“Running a TV network is a lot of fun… especially when you know it’s only for 21 days”

Russel Howcroft was yesterday inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame at a live event in Sydney for the AdNews Agency of the Year Awards.

Accepting the award from Todd Sampson, Howcroft gave a rousing speech about his years in advertising and broadcasting, including Gruen and his time as an exec at Channel 10.

Howcroft was hired for Gruen by Andrew Denton after radio chats with Virginia Trioli and ad man Harold Mitchell discussing advertising, “saying blasphemous words in the eyes of the ABC… Like Coca-Cola and Holden.” At the time he had no idea who Todd Sampson was.

From 2013 – 2017 he even became Executive General Manager of Network 10, including a brief stint as acting CEO.

“In an interesting plot twist, Lachlan Murdoch, Siobhan McKenna and James Warburton thought I should come and give them a hand at Network 10. At the time, an anonymous quote in the AFR read ‘Russel is confusing being in front of the camera with being behind it.’ Thanks Mike! Or was it Neil…” he pondered.

“It’s true I had no idea about running a TV network or life as a TV exec. But, I did have first had experience of the power of television and, what I did know was that stupidly, advertising had become separated from media.

“I also knew that I had little to no idea about how media companies worked.

“Some weeks into the job at 10 I received a call from the chairman. James would be leaving and Hamish McLennan would be coming in as CEO (yes, I was there first).

“In the meantime I had a few weeks as interim CEO. They were perhaps the best few weeks of my business life. Running a TV network is a lot of fun… especially when you know it’s only for 21 days.

“I became very well acquainted with the media side of our business. I learnt from the best sales people – thank you Lou Barrett and Peta Webster.

“Meanwhile Gruen was going from strength to strength. We even won a Logie along the way. It’s all thanks to the very talented Andrew Denton, Jon Casimir, Polly Connolly, CJZ’s Nick Murray, Will Anderson and of course Todd.”

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