Heads roll like Nine pins as Chisholm fights a culture war

WITNESS the procession of personnel reluctantly leaving Kerry Packer's Nine Network - Max Uechtritz, Glenn Pallister, Steve Wood, Stuart Clark, Jonathan Cooper, Vas Kontis and the rest - and note the axed or revamped Nine programs and you could believe you're seeing a purge.

Nothing could be further from the fact. It's a renewal. The network's interim director of television, Sam Chisholm, is simply reimposing - renewing - Nine's tough, abrasive culture.

It has been all about culture since Chisholm returned to Nine after a 15-year absence on May 9 following the abrupt resignation of the more gentle former chief executive, David Gyngell. Chisholm is said not to refer to his predecessor as David. If he has reason to refer to him, it's a dismissive "Gyngell". There's little doubt Chisholm believes the winning, no-prisoners culture he installed during his 14 years as Nine's managing director has been eroded.

"Sam Chisholm isn't the most loved man in Australian television but he's showing everyone he'll do what needs to be done," says a former Nine producer, Glenn Dyer, now a commentator for crikey.com.au. "He's cutting costs and promoting theidea this [ruthlessness] is the Nine way. He's rebuilding the culture."

Last Friday's forced resignation of the network's expensively recruited director of news, Uechtritz, was largely about culture. Uechtritz was hired 13 months ago by the chief executive of Packer's Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd, John Alexander. A former editor-in-chief of John Fairfax Holdings' broadsheet, The Sydney Morning Herald, Alexander is widely believed to have thought Nine's news should drift slightly up-market.

Uechtritz had had 18 years at the ABC, had won two Walkley Awards, had for four years been the corporation's head of news and current affairs and appeared an impeccable choice.

Indeed, as Chisholm reimposed himself in the aftermath of Gyngell's departure, the network's official line was that Uechtritz, closely aligned with Gyngell, was safe. Yet anyone with half an eye for recent history knew with certainty this wasn't the case.

Uechtritz worked for Nine in Queensland many years ago but was fundamentally shaped at the ABC, a background of which Chisholm would have been intensely aware.

It was, arguably, a surprise Uechtritz managed to last the 53 days he did under Chisholm. In the run-up to Russell Balding's May 2002 appointment as the ABC's managing director, Chisholm was part of a determined lobby that tried to get former Packer lieutenant Trevor Kennedy into the top job at the national broadcaster. Chisholm said Kennedy was easily the best choice. Uechtritz, who'd played a considerable role in ousting the former incumbent, Jonathan Shier, had forged a strong alliance with Balding and was known to support him. Some claim Balding's victory still rankles with Chisholm.

So the omens weren't good. Nor were the omens wrong.

On May 17, just a week after replacing Gyngell, Chisholm announced Tony Ritchie - Seven's deputy news director, but formerly with Nine - would rejoin Nine and would take a close interest in the network's 6pm news bulletin.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, Uechtritz was instructed by Chisholm to reinstate an executive producer of the 6pm bulletin Uechtritz had previously removed, Graham Thurston. An experienced newsman who it's said had difficulty getting on with Uechtritz, Thurston had been moved to the Business Sunday program. Uechtritz had replaced him with an appointment of his own, Anthony Flannery.

Ritchie. Thurston. Uechtritz, reportedly overseas and unavailable for comment, may have empathised with Gyngell, nominally in charge but whose decisions seemed to him to be subject to ratification from Alexander and others.

Even had Uechtritz, 47, a well-respected individual with backbone and principle, tried to persuade Chisholm towards a clean slate, his patchy ratings record would have complicated his argument. The Chisholm culture is aimed at instilling a winning mentality. Nine, to quote a well-worn network slogan, must be "The One". To be well-regarded at Nine under Chisholm between 1976 and 1990 meant routinely winning your slot, winning Nine the highest audience, beating Seven. The vaguest hint that Seven - now managed by Chisholm's eventual successor at Nine, David Leckie - might become The One was enough to generate apoplexy.

Another long-running Nine slogan of which Chisholm is immensely mindful is: "More Australians get their news from Channel 9 than from any other source."

The network's supremacy has long been based on news and current affairs and sport. Attached to that, there's a Sydney factor. Sydney is the biggest television market. Packer is happy to win in Brisbane and Melbourne (which he still usually does) but he has what almost amounts to an obsession about the 6pm slot in Sydney. And it has been in Sydney where Seven has made most headway.

