ASTRA-Women in TV Breakfast, 7.30-9.00AM, 04.09.2014

Good morning and welcome to the ASTRA Women in Television Breakfast.

If you would like to access the live captions via a tablet or laptop, go to ai- live.com, click 'Join My Session', enter AUASTR0409A and click 'Go'.

SPEAKER: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the annual ASTRA Women in Television Breakfast. Please now welcome to the stage, ASTRA’s CEO, Andrew Maiden.

ANDREW MAIDEN: Ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to welcome you to the annual ASTRA Women in Television Breakfast.

I am especially pleased to welcome our three guest speakers, who you will hear from shortly, together with female leaders from the worlds of media, television and politics. Welcome too to the many women broadcasters in the room this morning, from subscription and free-to-air television.

I especially welcome an industry pioneer, Caroline Jones, who blazed a trail for women in this room, first winning a Logie Award in 1972.

(Applause)

Welcome to the many female political leaders with us today, from both sides of politics, we are joined by the state Minister for Transport, Gladys Berejiklian and the Minister for Women, Pru Goward.

(Applause)

Former Premier Kristina Keneally and former Liberal leader Kerry Chikarovski, the only women to have led political parties in NSW. Both, I’m pleased to say, regulars on subscription television screens.

(Applause)

And a former senator, once responsible for the status of women, Amanda Vanstone. Welcome too to Patrick Delany representing our major sponsors today, FOX SPORTS, without whose support this event would not be possible.

As you know, each year ASTRA contributes a portion of ticket sales to help organisations that help support women in our community.

Today I’m pleased to announce that beneficiary with be African Women

Australia, which builds the capacity of African-born women to participate in Australian civic life and to develop skills to positively develop their communities and families.

I am pleased to welcome the Chief Executive Officer of African Women Australia, Juliana Nkrumah.

Now it’s my pleasure to introduce your moderator for today, one of Australia’s leading sports broadcasters and journalists. Kelli Underwood is the first woman to call an AFL match on Australian television and has now covered 15 seasons as a radio or TV reporter, boundary rider and commentator.

She joined FOX SPORTS in 2013 as a panellist on the weekly entertainment show 'The Back Page' before moving into the co-host chair earlier this year. This morning she is your moderator, Kelli Underwood.

(Applause)

KELLI UNDERWOOD: That is the first job done – just getting up those steps. (Laughs). Thank you to Andrew, it is truly great to be here. The theme, women in media, reminds me of my very first day in television, about a decade ago in the sports department in Melbourne. I was asked, on that day, to head out to an AFL training session with a cameraman.

I jumped in the car and the cameraman turned to me and said, “Can I ask you a very personal question?” If I knew then what I know now about cameramen, I should have said no.

I said, “Sure, no worries, fire away.” He said, "Are you a natural brunette?” I said yes. He said, “You're not a blonde?” I said yes. He said, “And the boss hired you?!" Yes. He said, "Gee, then you must really know something about sports!"

That was my very first experience, and my very first day in television. Things obviously have improved quite a bit in the last decade, and to help us analyse, debate and dissect the issues facing women in television, we have assembled a first-class panel for you this morning.

Starting with someone who is a household name in Australia, for many years. From the highs of an international modelling career, she successfully made the transition into television where he currently hosts the ‘Movie Show’ on Arena.

She is also featured on FOXTEL’s Bio Channel; she has hosted several top-rating programs – the list is too long to read out – 'Location Location', 'Amazing Homes' and 'Celebrity Overhaul' among them.

She has also proven that she can adapt to the fast changing nature of media; currently overseeing a highly-successful LifeStyle website, 'Balance by Deborah

Hutton'. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Deborah Hutton.

(Applause)

While Deborah just makes her way up to the stage I will introduce our second guest. Our next guest is an Emmy award-winning journalist with NBC.

Sara James traded in the bright lights of Manhattan for the Macedon Ranges in country Victoria, moving there about seven years ago with her Australian husband and two children, two daughters

Her career in New York included stints as NBC’s foreign correspondent, filling in on the 'Today Show' for Katie Couric and newsreader, Ann Curry.

In Australia, she continues to file stories for NBC. She is also a regular contributor to ABC ‘News Breakfast’ as well as completing her latest book, 'An American in Oz'. Put your hands together for Sara James.

(Applause)

Our final panellist this morning is one of only a handful of senior female media executives in this country. Nicole Sheffield's career in television included a role as head of FOXTEL's LifeStyle Channel and LifeStyle FOOD.

She has since gone on the become the head of News Corp lifestyle division, NewsLifeMedia, where she overseas 25 magazines and websites including 'Vogue', 'GQ', the ‘Sunday’ magazine and news.com.au, which is Australia’s leading news source.

She also happens to be a mother of four. I feel exhausted just reading this out! Please welcome to the stage, Nicole Sheffield.

(Applause)

Are you right? Do you need a hand?

