How Australian broadcast media has shaped the cost of living crisis narrative
The story around supermarket prices has been evolving for a number of months, finally reaching an inflection point as the Woolworth’s CEO appeared in a challenging interview with Four Corners and then announced his upcoming retirement only two days later.This chain of events underscores the critical importance of understanding the connections made by broadcast media, as they can significantly influence public perceptions and shape the narrative surrounding key industry players.
It was only the latest in a series of media items to seize Australia’s attention, and cast the nation’s supermarkets into something of a PR and Comms crisis.
And yet, viewing events through this framing also only gives a partial picture. As the discussion surrounding the impact of supermarkets on the rising cost of living intensifies, we’ve observed a notable surge in the usage of terms such as ‘shrinkflation’ and ‘skimpflation’. Reaching back even further, we can see how the topics attained a gradually greater place on Australian news and social channels. Shrinkflation and skimpflation are tactics employed by supermarkets during economic challenges. Shrinkflation involves reducing product sizes while maintaining prices, subtly passing on costs to consumers. Skimpflation maintains product sizes but compromises on quality to preserve profit margins. These strategies often frustrate supermarket shoppers, especially during economic strains like inflation.
Clearly, the topic has become ubiquitous. But if we want to understand how information and perceptions have been communicated to mainstream Australian audiences, then it becomes vitally important to pay particular attention to broadcast media.
Broadcast media (which includes television, radio and podcasts) plays a pivotal role in shaping public discourse and influencing perceptions, particularly on pressing issues such as the cost of living crisis.
Using Isentia to monitor these data sources, we gain valuable insights into their contribution to consumer attitudes. From identifying which organisations are most associated with the issue to pinpointing key public figures and preferred channels within radio and TV, broadcast media monitoring allows us to understand the complex dynamics that shape public opinion.
It’s the oldest of these media types which accounts for the most mentions of the supermarket crisis. Beyond reporting updates on the senate inquiry and government actions, radio excels in facilitating in-depth conversations between hosts and listeners, which surfaces more individual consumer stories than television or podcasts can match.
ABC’s predominant coverage of the topic corresponds with the network’s content strategy. Major programs such as the Supermarket Four Corners special and podcasts like The Briefing attract substantial listenership and garner attention from other channels. Channel 7, in addition to delivering key news updates, focuses on the shopper experience within supermarkets, shedding light on everyday challenges faced by audiences, such as navigating shrinkflation and skimpflation tactics.
Understanding the majority share of broadcast channels within this topic is important as it reflects who has the loudest voice, and is most persistently advancing a certain narrative or way of framing the situation.
Coles and Woolworths dominate the conversation, reflecting their prominent presence in the retail landscape. Their widespread accessibility and familiarity to consumers make them prime subjects for discussion in the context of rising costs and economic pressures.
Conversely, Aldi and IGA, while still significant players in the grocery market, may receive comparatively less focus in these discussions. Aldi’s reputation for offering lower-priced alternatives and IGA’s decentralised business model, with independently owned stores, may also contribute to their reduced presence in conversations about supermarket practices during times of economic strain.
Each channel and network approaches discussions about supermarket groups differently. While Coles and Woolworths understandably dominate each station’s broadcasts, the precise balance (and the time afforded to Adi and IGA) is revealing.
For instance, 4BC has encouraged audiences to diversify their shopping habits, with one 4BC broadcaster highlighting that “Aldi and IGA are actually doing more than the other two to really help enormously with the cost of living.”
In the discourse on supermarket practices during the cost of living crisis, a number key figures emerge across broadcast channels. Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister, is predictably prominent on just about every channel, particularly broadcaster 2SM.
All of them, that is, apart from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), which spotlights Allan Fels, an economist and former ACCC chair who has analysed price gouging by major corporations. Other notable politicians mentioned include Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Craig Emerson, Steven Miles, and David Littleproud.