Nine's head of news and current affairs when Uechtritz was hired, Jim Rudder (since departed), made it clear where Uechtritz's priorities were to be as Uechtritz took over from Paul Fenn: "His [Uechtritz's] primary brief is the TCN-9 [Sydney] news and to make sure we remain winners."

Commentators were busy pointing out in early June that Nine's Sydney news and 6.30pm current affairs offering, A Current Affair, had been eclipsed for 19 consecutive weeks by Seven's news and ACA's counterpart, Today Tonight. The blunt, pugnacious Chisholm would hold it's not enough to say Nine "still won the week" or that Nine's news made sporadic revivals. At Nine you must win. No one embodies that network law more comprehensively than Chisholm. Thus, on at least three fronts - culture, history and ratings - Uechtritz's fate was writ large.

Uechtritz isn't, of course, the sole Chisholm casualty. An estimated 35 people were chipped from Nine in the days leading up to the end of the 2004-05 financial year. Most were administrative and support staff. Chisholm, being advised by his pragmatic operations manager, Ian Audsley, even sacked the long-serving Ken Phillips, the man who oversaw maintenance of the buildings at Nine's Willoughby (suburban Sydney) headquarters. Wood had been one of the network's longest serving executives and its daytime television director. Pallister was well-liked and had been in charge of variety programming. Clark had been responsible for well-known Nine offerings such as Backyard Blitz and Getaway. Such departees, and others, commanded considerable staff affection and admiration.

Yet the fact is Chisholm's back-to-the-future renewal is gaining internal acceptance. Reaction to Uechtritz's removal may be a good example. Most insiders say they liked the former ABC man well enough. But some say they felt, instinctively, he didn't fit the culture and that Chisholm got it right. Some, by no means Uechtritz haters, say he had good ideas but wasn't hands-on enough. Several news staff say that after a 9-9.30am meeting they often didn't see Uechtritz again until just before the 6pm news bulletin went to air. They say he delegated virtually all the bulletin detail and had erred disastrously in moving Thurston from news. Again, they say, Chisholm got it right. Some of this internal acceptance, of course, may be tinged with fear. Indeed, some insiders hint at that and it's understandable. Chisholm's reputation for not being warm towards dissenters and recalcitrants is well known in commercial television circles. Many have read of his ruthless reign in London as he presided for seven years over the subscription broadcaster, BSkyB, controlled by the publisher of this newspaper, Rupert Murdoch.

"The demands of commercial television can be brutal," says an insider. "I don't think Max quite realised how brutal. But there's no doubt Sam has this intuitive feel for how things must be."

Some, perhaps with a more sympathetic view of Uechtritz's reign, say his real 6pm ratings problem was always the bulletin's 5.30pm lead-in, The Price is Right. Ironically, Chisholm moved decisively on the problem the same day Uechtritz's departure was announced. Seven's popular 5.30pm game show, Deal or No Deal, is to have a new or revamped Nine competitor. Those who are to make it may well enjoy a preliminary Chisholm briefing. Another Nine offering that has frequently allowed Seven to claim supremacy, the 6am Today show, has also felt Chisholm's wrath. Its Seven rival, Sunrise, is to get overhauled competition, with Chisholm reversing Gyngell's preference for the three-hour Today to include an hour of solid news.

The rebuilding of Nine's culture is leading, inexorably, to three overarching questions. Is Chisholm, 65, and who underwent a double-lung transplant in 2003, at Nine for a longer haul than the two or three months suggested when he replaced Gyngell? Some say it's unrealistic to believe Chisholm won't stay long enough to enjoy the fruits of the transformation he's implementing. He'd want, say some, to go down as the man who turned it around for Nine after two years of turmoil and threats that Seven could become The One. Is Packer's reported international search for someone to run his Nine empire over virtually before it began?

"Sam's having fun," says Dyer. "I don't know if he'll be there infive years. But I believe he couldstill be there at the end of thisyear."

Is the network that generates more than 41 per cent of annual commercial television revenue, according to the Australian Broadcasting Authority's latest figures, being streamlined ready for sale?

Well, speculation would have to be premature as long as the details of anticipated media ownership legislation is unknown. Nine's costs, reportedly, have grown by 18per cent and it's fair to assume Gyngell, too, may have been directed to perform some surgery had he stayed.

Those oriented towards personality interplay are fascinated to see how the increasingly dominant Chisholm takes to Nine's May dictum that he report to Alexander. Long-term Chisholm observers are convinced Alexander can forget it.

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