(Laughter)

Before we get started, we can take questions from the floor in the next 45 minutes or so, so you can tweet through your questions, jump online at #ASTRA2014. I have a snazzy iPad here. Hopefully, if it works, I should be able to read them out.

So, Deborah, we might start with you, 30 years in television, you must have started when you were about three!

(Laughter)

Is TV something... obviously, when you were a teenager you were involved in modelling, did television pursue you or did you pursue the television, how did it come about?

DEBORAH HUTTON: It’s interesting, when you are modelling, and it was only for a short time. It is a natural progression to get into doing commercials, That is your first exposure.

Funnily enough, my very first live television event was the Bicentennial of 1988, and I’m sure some of you remember that. They had the Bicentennial Wool Fashion Parade at the Opera house and I was asked to co-host that with Michael Parkinson, a big deal, Parky, I was a huge fan!

That was my first live TV. I was so nervous about the whole thing, I looked like a doll, I had silly hair and big dresses. It was a very interesting exercise – that was my first.

My very first real job was given to me by Walshy, Brian Walsh. It was to co-host a game show when ‘Midday’ legend Mike Walsh had gone over from Channel 9 to Channel 10, when he finished his ‘Midday’ show.

I was asked to be the co-host with big shoulders and big hair. It was a show called 'Super Quiz', it was a rip-off of a Bob and Dolly Dyer show, 'Pick A Box'.

Half of the room wouldn’t even know what that is, it’s all a long time ago. It was a whole thing where you had to sit there, there was ‘cones of silence’, asking questions.

Mike Walsh was great raconteur and a wonderful speaker so he couldn’t get the whole ‘you’re in a cone of silence and you’re not’...

(Laughter)

So, after all these weeks, he end up swearing so much. He rang me one day, and I wasn’t too good at twirling around and doing things to do with game show hosting. He said, "Listen, I think we should call it quits." I said, “I couldn’t agree more. Up not having much fun up here.”

We now jokingly refer to it as 'Super Quick' because it only lasted six weeks on television.

From there, it was interesting. From there, back to the era of Sam Chisholm at Channel 9. As he parted ways with Channel 9, and headed to work for Rupert on BSkyB, they got the contract for Lotto. So he dragged me in with John Mangos – news reader John Mangos – and said, “You two are doing Lotto for a year.” What?! I don’t think so!

He said, “Here is a very big cheque, you are doing it for a year.” I said, “Fine.”

There is something unnatural about talking while a ball rises every eight seconds. When that year was up I was pretty much out of there.

(Laughter)

A very strange start, but from there I went on to LifeStyle. I worked for Channel 9 for about 15 years, through different shows. It is a very blokey, still very blokey, environment, very different experience to working to FOXTEL.

When Walshy invited me to come along to join the Bio Channel, and subsequently the 'Movie Show', he said I would find it different, and I have. It is quite extraordinary working there compared to – and you would know that – compared to working in an environment where it is very inclusive. And they have a lot of women working in subscription television at FOXTEL.

I have really enjoyed the transition and Walshy is just so loyal. He still believes in someone out there, doing her thing, who is now in her 50s.

It’s great and I really enjoy it. I get to go and see latest release movies and interview people like Matt Damon and Brad Pitt, who would not love that?

It is also a very stimulating environment because there is a lot of things happening out at FOXTEL, new channels, new events, things are changing all the time and there is a lot of opportunity there.

KELLI UNDERWOOD: Sara, you have built such an impressive career in the US, but I was reading that you started off writing novels as a kid. And you’ve got your latest book out. We will get to that a little bit later. How and why TV, how did it come about?

SARA JAMES: It came about because I’ve always known I was interested in journalism. Television, to me, was exciting because it combined everything.

I wanted to go and cover things and show the pictures of what I saw. It was as simple as that.

I took a funny detour. I knew that I wanted to be a foreign correspondent. In America you do these steps, from one job in a small market to then maybe you go to a bigger one, and on you go.

So, my very first job, I was in... I was super excited because got a call from a news director. I was interviewing all over the place. It was in West Palm Beach, Florida, so I was already picturing myself under a palm tree,.

And he called and he said, "We actually don’t have anything but our sister station does.

I said, “Really, where are they?” And he said, “Tupelo, Mississippi." I actually didn't know where that was on the map. I found out pretty quickly.

I also learned that hair was important. The higher the hair, the closer to god.

(Laughter)

You bring it up and you... I worked in Tupelo for a few months and wound up back in Richmond, that was when the real bug to be a foreign correspondent hit me.

I have to say, to go serious for a moment, I’ve thought so much in recent days about James Foley and also Steven Sotloff because I was basically doing what they did.

As somebody who wants to do foreign news, you go where the foreign news is. Back in that day, I was really interested in what was happening in Nicaragua, the war between the Sandanistas and the Contras. This is not a conversation I had with my mother; she was very unhappy with my discussing my desire to go there.

So I had it with the news director, I recommended that I go and cover the war. He looked at me and said it was not technically part of my brief as the Chesterfield County reporter. So, no.

