and being a better critic of other public companies and other directors from experiencing it myself, but clearly I didn’t have the time or the resources to build The Mayne Report into a stand-alone commercial operation. So I’ve reverted back to the more traditional website as marketing and as information, rather than as a commercial venture.
AG: And long term, you’re interested in holding more positions on boards?
SM: My wife got elected to the RACV board three years ago and I was previously the biggest critic of the RACV. Now I’ve sort of been happily inside the tent there.
AG: Then you should be getting fees.
SM: We had to make a decision about whether I would continue a public critic of the RACV or whether we would work constructively with the board and we made a decision to be constructive. I haven’t criticised the RACV publicly and, frankly, I’ve been really impressed with everything I’ve observed as a handbag at the RACV. Then getting on Manningham council last year was the first sort of director gig for me.
Smart Company is the leading online publication in Australia for free news, information and resources catering to Australia’s entrepreneurs, small and medium business owners and business managers.
