Justin Milne backed Kylie campaign for ABC

Former ABC Chairman Justin Milne thought an advertising campaign with Kylie Minogue singing about the broadcaster would be “cool,” Fairfax reports today.

But the idea, which carried a $750,000 fee to Kylie, caused Michelle Guthrie to “hit the roof.”

Milne has denied having knowledge about how much it would cost or pushing it on ABC management.

“It wasn’t my idea,” he told Fairfax Media. “An emotional campaign with Kylie singing a song … I thought that could be cool.”

ABC recently launched an ABC Yours campaign with leading Australian celebrities reminiscing about the broadcaster.

Several sources confirmed the cost of the campaign was about $3 million, including $750,000 for Minogue.

Staff at the ABC suggested a $3 million advertising campaign starring Minogue would have raised eyebrows in newsrooms given the broadcaster had shed about 1000 jobs since 2014.

Updated: Mushroom founder Michael Gudinski told the Herald Sun, “We were having discussions with the ABC about a televised concert, which actually isn’t happening now as the timing didn’t work out. But there was never one single conversation about money. She was doing it for nothing. There was never a fee mentioned in any discussions we had about the show for the ABC. And there was never any talk of her being paid to do any promotion. Where they have got this figure of a $750,000 fee from I don’t know.”

“In any creative process all sorts of ideas are tossed around,”an ABC spokesperson said. “The $750,000 figure which has been reported today was not a fee but a preliminary estimate of production costs for a potential project which never went ahead. At no point did the ABC discuss any payment with Ms Minogue.”