(Laughter)

I thought, what am I going to do? I went to another great woman< I went to my friend, photographer, Mary Katherine Moore?

I said, “MK, I want to go to Managua, I want to cover the war between the Sandanistas and Contras, what do you think?”

She goes, "On your own nickel?" I said, "Yes." She said, "That's crazy.” I said, “Exactly.” She said, “Good, I'm in."

(Laughter)

So off we went, on a little plane, we were in completely over our heads. We went out, into the countryside, we were stopped by gunmen. Anyway, you would think it would have reformed me, but I didn't.

The interesting fact about that, what I think I learned then, I got smarter about the kind of risks that I took. It was not a well-planned or orchestrated trip but I learned a lot from it. I learnt that taking some degree of risk is really important.

Here is how it all played out: years later I am at a newsroom in Charlotte, North Carolina. My resume had been sent to the network and I get a call from the vice president of NBC news at the time. He said, "Just checking, did you really pay your own way to a war zone?"

I said, "Yes, sir, I did." I’m from the South. You say, “Yes, sir.”

He said, "Come up on up to New York. I was the bureau chief in Florida and my brief was Managua. Let's talk about who we know." And that is how I got to NBC.

From there it was just ‘raise your hand’. So I raised my hand a lot. Starting with Somalia, “Hi, it’s christmas time, I bet some people want to come home and spend time with their families. If you need anybody, I’m in.”

Later that day somebody came to me and they said, "Have you had your shots?" That seemed a strange question; I’d only been at the network a month and my biggest story had been the Macy's Day Parade. I hadn’t realised that having a shot was something I need to have.

(Laughter)

She looked at me and she goes, “You need your shots. Go up to the 7 th Floor, get ‘em all, get Hep B, get Yellow Fever, get Malaria.”

And I was starting to pick up the clue. And she said, “You’re going to need a sleeping bag.”

That night I was on a plane to Mogadishu. That was how it worked. I didn't dress like this. The hair... the bigger the hair, the flatter the hair, that's how you know you are in a war zone. Ponytail, I was a big believer in the ponytail. That was what I did.

As you know, I married an Australian, we moved to country Australia, we are only 45 minutes from Melbourne, it works really well.

Now I have a beautiful sound booth in the shed, next to my husband's old Mustang that he bought in America and a bag of chickenfeed. And when I am narrating a piece for NBC I can go into my shed. I do this all the time.

Then, if I am actually reporting, I’m 30 minutes from Tullamarine airport, I jump on a plane and go cover the story.

If it’s just a question of the sound, I can do that from my booth. So, I am still finding a way to make it work, all these years later.

KELLI UNDERWOOD: Extraordinary stuff. Nicole, how did your move into television come about?

NICOLE SHEFFIELD: Nothing like these two ladies. Like many things, it was an accident. I had started off in a completely different profession, in Law, and I absolutely hated it.

I realised, about three months in, that I was bad at advising. Everyone was not taking advice, and I wasn’t coping so I thought I need to get into another job.

I ended up at Telstra. At the time it was a graduate program, we did lots of things. Often it is the right place at the right time, like you said, you put your hand up. They were launching a little internet service, they needed some creative people to do that. Before I knew it we were launching BigPond.

Through that, the early days, I did a lot of the buying of content and the rights deals associated with that. It was absolutely new, nobody knew what they were doing. Modems that made noises similar to my husband’s snoring. That was the internet then.

But it lead me to content. I found that I absolutely loved content.

I then joined Pacific, as the General Manager Online. Our website started to do really well and, again, my boss said, "Do you want to run some of the magazines as well, be publisher?"

I had eight great years there and learned a lot. Launched at lot of magazines and websites, had a lot of fun. Seven then brought us. The Seven group is incredibly close, you get to meet a lot of people, had a bit of fun with the 'Sunrise' team. Certainly got a taste of it.

Once the digital assets at Pacific were part of Yahoo 7, and not part of the remit any more... I’ve always thought, I’ve always had a mantra: you have got to stay close to your customer. Whether it’s your viewer, your reader, whether it’s your user online, you absolutely have to breathe what they are breathing.

There is nothing more instantaneous, whether it is social now, or digital, you know exactly how they are feeling, so you can create content right now that inspires them.

When I got a call about the LifeStyle Channels, and I knew they’d been looking for a while, they said, "We know you don't know TV, but we have got this channel, called the LifeStyle Channel, which is great. We have LifeStyle FOOD, just launched and it needs a bit of work and we have sort of seen what you are doing in brands...."

The first thing I said, "Do you own your URL, do you own your website?” They said, “Yeah, we kind of do.” I was like, “OK. Let me have a conversation.”

It was funny... They left that they were in North Ryde up until the very last

interview – they dragged you in!

(Laughter)

Which actually works for me, not that far from my house. I had absolutely no idea when I went into that journey.

At that time, it was 2007, it was not a logical choice, there was a lot of people ringing me up saying, "What are you doing?! Pay TV, it's small, what is going on, blah, blah, blah. You have got 150 people, all these big magazines, 'Better Homes and Gardens', blah, blah, blah."

