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Lachlan Murdoch: TEN had “forgotten who we were.”

Lachlan Murdoch tells it like it is at an AGM with shareholders yesterday.

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Yesterday at TEN’s annual general meeting interim CEO Lachlan Murdoch defended his year of cost-cutting.

Shareholders learned the network’s dark days were behind them, following 190 retrenchments and a programming overhaul.

“Our costs were at an all-time high. Frankly, they were out of control. We had a confused news and current affairs strategy,” he said.

“The business was stuffed. The strategy was absolutely flawed. Costs were at an all-time high. Most importantly, we’d forgotten who we were … a youthful, bold, irreverent, risk-taking brand.”

Last February TV Tonight wrote a “Dear Lachlan” letter about the risk-taking network that had lost its sense of fun.

Murdoch also talked up its 2012 slate as its best programming in “many, many years” he said.

I don’t agree the 2012 slate is the best in many years, but I’ll happily be proven wrong in 12 months’ time.

The network is right to still be concerned about its 6pm half hour. Please ditch the extended News by February and return to one hour. If it means bringing Neighbours back from ELEVEN, which would also address Drama points, swallow your pride and cop the short term pain for long term gain.

Meanwhile there are unconfirmed reports that Seven Chairman Kerry Stokes has bought about 2 per cent of TEN following a busy week of shares changing hands.

In October, TEN reported a 91 per cent drop in annual net profit for 2010-11, from $150m to $14.2m. It saw $85.4m in restructuring costs.

But Murdoch focussed on the leaner, meaner outcomes.

“Our costs will be flat. So any improved revenue . . . should fall mostly to the bottom line.”

James Warburton begins January 1st.

Source: The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald

29 Responses

  1. Well Lachlan Murdoch axes the AFL changes 7pm project to The project & wonders why it’s not rating well. 5pm news & then a 6pm news doesn’t work.

    Channel 7 for me as they have the AFL. Channel 10 on a Saturday night during the footy season will be a ghost town

  5. Ten have kind of lost what they were.There would be one problem putting 7pm as Neighbours in 2012 and that is winning over the generation who now watch 2.5 men or Big Bang Theory at the same hour.What they kind of need is something like a home grown Degrassi Type Show that is both fresh and relevant to todays young people but not in direct competition against the soaps.

  6. TEN must “go back to where it came from”. Its on a leaky boat that’s sinking fast. I seriously think “seriously good TV” is not good TV. you must have the following guide each weekday/night for TEN to recover.
    4:00 Kids program [replaces morning program losses]
    4:30 Huey [bold moves to 9-9:30pm, preventing editing]
    5:00 News hour [local]
    6:00 The simpsons [eps before S12, S12-S22 eps are repeated so much on 11]
    6:30 Neighbours [makes drama points and keeps the viewer happy]
    7:00 Project [works at 7 pm as a half hour show]
    7:30 The Biggest Looser, MasterChef etc… [that’s a reality slot for them]

  7. Tough as it was Grant Blackly was the wrong guy for the job and their news is lost in the wilderness. It will be really interesting to see what James Warbuton can do with the place – was he the frustrated heir apparent at Seven or just a wannabe? James vs Tim could be fun to watch as we all continue to avert our eyes from the roadkill on Nine’s sked. It’s time to lay the old Nine to rest – they too need generational change and re-invention, even if it hurts for a while it couldn’t be more painful that what they’re currently doing.

  8. I seem to remember that Lachlan Murdoch raided Ten’s shares at the end of 2010 in part because he apparently thought Ten was wasting its ability to rake as much money as it should have done from the MasterChef lead-in (in terms of ratings and advertising dollars) with the subsequent shows that followed it. Remember, MC was huge in 2009 and bigger in 2010. With Lachlan at the helm at the end of 2010 and all of 2011, Ten’s ratings nose-dived – struggling to fend off the ABC. Loyal viewers were duped as one-time rating hits (House, NCIS, Glee, Modern Family) were shuffled around different days and timeslots Armed with a self-serving report on a review he ordered with his own parameters, Lachlan forced a restructure which resulted in major cost-cutting, particularly the news section, which put the nail in the coffin in terms of resources allocated to George Negus and his quality show. And he has the gall to say that “Ten has lost its way?”

    I have a much different take on this. A new direction is being forged at Ten and it reeks of snivelling filial pandering. Let’s not forget that Lachy is the son that angered daddy from walking away from the family business those years ago. With Ten, the prodigal son has returned. Walking arm-in-arm with fellow share raider, Gina Rinehart and her own motives in using the news to influence politics to benefit her other business interests, Little Lachy is looking to slowly turn Ten into the equivalent of daddy’s Fox network in the big old U S of A. But hey, who really cares right? Its only the loyal viewers that have been shafted by Lachy’s cost-cutting and destruction of staff morale. A 91% dip in profit may be a failure to us mere mortals but to an untouchable CEO with an emusculated/enamoured board behind him, it apparently is still considered successful enough to earn ill-deserved bonus payments. I don’t expect Ten’s rating woes to improve in 2012 with Lachlan at the helm or his hand-picked sycophantic successor.

