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James Warburton: “I needed more time”

Former TEN CEO James Warburton says he wasn't given enough time to fix the network.

James WarburtonFormer TEN CEO James Warburton has told the Australian Financial Review he wasn’t given enough time to fix TEN.

Warburton was sacked by the board after less than 14 months in the role.

“I’ve been working for 25 years and 24 have been successful to brilliant, and that’s obviously one that didn’t work out,” Warburton said.

“Their new CEO was quoted saying it was a three-to-five-year time frame in terms of his plans, and that is probably the right time frame. I needed more time but I left and it’s opened up this great opportunity.”

Warburton became CEO of V8 Supercars in June. The event is broadcast by his former employer, Seven Network.

“My discussions have been positive with all the networks. In the case of TEN, their directors had to approve me taking on this role. I wouldn’t have taken the role if I had thought there would be roadblocks in any area.”

Warburton became TEN CEO following a high-profile legal stoush with Seven, and succeeding acting CEO Lachlan Murdoch.

6 Responses

  1. Could it have been if someones short range plan for Mr Warburton, was only part of the a longer range plan, that involved the luring of an oppositions high profile performer for his inside knowledge?, and perhaps Mr Warburton now realizes that regardless all the curbside bumps and chicanes laid around a V8 supercar race track, where most can and are easily negotiated, that is till on of those bumps takes even the best of them out, and Lachlan Murdoch does not seem to be one of those types of Bumps that would take kindly to being driven over very often, that is if he was not actually the long range planer in the first place.

  2. I don’t think that you can blame Warburton for rubbish like Bingle or disasters like Henry. These were all put in train or the result of strategy decisions taken before he started. He was effectively handed a poisoned chalice, forced to drink from it, and told by Murdoch that it’s his own fault if he gets sick.

    It was always going to take longer than a year to turn the Tentanic around and that’s if he was given free reign, which he wasn’t. In fact, he was told to run a certain race, the parameters of which were pre-determined by Murdoch and The Board with insufficient room for manoeuvring or to be creative, but he was given a nag instead of a thorough-bred. And it was pulling a rickety cart.

  3. @Muscledude_oz.. to be fair, most, if not all, of those programmes and pay decisions you mention were made by Murdoch when he was interim CEO. Warburton was expected to follow through and implement Murdoch’s shoddy decisions.

    With such an edict from the chairman, Warburton never stood a chance.

  4. He was appointed by the Board, specifically Murdoch to chase 16-34s will local cheap contest shows and celebrity TV.

    The strategy was flawed. Sure the injunction against him working for Ten after leaving Seven and the timescale made it tougher. But it was never going to work.

    The quality of most of Ten’s shows was not good enough. That audience is fragmented, watches a lot of video online and Eleven, Go!, Fox8, ABC2 and Channel 9 already were fighting over it and SBS2 was going to join the fray.

  5. So Warburton “needed more time to fix the network”. Well after commissioning Being Lara Bingle, The Shire, Everybody Dance Now, paying Paul Henry over $1million to come over from NZ to torpedo their first, disastrous attempt at morning television and TEN’s ratings sinking below SBS on a few occasions I think the network had quite enough of his type of “fixing”.

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