I said, "Don't you understand, the future is video content, and how that content is created, and I have got an opportunity to learn and build something."

Of course, as Deborah said, FOXTEL has been amazing about launching channels, taking risks. On that journey we launched LifeStyle YOU. That was amazing and I remember when they said, "It's good that you are a girl, because we want a female channel." I said, “OK, great, let’s talk about that for a minute.”

There are lots of friends in the audience who will remember when we launched LifeStyle YOU, Hannah Barnes, Sarah Kenny. We are sitting there looking at the schedule, the guys had come and shown us the schedule which was yoga in the morning and lots of make-over shows.

We were like, no, no, no, no, no, 'Toddlers and Tiaras', 'Big Fat Gypsy Wedding', you want women to grab that remote? They need guilty pleasures. We had a lot of fun.

And that’s the wonderful thing about television. It’ instantaneous, and you can connect. When you add social and digital to that it is the perfect combination.

It was an unusual way to get into television but I am still passionate.

I sent an email, the other day, to Walshy. I said I love 'Village Vets', fantastic show, I have six outlets, what was I thinking?! Everyone seems to want another FOXTEL... go in the other room.

KELLI UNDERWOOD: So Sara, you have lived here for seven or eight years, is Australia on par with the US when it comes to the treatment of women and opportunities in the TV industry?

SARA JAMES: I think both the US and Australia still have a long way to go, truthfully, we are still not where we need to be. The Chairman of NBC Universal, the news group, is a woman. The president of NBC News is a woman. These are great changes, it is good to see women not just in front of the camera, not just in producing

positions but also in leadership positions – that is super, super important.

And there could be more of that here in Australia. There are plenty. So, it is thrilling to be with these two women that are doing these kinds of things, that is important.

It is very interesting, I will give you a small anecdote, the Women's Media Centre in the US, which is terrific on this. And if you go in, have a look at what they’ve done; it was started by Jane Fonda and Gloria Stand others. Basically what they are doing, they are doing accountability. Let's look at the numbers, wow, 30- some% of women on TV. We are 50% of the population. We are not represented that way in terms of television.

They also looked at some of the other aspects, for example, what they noticed with the 'New York Times' – the ‘paper of record’, ‘all the news that’s fit to print’ – on the front page, what they noticed that it is three times more likely to be a man who is quoted.

And this is interesting, when a woman was writing the story it was still more likely to be a man but it dropped to two times. What you see is that we see the world differently. We have a lens to open up, and look at more broadly, bringing diversity into the workplace, and you see diversity on your television set.

I am absolutely passionate that we have to do that. For example, there was another show, and this one I’m proud of on MSNBC, a Sunday show that kicked goals in terms of the number of people that they have representing women, minorities, all of that. That’s what we need to see more of – we need to change the way it looks on television.

That is universal and we still have room to grow. And we have plenty... We have a deep, deep bench, and we need to take some people off the bench and put them in the game.

KELLI UNDERWOOD: You raise a good point about females at the executive level, we are seeing a lot more females on pay TV. Like Deborah; and I know in my field of sports broadcasting, more and more women are getting involved. At an executive level there is hardly any women at the level you are. Why do you think that is? Are there barriers there?

NICOLE SHEFFIELD: Look, there’s lots of reasons. There are a lot of barriers. I mean, I think that... and I’m particularly passionate about this. I think the biggest challenge we have as a country, and it is quite unique to us, is that we lose females from the workforce between the ages of 30 and 40, and why is that? Because of the cost of child care.

And, you know, and the challenge that we have in this country is that if we don't

make it more affordable for women to actually stay with their careers, you know, whether it’s Sheryl Sandberg’s 'Lean In', and you agree with that, but at the end of the day it’s actually about making it as easy for women as possible to still be part of corporate life.

Because corporate life moves very quickly, and especially executive life, and you do have relationships, relationships change, you need to keep all those. You know, you need to keep networking and being in the game. I mean, I was very, very fortunate, I stayed in my role, but every one of my maternity leaves I went back after three months and every time... but I was able to go back part-time, and I was able to do that and balance my family.

And I think until we actually face that big issue we lose too many talented people. Look, I have many wonderful friends, armies of women that help me in all sorts of ways. But they’ll often say, when they’ve had five or ten years, going back is incredibly difficult and challenging.

Especially at the pace the world moves at today. Personally, I think that’s one of the bigger issues. I mean, definitely, networking, relationships, the opportunities... but to be honest, in the News Corp executives now half our executive team are females. And they’re driving big business choices.

So, I mean, I’ve seen massive change in the two and a half years I’ve been there. The best people will get the job, and the best people are often the women.

But, you know, we’ve got work-life balance, we’ve got all these things and so we’re better at trying to juggle. And then we’re better at going, “Oh, maybe not.” I would say, I always push, push, push – go on, give it a go.

