Media Roundup: Teen tech trial doubts, X CEO exits, Max rebrands as HBO, Nine's Arvier joins government, Apple eyes F1 rights, and Nvidia hits $6.1T

Published 2 days ago• 4 minute read

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It’s a tale as old as time: Politician says one thing but does another.

Case in point? Well, while railing against Big Tech’s influence on public debate, political operators were also outbidding each other for eyeballs on those same platforms.

As reports in The Australian Financial Review, new data shows they funnelled nearly $76 million into ads on Meta and Google in the six months before the May 3 election.

has officially exited X, the company formerly known as Twitter, after two eventful years as CEO.

Her parting message struck an upbeat tone, tipping a bright future for the platform under the growing influence of Elon Musk’s AI venture, xAI, the maker of the chatbot Grok (or as one Mediaweek writer mistakenly calls Gronk)

As details in The Sydney Morning Herald, Yaccarino came on board in May 2023 to win back advertisers and steer business ops, but was never really in the driver’s seat.

The government’s big age-assurance tech trial, designed to verify users’ ages on social media, declared in June that the tech works and can be rolled out safely in Australia.

But, as writes in Crikey, some of the experts involved in the trial say they hadn’t actually seen any data to back that up.

Turns out, those bold claims came before the supporting report was ready. Now a draft of that report is doing the rounds privately, and it’s raising eyebrows.

Nine’s top political reporter in Brisbane, , is officially trading press packs for press releases.

As details in The Australian, the award-winning journo has been poached by the Queensland government to run crisis comms for Premier , a role that’ll have him managing scandals rather than chasing them.

Word is he agonised over the decision but was ultimately swayed by the new challenge, the deputy director-general title, and let’s be honest, the bump in salary.

Nvidia has just become the first company to hit a $US4 trillion market cap (that’s over $6.1 trillion in Aussie terms), solidifying its spot as the MVP of the AI age.

As and write in The Australian Financial Review, shares rose 2.8 per cent in New York, capping off a wild turnaround after a jittery start to the year.

What’s fuelling the fire? Big tech is still throwing billions at AI.

Just two weeks after Warner Bros Discovery’s streaming service Max launched in Australia on 31 March, it announced a rebrand to HBO Max.

The move didn’t surprise industry watchers, following some speculation about the possible rebrand. But it was unusual to see a rebrand like this so soon after a territory launch.

On Wednesday night local time, the rebrand took effect with Max updating its apps and website to reflect the HBO Max branding.

Apple is reportedly revving up to bid for the US broadcast rights to Formula 1, going head-to-head with current rights holder ESPN.

As and write in The Australian Financial Review, the talks come off the back of Apple’s surprise box office win with its F1-themed film, marking its first real hit in the original content game.

The current F1 rights deal in the US expires next year, and insiders say Apple is keen to capitalise on the growing interest in the sport.

Amazon MGM Studios has poached from Warner Bros. to head up international theatrical marketing, as the streamer continues to bulk up its film strategy.

As writes in Variety, the move was announced by Global Marketing Chief , who called Coleman a standout exec with a knack for making stories travel.

At Warner Bros., Coleman ran international campaigns for some of the biggest box office hitters in recent years, including Barbie, Elvis, Dune, The Batman and Minecraft.

, author of the much-loved memoir The Salt Path, says she’s facing some of the “hardest days” of her life as questions swirl over the truth behind her story.

As Nadeem Badshah writes in The Guardian, the book, a bestseller turned film starring Gillian Anderson, recounts how Winn and her husband, Moth, walked the south-west coast path after losing their home and receiving a life-changing diagnosis.

But a report has now thrown parts of that story into question.

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Amazon MGM Studios, Apple Linda Yaccarino, David Crisafulli, Elon Musk, ESPN, Gillian Anderson, Google, Grok, HBO max, MAX, Meta, Nvidia, Raynor Winn, Tim Arvier, Twitter, Variety, Warner Bros, Warner Bros Discovery, X, xAI