Media’s focus on these figures is crucial for shaping public discourse and policy responses amid economic pressures. While supermarkets are often discussed as a key antagonist in the cost of living crisis, they are increasingly being viewed in the context of potential solutions, particularly regarding government policy to regulate supermarket giants.
At the same time, focus does not only fall on the prominent individuals driving business decisions and policymaking. Country Hour (NSW), for instance, focused a story on cherry grower Michael Cuneo, who ceased selling to supermarkets after he made a financial loss on a shipment of fruit. And it was this story that achieved the greatest media reach of any radio content on the topic.
Clearly then, the topic has not played out in any one way across any one channel. The prominence of key figures and top broadcast channels in this conversation underscores the importance of understanding how media coverage impacts public discourse and regulatory decisions. Isentia’s broadcast capabilities offer unparalleled insight into the role of broadcast media in shaping the narrative surrounding supermarket practices. By harnessing Isentia’s monitoring and analysis tools, organisations can gain deep insights into how influential discourse and coverage can impact an industry.
Loren is an experienced marketing professional who translates data and insights using Isentia solutions into trends and research, bringing clients closer to the benefits of audience intelligence. Loren thrives on introducing the groundbreaking ways in which data and insights can help a brand or organisation, enabling them to exceed their strategic objectives and goals.
While this may make us laugh and may seem like a silly example, it illustrates an important point. People tend to trust what news networks are saying – and this trust doesn’t end with print news. It bleeds into every facet of news, especially televised news.
Here are the five reasons why...
1. Tradition
One of the top reasons people trust TV news networks, especially over newer sources of reporting, is tradition. TV news reporting has been around much longer than internet search and social media, making it more established. When it comes down to it, people are more likely to trust TV news networks because of their confidence in the institution.
2. Loyalty
Another reason for trusting TV news boils down to loyalty. When people have been watching their favourite anchors day-in and day-out for years, they develop a bond of familiarity. With familiarity comes loyalty, and loyalty breeds trust.
3. Communal reinforcement
It’s easy to have confidence in a TV network when the reporting supports your own belief system. In order to maintain trust, news networks tailor their stories to fall in line with the belief systems of their most loyal viewers.
4. Right from wrong
It’s a common theory that news anchors are obliged to shine light into dark places. The only way to accomplish this is by being an advocate of truth.
5. Controversial coverage
News networks also elicit trust from their audience by being the primary source of information about big and controversial stories that the public wouldn’t have much access to otherwise. When a small group of TV news anchors are the only people adequately telling a story, the viewers don’t have many other options for gathering information. As a result, most viewers will trust the story being told.
Whether or not you trust TV news networks over other sources of information, one thing is for certain – TV news networks have a powerful and influential effect on our society.
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Blog
TV News Network
Whether we like it or not, news networks play a huge role in how we form opinions. In fact, the news can be so powerful, it can even shape other news networks’ perceptions of truth.
The advent of LLMs and AI search means that there has been a colossal shift in how audiences are consuming information today, and a reciprocal shift in how all types of organisations, from government agencies to brands are responding . But while discussion amongst PR and comms pros tends to fall disproportionately on how brands are impacted, the needs of the former are just as keenly felt, and often quite distinctive.
So how can government agencies respond, especially in a time of global flux, when major policy changes need to be communicated and important stakeholders need to be managed? After all, government organisations do care about reputation, much as brands do, but have quite distinctive goals when it comes to ensuring accurate information reaches the right audiences.
There is a new entry point for stakeholders
The era of "Let me Google that" is rapidly fading. Instead of clicking through to official websites, people are asking chatbots for direct answers. What’s striking is that government agencies often have no visibility on how they’re being talked about in the LLM space, even as it becomes a central channel for messaging and reputation.
When AI models become the primary gatekeeper, audiences bypass official portals entirely — driving down site traffic and leaving agencies vulnerable to misinformation, negative sentiment, or worse, being left out of the conversation altogether.
