DIGITAL MEDIA

As the son of a farmer from drought-ravished south-western NSW, Richard Freudenstein has seen first hand the effects that a changing climate can have on ordinary Australians. So it’s not surprising to hear that he was the driving force behind creating the world’s first carbon-neutral media company at News Corporation’s UK pay TV operation British Sky Broadcasting (Sky).

It’s possible also that some of that passion for the environment rubbed off on News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch, who earlier this month announced that he would take the entire global organisation down the carbon-neutral path by 2010.

Since returning to Australia late last year to become the chief executive officer at News Limited’s Australian interactive division, News Digital Media, Freudenstein has lost none of his empathy for the environment.

He sees the environment as an especially important issue at News Digital Media, whose predominantly young staff will have to spend a lot longer on this planet than the generation they are replacing. Freudenstein, 41, drives a Toyota Prius petrol-electric hybrid car, while his wife drives an equivalent vehicle from Lexus.

But helping to save the world is just one of Freudenstein’s challenges, having taken on the interactive Australian media business that has ground to make up in terms of its competitive positioning.

Creating environments

Although not willing to be drawn on how much money the group is making (and shaking his head to BRW’s estimate of $34m), Freudenstein says the revenues for last year “way, way outperformed the market” in terms of percentage growth in revenue.

“And we’ll do the same again this year,” he adds. “We started from a lower base than some of them, but we are rapidly catching up.”

Freudenstein believes News Digital Media has several inherent advantages though. The first is in the wealth of experience the parent company has across many facets of so-called traditional media.

“There’s been a real change of mindset in the past 12 months about how the newspapers regard online – they now regard it as a core part of their business,” Freudenstein says. “The masthead websites are run by the editors, and they are absolutely committed to driving both the print product and the online product,” he says.

“We have this core ability at News Corp around the world to understand what customers want and deliver it to them, whether it is newspapers, pay TV, free to air television or online. And it’s about that expertise in creating environments where people want to spend time.”

The second advantage comes from the company’s willingness to take risks and invest in new fields, as witnessed by its US$580million (A$687.7m) purchase of the youth-oriented social networking service MySpace in July 2005.

“I don’t think it is good enough just to take our print businesses and make them successful online businesses,” Freudenstein says. “We’ve got to grow the revenue stream and profitability by expanding into other associated areas where News can add value.”

Right place, right time

News’ local search service, truelocal.com.au, will be a focus for that growth, leveraging News’ 120 community newspapers around Australia that reach six million people each week. Freudenstein says new investments will include making the classified sites “stickier”. The company has so far made only one acquisition, the online ticketing agency Moshtix, but more will be considered.

Freudenstein has developed a knack of finding roles at pivotal moments of the evolution of media. He had spent seven years in the UK with Sky, six of them as chief operating officer, and prior to that had worked in a number of senior roles at Foxtel in Australia.

The result, he says, is that he brings broad experience in the media and managing people to the role, along with a deep understanding of video. Not surprisingly, and as with all media portals today, Freudenstein sees a strong role for video at News Digital Media, and is busily putting video journalists in place and training its print journalists in video production techniques.

“I’ve always been looking towards the future and looking towards innovation and thinking creatively about what’s next. There’s going to be another innovation in three or four year’s time, and who knows what that will be - you’ve got to be ready to change.”

Keeping a low profile

Of all of the new executives appointed last year. Freudenstein has been the most low key, leaving much of the public facing work to chief operating officer Nick Leeder.

“He has a very strong reputation as a leader and manager,” Leeder says. “His appointment as CEO of News Digital Media reflects the determination News Corporation has to building our digital assets here in Australia.”

Freudenstein’s deliberately low-profile approach has led him becoming something of a mystery man in Australia’s interactive marketing sector, with few of his peers having spent much time with him. The head of content for the pay TV advertising group MCn, Rob Leach, worked with Freudenstein at Sky in the UK. Leach says he carried a reputation as a bright, shrewd and solid operator, as well as being a good media man.

“He gets it,” Leach says. “He led Sky through probably its most successful and challenging period with all of the digital innovations. And he is a very calm, easy bloke to get along with. And I know the Murdoch clan have huge respect for Fruedy.”

Freudenstein’s decision to return to Australia was driven partly by family reasons, but doing so could have almost been seen as a backwards step, as he moved from an organisation of 8000 people to one in the low hundreds, albeit with strong growth potential. But by coming back to Australia he brought a wealth of knowledge from a market that by all measures is more advanced in its uptake of digital marketing.

“Australia is behind the UK, definitely, but we’re finding a lot of the advertisers and advertising agencies really want to embrace this.

“And our job is to explain it, so we’ve put together a strong strategy group to explain what is happening, rather than just sell.”

Richard Freudenstein CV

1989 - 1994 Corporate lawyer in Sydney and New York

1994 - 1999 Senior manager FOXTEL

2000 - October 2006 Chief operating officer, British Sky Broadcasting

October 2006 - today Chief executive officer, News Digital Media

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