Old-school media outlets are under siege around the world. So how did a university dropout sports reporter create a thriving business from one of the oldest media channels, radio?
Craig Hutchison is one of the best-known journalists in the world of Australian rules football. He co-hosts The Footy Show on the Nine Network and was a part-owner of a racehorse with AFL chief Gillon McLachlan.
The founder and chief executive of Melbourne-based Crocmedia isn’t as well known for his main business achievement: redefining football broadcast economics.
Hutchison has turned traditional media turmoil to his advantage. Eager to cut costs because of declining advertising revenue, radio stations and the AFL are happy to give Crocmedia responsibility for producing football broadcasts. Crocmedia sells ads on the shows. All the station has to do is broadcast it.
By using freelance commentators and young producers, Crocmedia creates cheap radio programs that advertisers love.
Hutchison cites the example of a preseason AFL match played in Rockhampton. Eight media companies would like to broadcast the game on radio, but the cost of sending eight crews to northern Queensland would never be covered by the advertising it would generate. Crocmedia covers the game for those outlets, just as Australian Associated Press covers news events for newspapers that can’t afford to send their own reporters.
“I believe in the power of radio and sport - AFL is easily one of the best, if not the best, product on radio,” Hutchison says, adding that it happens on weekends when listeners are more receptive to advertising messages.
Prolific creator
Hutchison, a former Herald Sun reporter, has learnt a key lesson from the media industry: local sells. Starting in 2010, Crocmedia is now a prolific creator of radio programming. It broadcasts 130 to 140 hours of radio a week to more than 200 stations, including live broadcasts of most AFL games.
There are six radio and two television versions of a light show called Off the Bench. A more serious radio-only show, Sportsday, has different versions for South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, and one for Victoria and Tasmania.
A TV show called Future Stars talks about the AFL draft and player movements, and Women’s Footy covers the AFL Women’s League on Channel Nine. There are also cricket and golf radio shows. Clients include big marketers such as the National Australia Bank, Myer and McDonald’s.
The 42-year-old Hutchison owns about 60 per cent of the private company. He won’t disclose annual revenue, but it must be substantial to employ 75 full-time staff, including an ad sales team of 25 headed by Sam Bingley, a former Melbourne sales director at Southern Cross Austereo.
A further 100 freelancers and part-timers help out when needed. Some do it for the love of calling football. Others are looking for a break into commercial radio or television. A little-known broadcaster is probably paid about $1000 a game, according to a journalist who used to do the job. Hutchison’s commentating celebrities, including Peter Donegan, Sandy Roberts and Stephen Quartermain, are likely to be paid a lot more. So, too, his ex-footballers Robert Walls, Kane Cornes, Terry Wallace and Ben Hart.
“I don’t see myself as successful,” Hutchison says. “I see myself as being in the early days of trying to work it out. The harder you work, the luckier you get.”
Profitable
Hutchison didn’t have a privileged background. He attended secondary school at a small Catholic school in Warragul in Victoria’s La Trobe Valley and dropped out one year into a professional writing diploma at Victoria University and got a cadetship on the Herald Sun.
Last year, Crocmedia bought the radio rights to AFL games for the next six years. Along with the ABC and Triple M, which is owned by Southern Cross Austereo, Crocmedia will be allowed to broadcast the games throughout Australia for the first time. Previously, it was confined to country areas.
The arrangement incorporates separate deals with the companies that run radio in Australia: Macquarie, Southern Cross Austereo, NOVA Entertainment, Pacific Star Network and Grant Broadcasters.
The enlarged presence will generate more advertising, which could make Crocmedia a lot more profitable.
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