KELLI UNDERWOOD: So to all three of you, do you think the shortage of female executives in the television industry has an effect on content? In other words, if there were more women at executive level would we be seeing different content on our television screens?

It’s an interesting one, isn’t it?

DEBORAH HUTTON: Look, I think it’s really broadened out, I think, we’re talking about... The game of television’s changed enormously I think because there’s so many new platforms for distribution. So you’re competing much more broadly than you ever used to. And I think when you look at it it’s about really trying to... and we can actually define what our audience is. I mean, the consumer has the power like they’ve never had before.

And so it’s about engaging with your specific target market, but very focused on what can be delivered. And this is a bit of a thing about subscription television is we have the opportunity where we can sort of open it. And also just going into

the digital platforms, it’s creating something that is very specific for the people that you want to talk to.

So I think it’s, in some respects it’s a broader opportunity if you really want to embrace it and understand who you want to talk to, I think. And bringing more women into it, absolutely, because I totally agree.

There’s a vast difference between men and women and the way we think. And there’s nothing wrong with that, and that’s why I think when you’ve sort of got an equal part coming together it’s the perfect outcome.

But we do think much more broadly, and I think having that and giving wherever we can and seeing opportunities and grabbing them I think really will help the industry going forward, without a doubt.

KELLI UNDERWOOD: And change is the theme of today’s ASTRA conference.

DEBORAH HUTTON: Yeah.

KELLI UNDERWOOD: I’m interested in your career and how much you feel like you’ve had to adapt to the changing nature of the media - as we said, it’s 30 years in television – to keep up, or to keep ahead of the game?

DEBORAH HUTTON: Look, I think, it’s interesting. You know, I make a very plain fact that being in your 50s is great, I think it’s a very empowering time. But it’s also... you know, I’ve never been in the hot seat, I’ve never been a news reader or I’ve not been the morning show host, I’m not the funny chick on the panel. I’m a television presenter. Albeit a polished one, ‘cause I’ve learnt skills well.

And I know that that, you know, there’s a clock ticking, it’s digital, it’s silent, but it's still there – but I know that you can’t keep on doing that.

So for me, I really had to think about what I wanted to do for the future. And I realise that over the 30 years, and working in print media as I did for Women’s Weekly for about 12 years, and also through television, that I’ve gained a lot of skills and a lot knowledge in that time. And it was about how do I embrace what I know and create something, for me, for the future?

And of course, with the whole digital age and all these new platforms, it was a chance, and I wanted to connect with women my age that are going through an enormous period of change, physically and emotionally. And it is a time, I think... and to your point, Nicole, coming back into the workforce, I mean, this is the women I’m talking to, they’ve had babies, they want to do something for myself

in the future. We’re living longer. What do we want to do, how can we empower ourselves to really embrace our future?

I faced the same thing. And I think that’s when I went, OK, I want to talk to women my age, and what do I want to talk to them about? Things that are really giving them insightful advice and inspiring them to be a better version of themselves going forward, and so I created ‘Balance by Deborah Hutton’.

Honestly, it’s fantastic. My business partner’s here, I call her the brains and I’m the brand, but we set up, you know, we bought three Canon cameras, I’ve got LED lighting, I’ve got a studio in my lounge room, and I now interview amazing, inspiring, successful people, not so much about what they’ve done but how they do it. I want advice, ‘cause I believe that’s how we learn is we learn from others.

So this is what it is. And it’s a sort of a social environment, getting back to the point about being very targeted to your target market and being focused on that. So now I’m in the business of creating content for women north of 40, which is a lovely place to be, about sort of giving them advice about the future.

So for me it’s about putting your big girl’s britches on and just going out there and having a go.

KELLI UNDERWOOD: And Nicole, your business is going through a massive change as well. I know Taste.com.au is probably a classic example of that, it’s your baby, been your baby, in a sense, but tell us about, you know, the digital world and how quickly it’s moving and what sort of change that’s going through.

NICOLE SHEFFIELD: Well, it’s funny, when I started at NewsLifeMedia, I went there and... when we were at LifeStyle Channels, I should say, when we had Lifestyle FOOD, we loved that website and we worked really hard to build that website, and it had fantastic engagement with the TV viewers, Foxtel subscribers, but we used to always go, “Oh my god, look at Taste,” ‘cause it was this juggernaut.

So when I joined NewsLifeMedia I was like, “Oh my god, who runs Taste? What’s going on with Taste?” And they were like, “What about Vogue? What about Delicious? Donna Hay?” “Taste, Taste, Taste.”

And it was an eye-opener to me, because often when you’re working on something you have a perception of what is valuable versus when you’re on the outside looking in.

And so, with Taste, that’s actually been an amazing transformation over the last two and a half years. A lot of work has gone into that. We’ve turned that business around, and we’ve turned it around because we actually made content king.

