Television has apparently dealt a double-blow to the Australian music industry this month.
The TEN Network has chosen to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Australia's longest-running TV music program, Video Hits, by axing the show as part of the Murdoch-Packer led quest for profitability through cost-cutting.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, former Sony executive and erstwhile 'A&R' guru, Jay Dee Springbett, was killed by his apparently troublesome ticker while attempting single-handedly to install a 61-centimetre television set in his eastern Sydney apartment.
The TEN Network has chosen to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Australia's longest-running TV music program, Video Hits, by axing the show as part of the Murdoch-Packer led quest for profitability through cost-cutting.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, former Sony executive and erstwhile 'A&R' guru, Jay Dee Springbett, was killed by his apparently troublesome ticker while attempting single-handedly to install a 61-centimetre television set in his eastern Sydney apartment.
Even worse, you can only suspect the TV that killed Jay Dee was a birthday present he'd been given at his party on Monday night. That's if you believe his on-again, off-again partner and former Sony publicist, Louisa McCole.
Why shouldn't we? I mean, when has a publicist ever been economical with the truth?
"On Tuesday night I spoke with him as the girls and I were lying in bed, looking up holiday destinations in Queensland for a two-week trip the four of us were due to make on July 20, after he'd left Sony," McCole said.
"On Wednesday, I tried calling him, as did his best friend Ian, but it was going through to voice message all day - which was odd. When he failed to come and collect the girls later that evening as planned, I panicked."
When Jay Dee failed to surface on Thursday, she raced across town to his apartment.
"As I turned into his street, I was confronted by police. They told me they had found him on the couch."
Working the room...Louisa McCole and Jay Dee Springbett at Nino's Hideaway, Bondi Junction, Sydney.
In fact, events surrounding Springbett's death suggest a flurry of publicist activity in the hours before his body was 'discovered' by first responders at about 3.30 on the afternoon of Thursday, 30 June 2011. (Nicely timed to miss the evening's news bulletins without necessarily appearing so. That's class!)
While McCole was 'racing' across town to arrive at Jay Dee's place some time shortly before 4.00pm, the balloon was about to go up.
Denis Handlin AM, ARIA Chairman and Chairman and CEO of Sony Music Entertainment Australia and New Zealand and President of South East Asia and Korea (of Sony Music that is, not the actual countries) claims to have raised the alarm himself after Springbett failed to return his calls.
Handlin would of course be concerned. After all, he's not a man accustomed to being ignored by anyone in the Australasian music industry. He told Alan Jones, "We thought we better let the police know because it's really not like him and you know they went to his residence and found him". Enough said.
Happier times...Jay Dee Springbett (left), Natalie Bassingthwaighte and Sony BMG's chairman and chief executive Denis Handlin at the signing of Bassingthwaighte's solo deal at the Sony BMG offices in Sydney in 2006.
Of course we only have the word of McCole and that of Australian entertainment luminary, Kyle Sandilands, that the allegedly 36-year-old Springbett was seen alive and well any time after celebrating his fortieth birthday on the evening of Monday, 27 June 2011.
In time-honoured tradition, Handlin and the gaggle of industry figures expressing shock and grief at Springbett's sudden death are hinting at suicide by talking up the deceased's ebullient emotional state in the days immediately prior to his demise.
Made to walk the plank at Sony, itself a sinking ship, separated from his children and stripped of his celebrity, "Jay Dee was so very enthusiastic and passionate about his family, his music projects and his plans for the future," Handlin says in a short statement on the ARIA website.
Just in case that's not enough for you to take the hint, someone's even let in be known that two stubbies of beer and prescription drugs were present in Springbett's hotel room, I mean, serviced apartment, I mean, bachelor pad, I mean residence where his body was found.
In time-honoured tradition, Handlin and the gaggle of industry figures expressing shock and grief at Springbett's sudden death are hinting at suicide by talking up the deceased's ebullient emotional state in the days immediately prior to his demise.
Made to walk the plank at Sony, itself a sinking ship, separated from his children and stripped of his celebrity, "Jay Dee was so very enthusiastic and passionate about his family, his music projects and his plans for the future," Handlin says in a short statement on the ARIA website.
Just in case that's not enough for you to take the hint, someone's even let in be known that two stubbies of beer and prescription drugs were present in Springbett's hotel room, I mean, serviced apartment, I mean, bachelor pad, I mean residence where his body was found.
Ask yourself, when was the last time you opened two stubbies for yourself at the same time? Now, that's thinking ahead.
Speaking of thinking ahead, I'll reserve judgement until the police and the coroner have thoroughly investigated the matter. Unfortunately, as these things go, we may have to wait a couple of years until we know the truth.
By an interesting coincidence, that's about the time by which boy wonders Murdoch and Packer will have dumped the husk of what we know now as the TEN network, having bled it of whatever life is left in it after the "necessary but inevitably painful restructure" foreshadowed in Murdoch's missive to TEN employees this week.
Of course, the demise of Video Hits won't surprise those of its Melbourne viewers who were stupefied not that long ago to find the long-running program bumped from its Sunday morning timeslot to make way for The Bolt Report.
Hosted by Australia's most smug Tory mouth piece, News Limited's Andrew Bolt, The Bolt Report managed to float itself in the face of a virtual tsunami of cost cutting and job losses at TEN.
Speaking of thinking ahead, I'll reserve judgement until the police and the coroner have thoroughly investigated the matter. Unfortunately, as these things go, we may have to wait a couple of years until we know the truth.
By an interesting coincidence, that's about the time by which boy wonders Murdoch and Packer will have dumped the husk of what we know now as the TEN network, having bled it of whatever life is left in it after the "necessary but inevitably painful restructure" foreshadowed in Murdoch's missive to TEN employees this week.
Of course, the demise of Video Hits won't surprise those of its Melbourne viewers who were stupefied not that long ago to find the long-running program bumped from its Sunday morning timeslot to make way for The Bolt Report.
Hosted by Australia's most smug Tory mouth piece, News Limited's Andrew Bolt, The Bolt Report managed to float itself in the face of a virtual tsunami of cost cutting and job losses at TEN.
News Limited...that's daddy's media conglomerate, isn't it Lachlan? I wonder if that's why we have, or at least had, cross-media ownership laws in this country?
Anyway, in its predictably myopic way, the stock market reacted positively to the news of the job cuts and program axings, with TEN rising 6.5 cents, or 5.9 per cent, to close at $1.165.
Not being a publicly-listed company, there's no way of telling what impact Springbett's death is expected to have on Sony Music Entertainment Australia and New Zealand.
But you can bet the blood on Handlin's hands isn't going to wash away any time soon as he continues to preside over his own necessary but inevitably painful restructure.
Vale Jay Dee Springbett, Video Hits and the Australian music industry.
Anyway, in its predictably myopic way, the stock market reacted positively to the news of the job cuts and program axings, with TEN rising 6.5 cents, or 5.9 per cent, to close at $1.165.
Not being a publicly-listed company, there's no way of telling what impact Springbett's death is expected to have on Sony Music Entertainment Australia and New Zealand.
But you can bet the blood on Handlin's hands isn't going to wash away any time soon as he continues to preside over his own necessary but inevitably painful restructure.
Vale Jay Dee Springbett, Video Hits and the Australian music industry.
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Le's be friends...Australian Idol judges Ian Dickson and Jay Dee Springbett on the red carpet. |
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