As the city of Melbourne moves out of lockdown, Acast has announced a new initiative to promote and celebrate local independent businesses whose doors have reopened.

The COVID-driven move of key sports events out of September resulted in an abnormal decline in Australian media Agency ad spend in the month, but has also boosted early October advertising demand with bookings already the strongest since COVID began.
 
According to the Standard Media Index, the move of the AFL and NRL final series and Grand Finals into October was the main reason for a 19.5% fall in Television ad spend in September, with the Digital media emerging as the best performing for the month with ad spend back just 2.7%.
 

Andi Lew is a Radio announcer / TV presenter, best-selling author and certified Food, Lifestyle and Wellness Coach who is now back to make radio waves in NSW. You may remember Andi on 101.1 TTFM which then became Mix 1010.1 before it turned to KIIS. Andi hosted the top 40 countdown before moving to host the Long KISS Goodnight.

In this article Andi looks at how to stay well through the challenges of COVID-19.

GfK has just released a study into branding and marketing in the “New Abnormal” focusing on how COVID-19 has shifted marketing KPIs and budget

The effect of the current pandemic on station revenue continues to bite with the latest figures from Deloitte showing a drop of over $51 million in the September quarter.

In this time of Covid, where so many people are losing jobs and seeking new ones, FIVEaa Breakfast’s David & Will are giving airtime to any SA business currently looking to employ new staff.
 
On Friday Will Goodings said,

Southern Cross Media has confirmed the company's eligibility for continued support under the JobKeeper program until January next year.
 
According to SCA, ad bookings for the December quarter are stronger, and with the gradual easing of COVID-19 restrictions in Victoria, the company expects revenues to recover to a level where SCA would no longer be eligible for JobKeeper past January 3^rd.
 
Until then SCA expects to receive approximately $12 million in JobKeeper payments.
 

Seven Victorian ethnic communities will receive daily news bulletins regarding COVID-19, in their own language, broadcast on their local community radio station from next week.
 
As Victoria continues to struggle with Covid, the state government has provided funding to the National Ethnic Multicultural Broadcasters Council (NEMBC) to deliver reliable information in different languages in response to the coronavirus pandemic’s ‘second wave’ to ensure official announcements including health warnings and updates are accessible.
 

The Herald Sun is reporting (subscription required) that Melbourne’s Crocmedia offices, which include the SEN radio studio, have had a COVID-19 scare.
 
According to the Herald Sun, a SEN employee last week tested positive and all the staff at the company’s Southbank offices were ordered to get urgent testing.

Australia’s media industry continues to rebuild following the huge COVID-19 pandemic hit, reporting the second consecutive month of lower declines with a 28.4% fall in national marketer advertising expenditure in July.