And, you know what? That content, because it comes from magazines, is triple tested recipes, that is highly valuable, and what we’ve gone, and this is boring, but we’ve tagged every recipe by ingredient level. So what that means is that you can now plan your meals by nutritional level. You can, you know, if you’re walking in your Coles supermarket aisle, it’ll give you a Campbell's stock recipe that will work, and there’s your Campbell’s soup.

We’ve totally changed it so that content now is actually helping people make food decisions, health decisions, dietary decisions, but also actually purchase decisions.

And that’s actually been a fundamental shift, but it’s actually about going back to, "What is the most valuable piece of content that we have?" And that is expert content. And that’s what people trust. And they engage with people, whether it’s entertaining, or, you know... with News.com.au we’re always talking about, we’ve either got to inform them or distract them, you know?

And so it’s kind of, for us, Taste has been a massive transmission. So has Vogue. But it’s all about looking at that content. And also looking at partnerships, and we have many great partners, especially on the channels, that allow us to look at video content, and allow us to share data and insights, and all that means is we’re just producing, I think, far superior content in this country than I think in a lot of the rest of the world.

Because we actually, you know, we’ve got a great aesthetic, and it doesn't matter if it’s food or it’s homes, the rest of the world looks to us and goes, “Oh my,” you know? And it’s so easy now. We don't have to send a magazine for three months overseas to subscribe to an Australian product. Donna Hay I think has something like, you know, 20% of her subscribers are international. And now with digital editions, it’s just on Newsstand, you go into Apple and bang, I’ve got the copy straight away.

And so that opens up a whole different way of thinking about content, but it also means that, you know, it’s a struggle. ‘Cause all of a sudden you’re not publishing once a month, you’re not creating a program one series at a time, you’re actually publishing four, five times a day, you’re socially looking at how you’re engaging with that content and sharing that. And that’s a challenge. But it makes it really exciting.

KELLI UNDERWOOD: To any of you, have you had a moment throughout your career where gender’s been an issue? Where, you know, you’ve sort of found yourself not being taken seriously because you are in a blokey situation, or on the flipside, it’s been of great benefit, where you’ve been in a situation and thought, “Well, because I’m a woman I’ve got an advantage here.”

SARA JAMES: I definitely think, certainly when I started in the industry there’s no question that

gender was an issue. And I remember, we were all very conscious of that. To give you an example, I mean, I went to the University of Virginia for my education, and it’s a public university, it ranks really high across the United States in terms of how it does, and it had only allowed women to attend this public, paid for by taxpayers university for nine years prior to when I started.

So we were really on that kind of cutting edge of women are finally getting these opportunities, and we felt like we had sort of an obligation and a huge desire to take advantage of these opportunities. And there’s no question that gender was in the equation.

So here's what happened. There was a book out at the time, and it is just...go for a laugh and have a look. It was called 'Dress for Success'. And I’m telling you why. I dressed for success, so, I mean, there were a lot of shoulder pads. Right?

DEBORAH HUTTON: We are the ‘80s, right?

SARA JAMES: We are the ‘80s. We’re the ‘80s girls.

OK, so, in the ‘80s, I remember a photographer one time, he looked at me and he said... and I said, “Are they a bit big?” and he goes, "No, no, no, but when are you trying out for the Chicago Bears, you’re a linebacker, right?" So, “All right, all right, OK, they’re big.”

So it was that. So, you know, how blokey. We had these big jackets, I mean, go look at an ‘80s movie and just laugh your head off. But I even had a bowtie. I mean, how sad and tragic! And the worst part was I looked good. I looked in the mirror and I thought I looked good. Like, with a tuxedo top. I don’t know, it was awful. Anyway, we survived.

DEBORAH HUTTON: It was a period.

SARA JAMES: It was a period.

But the whole point was, we thought we had to dress like a man even if we were a woman. And that’s just wrong. That’s just crazy.

DEBORAH HUTTON: Remember the shoulder pads that came in the can?

SARA JAMES: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, god, I had those. Yeah, you could double up.

(Laughter)

You know, if they weren’t big enough. DEBORAH HUTTON: That’s right. (Laughs)

SARA JAMES: I mean, you know, you just kept moving north, right?

(Laughter)

The whole thing, the other thing I was going to say, about, you know, because we are both from... you know, we started in the 1980s. And one of the other things I would say about that, and this is where I do think the United States is doing pretty well, if you look at American television you’re gonna see a fair few women who... you know, my friend Katie Couric who’s, I think she’s 57 or 58, who knows, but anyway. Diane Sawyer I think is around 68, et cetera.

I mean, Barbara Walters, who just retired. These are women who have incredible journalistic experience. Who are absolutely so smart, and just as good at their game as they have ever been, and they are still doing well, you know, and it’s up to them if they want to cash in their chips or start something else, like Katie did, where she, you know, started her own show.

That kind of thing, you know, the world is their oyster.

And I think, finally, I would just say, gender is really interesting. One brief story. Some years ago in a totally different industry, in music, orchestras were really uneven, way more men than women. They started having auditions with a screen. So the musician was behind the screen. And in a shockingly short period of time, orchestras were about 50-50. The women had always been as good, they just looked at some of these positions and they thought it needed to be a man.