Therefore, the entry point is different. For commercial brands, this shift is profound but in some ways mediated – an FMCG brand, for instance, often discovered through third-party platforms in any case. But for government entities, the stakes are entirely different. As the sole, authoritative source for public information, they need citizens on their websites to get accurate details. Government agencies, especially if they are the authority or regulator in a particular industry or sector, need to make sure audiences know where to go to get the right information.
Different types of government agencies have different considerations
Not all government agencies are alike, and they all have different parameters that are quite non-negotiable for them, just by the way they function.
Service delivery agencies - these rely heavily on content freshness. They can’t risk outdated sources impacting eligibility or process changes not reaching audiences.
Regulators - these need to transmit authority and trust. Regulators have to make it a priority that they’re amongst the first place audiences go to for information and that the industry they’re regulating does not put them in the shade on the channels stakeholders are actually using
Policy departments - did the AI's account of a policy match what was actually announced? They want to be able to make sure the accuracy of a policy (and ideally, its effectiveness) is translated when audiences search through LLMs.
Local and state authorities want to make sure the services they carry out on behalf of locals are visible too. Much like service providers, there is a question around access and awareness of programmes and regulations, but also an added consideration: not appearing on LLMs discontent amongst those wishing to see a return on taxation and electoral mandates, and give credence to bad actors.
What do government agencies want to get out of this new LLM-mediated landscape?
Reputation is important, but that exists downstream from maintaining a flow of accurate information. It’s useful for communications teams in government organisations to self reflect and ask themselves the following questions:
Where are citizens going to find information about your services if not your website — and do you know what they're being told?
If there was a significant policy change or incident in the last twelve months, do you know how it's currently being characterised when someone asks an Al tool about your agency?
When you communicate a major service change or policy update, do you have any way of measuring whether it’s surfacing in searches about you?
How do you currently understand the gap between what your agency publishes and what citizens actually receive when they search for information?
Are there community groups, advocacy organisations, or media outlets shaping perception of your agency - and do you know if that's feeding into what Al models say?
These are gaps they already realise, but they don’t actually know what to do about it – how to manage or measure them. They need a tool that allows them to know this critical piece of information and make informed decisions.
Ngaire Crawford, Pulsar Group’s Executive Director for AI Strategy says, “It’s easy to disregard LLM reputation as part of a difficult AI landscape or something that is only really relevant to more product-based communication or marketing. Government communications is about social licence, and ensuring the public have access to up to date and accurate information about things that matter to them, the role that Generative AI plays in how a community understand an issue will only continue to grow, and knowing the impact that you can have in that through small shifts in channel strategies or more consistent messaging is a crucial part of the communications toolkit.”
Lumina AI View: AI visibility for PR & Comms
Lumina AI view is built for communicators who want to understand how their organisation and their competitors are being talked about by various AI models – including ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. AI View users get an insight into which sources are being cited, and how they would need to respond as a way of protecting their reputation or making sure correct information about them is being disseminated.
The tool provides an AI view score — a composite metric ranging from zero to 100, designed to help track brand performance over time and facilitate comparisons against competitors. It is calculated using five weighted factors — sentiment, visibility, authority, dominance and freshness. Beyond the overall score, the platform provides a summary of a brand's AI narrative based on four distinct reputation pillars — direction, performance, integrity and innovation.
These pillars help users identify exactly which dimension of a brand's reputation is under pressure, offering specific, actionable insights for board presentations or reviews. Ultimately, while the AI view platform provides the necessary intelligence, the strategic decisions regarding how to respond to these insights remain with the organisation.
Spotlight: An Australian Council
This progressive local government council is located in Australia’s leading center for culture and sports.
The council earned an AI view score of 74 reflected by strong reach and authority. Publications like CBD News and its own website are the most cited by LLMs — interestingly, most of them being cited by Claude.
