The 32nd annual London International Award winners have been announced.

This year, Australia brought home 70 of the coveted LIA statues - 23 Gold, 23 Silver and 24 Bronze.

In total 820 LIA statues, in addition to finalists, were awarded from 40 countries with Australia ranking #3. The top countries were United States (209), United Kingdom (95), Australia (70), Germany (66) and Japan (59).

The Studio from SCA Perth, took out two Silver awards in the Radio & Audio category for:

Mariam Belle is the recipient of the 2017 graduate internship.

Reporting a 7% fall in revenues at yesterday's SCA Media Group AGM, CEO Grant Blackley cited an Australian media industry 'subject to challenging trading environments,' and a subdued metropolitan radio market. 

Media companies size each other up over new ownership rules. 

Kim Norman has been appointed Sales Director at SCA's PodcastOne Australia.

A Sales Executive for Austereo almost 10 years ago, Kim returns to SCA, most recently from HT&E’s AdShel where she was State Sales Manager for NSW & ACT. 

In her new role, Kim will be responsible for driving the strategy and execution of commercialising SCA’s audio on demand business PodcastOne.  In particular, she will be focusing on growing PodcastOne’s sales foundation partners.

Following SCA's digital brand alignment of the Triple M and Hit Networks on July 1, SCA's digital stations will now be automatically included in all Metro FM radio campaigns.

Now that the media laws reforms have passed the Senate and look set to pass the House of Reps next week, media CEOs are all thinkinng about how things will change.

They discussed the possible deals and implications of the reforms in a panel session at Radfio Alive today:

SCA’s Grant Blackley: These changes give the industry a chance to consider mergers and acquisitions that have not been possible for 20 years. We are all wondering what will be the benefits and challenges of that. Potentially there will be some consolidation.

SCA has issued an extended statement relating to ongoing disruptions to Ray Hadley's Triple M broadcast about a local court case in Orange: 

'On several occasions this week as a result of legal advice SCA has decided not to broadcast parts of the program.  These decisions were based solely on legal advice and were not influenced by any commercial considerations, including the fact that West Orange Motors has a commercial relationship with SCA. Attempts to frame this issue as one of censorship and free speech are misleading.

Creina Chapman, Head of Regulatory Affairs and Corporate Communications at Southern Cross Austereo has been appointed to the SCA Leadership Group.
 
Creina joined SCA in 2015 with extensive media and political experience gained from positions at News Corp, Nine Network and Senior Adviser roles in Federal Election campaigns and to Federal Ministers including Joe Hockey and Richard Alston.