So we really do need to change some of our thinking about this. And not be fooled into believing that gender isn’t part of the equation, because it is.

NICOLE SHEFFIELD: I definitely find that. I think particularly in this country. It’s interesting, when we used to go over for MIP, it kind of would freak me out. We’d run around MIP and we’d meet a lot of the other executives, and, you know, especially in Europe, a lot of them are women. You’d go back, you’d realise, it’s only looking at that, “Oh, in Australia, it’s really different.”

‘Cause we don’t, you know, it’s hard to run into other executives buying programs that are women. I mean, that’s changing now, definitely, but I think Australia’s still got a long way to go.

DEBORAH HUTTON:

But it’s really changing in this environment much more than it is free-to-air. You’d have to agree with that.

NICOLE SHEFFIELD: Yeah, totally.

SARA JAMES: Definitely.

DEBORAH HUTTON: Because the powers that be haven’t really changed in that area for decades.

Just sayin’!

(Laughter)

KELLI UNDERWOOD: What about the personal cost? All three highly successful careers, the personal cost, I guess, with you Sara, you’ve got two daughters, one, Jacqui, has special needs and you detailed that beautifully in an ‘Australian Story’ episode last year on the ABC. What sort of impact has that had on your career?

SARA JAMES: Oh, well, I think it certainly has. I mean, if you have a child with complex... Well, first of all, if you have children, automatically, I mean, you have children, you know, once you have kids that you just have to fit them into the algorithm. And you can absolutely do it, but you know, you sort of fiddle with the pieces and it always involves help, it just does.

Whether that be parents or babysitters, nannies, neighbours, other mums picking up from school, because they’re kids, they need to have their needs met too. So you work out... and a lot of women do it in a lot of different ways, and I’m hugely supportive of the range of ways in which this can be done.

When you have a child who has, as is the case of our younger daughter, fairly complicated needs, which thankfully are getting much better and easier over time, then I think it is a pretty radically different situation.

And it, for me it really became apparent when she was three and a half and we moved over here. We needed to just, I needed to bring it down for a little bit and really pay attention. Because I just didn’t want to wake up and have her be 15 and say, "We could have done more."

Because I knew it was going to be hard, and I knew it was a detour. But I didn’t know where we were going or what it was going to entail.

But after some years of doing that, I knew something else that was just as true, which was I had always kept, you know, a paw in, but it was just that. It wasn’t my... I wasn't at 20%, I wasn't at 30%, but I kept my chip in.

I remember calling a girlfriend of mine in America, and she goes, "Just checking, just checking, when was the last time you were on NBC?" And I said something rude back to her. (Laughs)

May have called her a name. I said, “It’s been a while.” She goes, “It’s been a year.” I said, “How can you know that? Why are you paying attention?” She goes, " Because I know you still enjoy it."

So what I did was, I went to New York, I had a trip coming up anyway. And I knew I was ready to flip the sign open and say, “Open for business,” so what do you do? I had a party. I had a fabulous party, a couple blocks from 30 Rock, I bought a new, great dress, a killer pair of boots, I invited everybody I knew. I was sitting there five minutes before going, “No one’s gonna come!” You know, freaking out. Everybody came.

I invited all my old bosses, and two weeks later, there was an earthquake in Christchurch, my phone rang, and I was back. So, you know, it is, you can.

And then it was kind of cobbling together a kind of career which works for me now, where given the geography, because I’m a kind of a little bit of a way from 30 Rock, and the fact that I wanted to do things slightly differently.

Now I do my piece on the ABC fortnightly, I do my NBC work, I write, and I’ve put something together that suits me. It is not one size fits all, and it is not necessarily that you wear your whole life. It’s OK to change and alter as circumstances in your own life have changed. That’s my feeling.

KELLI UNDERWOOD: We’ve only got a few minutes left. I just get the feeling we could sit here all day and still be here at dinner time. Nicole, you oversee 400 employees, and you’ve got four kids.

NICOLE SHEFFIELD: Yep.

KELLI UNDERWOOD: What’s harder?

NICOLE SHEFFIELD: Oh, my mother. My mother. Yeah, yeah.

(Laughter)

Really, she’s always the problem. I love her dearly.

But, look, you know what? I absolutely... everything Sara said is absolutely correct. You know, you have to just work out what’s right for you, sometimes the pendulum swings and it’s all about work, and then you do have incredible guilt and you need to kind of recalibrate. And other times, you’ve kind of... the family’s humming and they’re getting their homework done and life’s looking good, but work’s a nightmare and I’ve got to get focused on that again.

You know, there is no rhyme or reason, it is really hard, I think, you know, I don’t like to say that you ever get... a balance is I think a utopia. It’s always good to have one.

(Laughter)

But, for me, you know, nothing’s easy, but I don’t think anything these days should be. You know, it is easy for anyone, whether you’ve got 400, or four, or you’ve got however many, one child or four, it’s sort of... it is all about what works for you.