Content freshness scored lower at 48. Their website still carries error pages and annual reports from a few years ago. If a report — one that is seen as an organisation’s most comprehensive and authoritative content, is still being cited even if it’s older, might potentially be in the way of the organisation’s own perception. Which means more work is needed to prevent outdated content from still appearing.
What type of content is showing up?
Most citations for the council originate from government sources, followed by news outlets, reports, and blogs. The domain is evenly split between owned content and content earned from external sources media articles and independent authorities.
While most are recent, some older articles from major outlets such as The BBC remain visible and may significantly influence how LLMs perceive the council. Owned content typically addresses last year’s budget plans and the council’s latest vision for the city, which LLMs are referencing. Government sources are the major content type, however, external sources have a greater impact on the council’s overall LLM score.
The stakes are higher for government agencies
When brands track LLM visibility, they often ask, "Are we shown in a positive light?" or "Are we cited accurately?" For the government, additional questions arise: "Is this information accurate enough for someone to act on?" and "Are we still viewed as more authoritative than what we oversee?" Mistakes can have serious consequences, such as individuals applying for ineligible programs or missing critical deadlines for new initiatives or elections. This can quickly lead to public frustration. It is essential for government communicators to recognize these risks.
If you would like to know more about our Lumina suite, please reach out here and our team will get in touch with for you a quick demo.
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Blog
Why is tracking government visibility on LLMs different from tracking brands?
Government agencies often can’t see how AI chatbots describe them. Here’s why LLM visibility matters and how to track it.
There is a new frontier where public perception is shaped: Large Language Models. Right now, LLMs are answering critical questions about your organisation. What are they saying? And more importantly, which sources are shaping those answers?
To navigate this landscape, public relations professionals don't need generic tools, but rather technology that speaks their language, and addresses the realities of a changed media and informational landscape.
That is why we're unveiling Lumina AI View, the latest addition to our intelligent suite of AI tools from Isentia. Trained specifically on the workflows and challenges of modern PR & communications, Lumina AI View helps you understand exactly what AI knows about you, and how it learned it.
A new standard for AI visibility
AI View tracks your citation strength and source quality alongside those of your competitors, giving you a clear view of where you hold authority and where you have gaps.
Lumina AI View maps your AI reputation from the ground up, allowing you to:
See which sources matter: When tools such as ChatGPT or Gemini discuss your organisation, which outlets do they cite? Track your source footprint over time and view the impact of key target media on how you’re discussed. We measure your citation strength and source quality alongside those of competitors, giving you a clear view of where you have authority and where you have gaps.
Gain industry-specific insight: Your competitors get cited from Financial Times and Bloomberg. You get cited on Reddit. Each brings opportunity – and risk. Discover how you measure up against industry standards, and target the sources that actually influence how AI represents you.
Catch narrative shifts early: AI responses change when new sources appear, sentiment shifts, or old controversies resurface. Get alerts when citation patterns change suddenly, before they impact the way you’re perceived by stakeholders.
Measure your progress: From media monitoring to full media intelligence
Lumina AI View is built on the principle that insights get stronger with repeated measurement. To help you maintain a clear view of your reputation, our proprietary scoring system provides regular updates that show you:
Evolving trends in how sources cite your organisation
Competitive standing and benchmark metrics
Where models differ in information presented, and sources cited
Whether you run it weekly, on-demand, or whenever you need a check-in, patterns will emerge, trends will become clear, and you will build a baseline that makes any sudden narrative changes both comprehensible and the prerequisite to action.
Lumina AI View is part of Lumina AI, a comprehensive suite of AI tools built specifically for communicators. Our Lumina suite evolves traditional media monitoring into narrative intelligence, enabling you to truly understand how perceptions form, evolve, and impact your reputation.
Get in touch to register your interest and see what Lumina AI View can do for you.
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Blog
Introducing Lumina AI View: AI Visibility Built for PR & Comms
Lumina AI View, the latest in Isentia’s AI suite, is trained on PR & comms workflows to help you understand what AI knows about you — and how it learned it.
