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TEN talks up changes

TEN CEO Grant Blackley talks about extra News, Packer / Murdoch, ONE, and that 'unnamed' cooking show.

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TEN CEO Grant Blackley, who last week was renewed in his role for another two years, has given a lengthy interview to The Australian, in which he addresses much of the speculation that has been rife over the past month.

Blackley speaks to the plans for more News, the arrival of Packer / Murdoch, the performance of ONE, and responds to comments about an ‘unnamed’ cooking show by Seven’s David Leckie.

“That commentary from Seven has been around for years,” he says. “All I can say is we’ve built a few mountains ourselves in the last couple of years through both (US content partners) CBS and Fox which are both highly prolific studios. We without doubt have enjoyed the best US content in the past two years headed up by shows like Modern Family and Glee. At the same time we are building great shows like MasterChef

James Packer has been one critic of the proposed 2.5hrs of News coming early next year, including the hiring of George Negus.

But Blackley says the number stack up.

The new $20m investment will generate 260 hours of local content and gain access to important advertisers in the automotive, retail and finance sectors. TEN says it only needs to retain 300,000 viewers to break even.

The changes are part of a multi-channel strategy, complemented by ELEVEN and ONE.

“Do we need to improve ONE? Yes we do. But compared with Fox Sports, we know we have superior reach and we know we have a superior brand and we know that regulatory control in the future will help, not hinder, our efforts.”

You can read more at The Australian

19 Responses

  1. I am not convinced about this 2.5 hrs of news business.

    In a country like ours where no one even seems to care if they have their facts right why would we pay attention to 2.5 hrs of informative, educationbal news?

    Oh hang on it probably won’t be informative or educational just more 7PM, ACA type fluff.

  2. The only change which reaaly needs to be made is to axe that horrid Neighbours! This show is such an embarrassment and it’s ratings tell us that after 25years the only way for this show to go is Out the back door!!

  3. @ Dean,

    ONE HD is better than Fox Sports. It’s Free.

    And it has the sports I like – and used to pay for – Gridiron, Nascar, NBA, drag racing, golf. All that is missing is NRL and V8 Supercars and I am sure they are doing something about that. Whenever I turn on the TV or get the remote from my kids I go straight to ONE to see what’s on.

  4. Rob, David had a poll a few weeks ago which reflect your sentiment. I’m not sure what the final figures were, but it was something like 52% want it to stay, 40% don’t, with 8% “not sure” – considering the low ratings, that poll shows there is high brand loyalty and/or people can see the point in having a dedicated sports channel (it has been refreshing in recent times to see non sport fans acknowledge that One has a place on TV). There are only 2 other genre-specifc channels on FTA (ABC News and ABC3 for Kids), and One consistently beats them both.

  5. What would James Packer know about programming. He doesn’t have his late father’s instincts. My only wish for the new News format is that 7PM project remains unchanged and that George Negus doesn’t end up fronting another dreadful tabloid program like ACA or TodayTonight. I have only recently upgraded my tv to receive Ten Digital, and 10 as well as the ABC networks and SBS are my preferred viewing.

  6. ONE is a low cost low rating channel but it’s target audience is unique compared to other channels therefore it continues as it should. The real unspoken complaint is the fact it occupies the HD allocation of badwdith which non sports watchers hate (with and without reason). JP and LM don’t like ONE because it makes it’s cashcow in Fox SPorts less profitable when the fence sitting paytv buyer says, “not worth $60/month for a couple of extra sports / dedicated NRL/AFL”. For some, this is the choice at hand. As for the news extra hours, it is a cheap way to generate hours but it will never be a ratings killer like9/7 because news in Australia is generally a dumb mans world of bogans and jingoism with dinosours reading the bulletin and bimbos as reporters and weather presenters. JP has a bet each way. If Ten fail to make a good profit he can buy in or sell out. If anti siphoning is relaxed his Fox Sports suffers but Ten improves. It all evens itself out or makes an extra profit (win-win in the old language)

  8. @Joe…did you read the article? How is One bleeding money? It is making a profit. It is an excellent netowrk and will be better off once the anit-siphoning laws change and as more and more sports rights become available they will surely snap up some more sports.

    Kudos to Ten for their excellent overall strategy.

  10. I for one think One is excellent, I watch something on the channel at least once a day and during peak periods when F1 & AFL is on I watch it a lot more, I’d watch it even more if the WWE’s proper broadcasts were aired on 1 instead of the WWE Experience which I do watch but I’d prefer the who enchalada rather than just a tiny bit of chicken.

    One isn’t going to appeal to everyone, but for the market its aimed at its a great network well managed, just Please take the One Technology segments off and air normal Harvey Norman ads.

  14. The Australian says Leckie had “an acute case of relevance deprivation syndrome” – priceless! 🙂

    These 2 questions could’ve been further explored…

    Why would you take on Seven and Nine in the most fiercely contested hour of prime time?
    Why would Ten move away from a profitable programming model?

    To date Ten has been more concerned with whether they’re profitable or not, rather than being #1 in the ratings (One epitomises this), but sounds like that might be changing. The answer to the first question is because that’s how you become #1 – 10 is dominant during the day, but that doesn’t count towards “daily share”, only primetime does, so if you want to be #1, you have to win primetime.

    Excellent article David. Thanks for the link. The only flaw I find with it is saying how Ten has lost share this year without mentioning the damaging impact the Games had. i.e. 7pm Project, etc. had their momentum completely destroyed by being off air for 2 weeks.

  16. Interesting about the 300,000 viewers to break even. They should have no problems reaching that (I will be one), but I would be disappointed if they didn’t get at least 600,000 before the end of march.

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