For us it’s a fun ride. And look, the first year, I have to say, you know, I mean, I miss Foxtel a lot, but I really missed it the first year, when I was at News, because when you’re going into such a crazy job with, you know, a lot of restructuring and things, there’s definitely a toll that that takes.

I’ve got, you know, you also have to have a great support network, and I’m really lucky. My husband is great. Not as great as he thinks he is, but anyway.

(Laughter)

And I’ve got, you know, a mother who’s very informative.

(Laughter)

And a great mother-in-law, and you know what, and finally a great nanny, which I have to say I’ve always kind of gone, “Oh, I’ll do the juggling act,” et cetera. There is something really nice when you have someone that the kids trust and is part of their lives. But also, you know, you can ring up and go, “Oh, I’m gonna be another hour, I’m really sorry, what’s the lowdown?” And they’ll go, “Oh, Max has just stepped on a bee, so you better make that 15 minutes, ‘cause he’s having a meltdown.” And you, “Awesome. OK, guys, I’m outta here.”

And, you know, and like, in our workplace too, I work with a lot of women, exec team’s women, so you know what? We all help each other. You can easily say, and people will say, “You know what, I’ve got this crisis,” so I’m like, “Stay at home, you work from home,” it’s easy. Work it out.

You know, you just have to make it work.

KELLI UNDERWOOD: We are filming this this morning, so good morning to Nicole’s husband and mother out there.

(Laughter)

We’ll send them a DVD in the post.

Deborah, is it all or nothing in TV for women, a lot of women feel this constant need to prove themselves, so it’s all-encompassing, they can’t switch off. Were you like that initially? How do you sort of go about finding a balance?

DEBORAH HUTTON: Look, I think that’s partially true. Because I’ve sort of worked across sort of different mediums, I’ve never really sort of been too focused on one thing, and I’ve had some, a lot of juggling over the years, for obviously print media, television and a lot of ambassadorial roles, for lack of a better word, with Qantas and the like.

So for me I’ve been very fortunate, because I’ve had the variety that has really allowed me to sort of, I suppose, hone skills in different areas, and that’s been quite good. But it’s... you can’t take it too seriously.

I mean, it’s, it really is something where you absolutely need a sense of humour in this business. You do have to have good people around you. I think it’s also important, I think, to have people around you who really believe in you.

Because sometimes, what happens with women is we want to do it all but we just lack a little self-belief sometimes, particularly with starting a new venture or going into a new job, and we don’t put our hand up if we don’t think we can do nine out of ten things right. Whereas a guy’ll go, “I got four out of ten, I’m going for it.”

So I think, you know, it’s important, for me I think it’s important to have people around you that believe in you, a good support system, a great sense of humour, you need vision, you really want to know what you want to achieve. Because you can if you believe it, you can do it and you will do it.

And I think the world is there for us to go and grab it by the balls. And that’s why I’ve got this.

(Laughter)

And I want to thank Patrick Delaney, because I love this. Also because the Sydney Swans, I just have to say, are playing in their first final on the weekend. Thanks to FOX FOOTY, my favourite channel. Other than the Foxtel 'Movie Show'.

So now I’ve lost complete train of thought, but...

KELLI UNDERWOOD: No, look, you know what? "Grab it by the balls," I think that’s a good way to finish here this morning. Before we let you all go, Sara, you’ve got a brand new book out, 'An American in Oz'.

SARA JAMES: Oh, thanks.

KELLI UNDERWOOD: Where can we get hold of it, where can we find it?

SARA JAMES: Oh, it’s in stores. I saw it at Watermark at the airport when I was flying in, ‘cause it’s in Qantas this month, which is exciting. And I think most bookstores. It’s an Allen & Unwin book, and just came out, and yeah, I’m excited about it. Just got picked by Library of Victoria for one of their ten summer reads, so I’m super excited.

KELLI UNDERWOOD: Congratulations.

DEBORAH HUTTON: Can I interview you for Balance?

SARA JAMES: Yes, oh, yes, I love how this works!

KELLI UNDERWOOD: Just leave us, we’ll just continue our own work here.

SARA JAMES: I was just thinking the same. I was thinking the same.

KELLI UNDERWOOD: Yeah, OK.

Thank you so much for giving up your time, we know that you’ve all got ridiculously busy schedules. And we’ve really loved and appreciated the insight this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together, Deborah Hutton, Sara James and Nicole Sheffield.

DEBORAH HUTTON: Pleasure. Thank you.

(Applause)

KELLI UNDERWOOD: That pretty much wraps up our breakfast this morning. So I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself, enjoyed a coffee or two, it has been an early start, we’ll let you get on with the rest of your day. Thanks again.

(Applause)

SPEAKER: Thank you ladies and gentlemen. We hope you enjoyed this morning’s session. For those of you attending the conference that have not already registered and collected your programs, please do so at the registration desk one level down.

Thank you, and please enjoy the rest of your day.