  9. I’m suprised, he actually really accurately described the role TEN has in Australia’s TV landscape. As Ryan said with 7mate and especially Eleven it now means either TEN has to have the best youth content on air or they need to re-invent themselves. In the 2000’s and 90’s The Simpsons helped anchor TEN’s youth market in the same way it did for FOX but now it’s an after thought and unless TEN managed to snatch 7mate’s line up of Family Guy and American Dad to add to The Simpsons and Futurama they’ve split the audience over two networks. There aren’t enough Glee’s, Modern Family’s and The Office’s to support TEN’s schedule so there’s not enough to keep a youth audience in front of the box for 2-4 hours because with the internet they can watch Glee without having to watch NCIS or Rush. Pick a demo and stick to it.

  11. I know everyone has their own opinion, but I’ll be sharing mine, yet again.

    6:00pm TEN News (now back in place – they just need to ditch the link to the 5:00pm News now).

    6:30pm The Project (now in place, albeit 1 hour, hopefully this is just to round out the new).

    7:00pm Neighbours (it’s ancestral home and where it was most successful, sadly Ten knee-jerked in the early 90s when H&A was moved into the slot).

    I trust with the first 2 now (Finally) in place, my dream will finally come true in 2012

  12. Ten have probably the best list of shows. Definitely on par with Seven. The problem with Ten is, they schedule the show, it gets success, then they schedule repeat after repeat, and then change day and timeslots. In the end people don’t know when the show is scheduled or when they are new eps or repeats so people just give up. That’s what’s happened with NCIS, Modern Family, TAYG, House. These shows used to be the highest ratings shows on tv. Ten killed them.

    And yes they need to cut news back to 1 hr. And either have The Project on 6-7, but the best option would be Neighbours at 6, The Project at 6.30, and then at 7 have Masterchef/Biggest Loser/Renovators. Although Ten have also killed Masterchef, and ruined any chance Renovators had to succeed with their idiotic programming. If Ten want to succeed next year, the person on charge of programming needs to go.

  13. Ha ha ha….delusional to the end.

    So it cost them $85.4m to restructure eh? or that amount to ‘retrench’ 190 people. Great value for money.

    Why is it that most tv execs are nearly all complete tossers?

  15. Network Ten should have 3 separate brands for their 3 channels like what the other 2 channels are doing; one youth, one middle ground and one for older people. How do they expect to do well when all 3 are youth, especially when there’s other youth channels around like GO!, and 7MATE.

    With all 3 of their channels being the same they will just cannibalise their viewers, rather than tapping into other lucrative sources of revenue from different types of people.

  16. The problem is how can Ten be a youthful brand, when there are more “youthful brands” on TV now, than there has ever been.

    Ten needs to take a risk on carving it’s own niche, a bold, irreverent, risk-taking niche, as far distant from from being “youthful” as possible.

    Ten needs to realise, that “who they are” needs to change, as increasingly, “who they were”, the youth of today isn’t thinking of staying with Ten, as they now have many more options for watching their favorite shows, than the youth of the past.

  17. What difference does it make if the news is 90 minutes instead of one hour?

    Leave Neighbours where it is on Eleven. It’s not like you can’t watch it, and idiotic programming for morons like that doesn’t belong in prime time on a station like Ten anymore, certainly not sandwiched between news and The Project.

  18. I read in the paper that 100% of bonuses got paid to execs, even the fired ones.

    They gave themsleves bonuses for a 91% profit drop, and for sacking 190 people.

    That’s atrocious.

  19. I think the damage to MC is done but will happily admit I’m wrong if I am. Don’t think I’ll go back though.
    Neighbours should be brought back, don’t watch it but drama points and rates OK for them.
    They should also become the channel that commits to a time for a show and play it out unless it becomes impossible due to bad ratings then they can ship to one or 11 and play it out at a designated time.
    The network that stops shafting viewers with programming will win because we all want to see a program when we think its on and cannot be ever vigilant for change.
    Oh and put American Horror Story on 10. Doesn’t seem that hard really.

  20. I actually watch TEN (and the ABC) more than the other channels – and I’m 68, so way out of their supposed demographic – but I’m finding the overloading of commercials almost too much to bear. You can almost watch two programs at once, turn over during TEN’s commercials and back again many minutes later hoping the break has finished.

    I used to be able to read an entire edition of the Sydney Morning Herald in front of TV during the commercial breaks. I actually do anything but watch the commercials, so they’re all wasted on me.

  21. Totally agree David regarding the 6pm News. They need to revert to an hour at 5pm and bring back the Late News but telecast it at the regular time of 10:30pm.

    What’s ridiculous is the Late News was cancelled due to “low ratings”. Reality is when it was telecast at 10:30pm it would regularly be one of Tens top rating shows.

  25. I love how he says ” we’d forgotten who we were”
    You were a youth channel but as everyone knows by now we have lots more choice now. we have go, 73mate, eleven, onehd which all appeals to young viewers so there is no way you could survive with a focus just on youth for channe 10

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