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How do networks choose what Movies to play on TV?

Nine's Head of Acquisitions, Hamish Turner, provides some good insight into this complex game.

Screen Shot 2014-05-11 at 12.41.12 am.jpgIf you’ve ever wondered about the rights and scheduling of movies on television an interesting article has appeared that gives some good insight.

Hamish Turner, recently promoted to Head of Acquisitions at Nine, shares with News Corp:

“Sometimes we do two year deals and other times it can be up to a five year deal,” Turner said.

“Attached to that is the amount of plays, for instance, now we do deals based on primary and multichannel runs so you can get, as part of a package, five Channel 9 runs and also the ability to run it on the multichannels (GO! and GEM) several times.”

So how exactly does Channel 9 pick a movie to play on TV?

“If you’re talking to Paramount or Fox or Sony, you request their stock lists and there will be certain prices attached to certain movies and then you negotiate with them the deal that you’d like to do and on what titles you’d like to do it with and the period in which you’d like to have the license period for and then they’ll reply,” Turner said.

“You do all the research and look at the demographic profile — how it (the movie) performed in the Australian market but also you watch the movie and have your own opinion and see where it can best play in your schedule and on which channel.”

There’s more worth reading here.

7 Responses

  1. I guess this ‘evergreen’ movies explains the success of GO! For some reasons Aussies will watch the same movies repeatedly, but rarely will they watch something new.

  2. Oh come on now, we know they just say “It’s been a couple of weeks, lets put ‘Pretty Woman’ on again. And hey, been a month at least since we ran ‘The Devil Wears Prada’, whack it in the schedule for next Friday.”

  3. Turner: So how much is “The Wedding Singer” as it OK if we play it every week?

    Studio: (Laughs) As if you want to do that!

    Turner: So is that as yes?

  4. These days the networks are quite interested in PG movies they can run in those difficult to fill slots on weekends. They rate well with kids over multiple screenings.

    Many big budget Hollywood films have poorly on TV. They are based around getting the opening weekend box office and after that word gets around that they don’t have much substance. People have often seen them at the cinema, on Pay TV or DVD and aren’t interested in watching 3 hours of them with ads again.

    Films that have interest that people mightn’t have seen are cheaper and can do better.

    And as they pointed out classics you can enjoy despite knowing the story and which people will watch every 5 years or so do best.

  5. The number over replays is out of control. Biewers in Syd/Bris watched Pretty Woman a few Fridays ago. It was also shown on 7two last Thursday.

    Thankfully, I did use my remote and chose not to watch either.

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