“Not at our best” but CEOs say better TV is coming
Network CEOs from Nine, TEN, Foxtel and Seven made a rare joint appearance in Sydney yesterday.
- Published by David Knox
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L to R: Hugh Marks, Paul Anderson, Peter Tonagh, Tim Worner.
Commercial network CEOs from Nine, TEN, Foxtel and Seven made a rare joint appearance in Sydney yesterday to talk about the Future of Television.
Organised by industry marketing group ThinkTV the four met at Doltone House, Jones Bay Wharf and challenges other media to be as accountable, in a direct fire at Facebook.
“I find it almost inconceivable that somebody can be out by 55% and there’s not outrage across the industry,”Foxtel’s Peter Tonagh said. “If our measurement systems were out by 55% I think we would be hammered.”
Seven West Media boss Tim Worner added that if TV networks misreported to such an extent, media buyers and marketers “would kill us”.
But Worner also acknowledged that TV had been “a bit off’ recently.
“The last couple of years, TV shows, I just don’t reckon we’ve been at our best as an industry. I just feel as though we didn’t smack it out of the park,” he said.
“Over the last three decades, there have been periods we’ve gone through that have been fantastic, periods where we’ve seen big shows come to television that have captured the public’s imagination and big audiences have followed.
“I don’t think that we have challenged ourselves enough in terms of what we’re putting on the screen and I think that’s started to happen, I know it has at our shop.”
ThinkTV launches a new commercial today which shows the power of TV to build brands in the minds of consumers.
Source: AFR.com, The Australian
18 Responses
I’m not going to hold my breath, better TV is found elsewhere. Start treating viewers with more respect, starting treating viewers as intellectual beings, start taking more risk and not serving up the same recycled crud.
“Theparist” – I see that this was uploaded by the same person that does the captions for Seven News & Caff. Doesn’t anybody use a spellchecker these days?
Agree with comments below about the commercial networks’ contempt for their viewers, late start start times, chasing shows around schedules, delaying shows or sometimes individual eps, etc, etc. Add to that their poor communication in letting people know where their shows have gone when they do move/disappear, or even when they skip a week due to US scheduling.
Ugh, typed “start” twice over a line wrap during an edit. The irony…
Thought “Theparist” was a joke but the number of mistakes in spelling both in news and tweets especially from news providers including the likes of CNN and US networks is astounding – you’d think with spell checkers, spelling mistakes would be a thing of the past but seems worse than ever.
As for $9 month for Netflix not being much, bare in mind some people – especially if poorer do not have internet or have limited internet – I know some who only get internet from their phone and that’s a gig or 2 at best – therefore streaming is not an option.
Where is used to live we could only get wireless for 16 gigs a month and had to budget our internet usage.
I believe FTA will always have a place but will cater more for lower end of overall market.
They need to put their egos away and face up to the fact that they need to raise their game on all fronts or become extinct. Most of their online platforms are dreadful, they just don’t work properly. At best the ftas are average or below average most days….well, we, the viewers, don’t have to put up with their contemtuous treatment of us anymore…
Content that’s a “bit off” like Never Teach Your Wife to Drive, on Seven two nights ago?
Yes it is unacceptable to be out by 50% I agree, have a look at my FTA EPG for an evening next week and the electronic EPG has “TBA” at least once in many places accross all networks. Think of a 30 min program that is scheduled to start at 8:30pm – it 30m mins duration but then dosen’t start until 8:47pm – thats an error rate of about 50% of the scheduled running time – thats also un-acceptable. I agree with the executives that mis-reporting of ratings is unacceptable – now tell me again – who has the higher ratings? Sunrise or Today?
Be accountable!! that’s a joke,TV networks should look at themselves first and set the standard
They have the standard. it’s called OZTam
The context of this comment, as noted, is in regards to advertiser accountability and Facebook measurement being out by 55%. That’s not a criticism we can level at OzTAM which is very comprehensive day in, day out, despite any improvements we would like to see.
And then they go and announce Celebrity Hell’s Kitchen and it’s clear they haven’t learned a thing.
FTA is dead as is pay tV. You lot of executives go have your gab fest becuase no one is watching You can dish out the crap that you do treat viewers with contempt ignoring your target audience,all those late starting programmes and the finishing late programmes holding off programmes and some not even airing at all till the following year shoving tonnes and tonnes of advertising into premium programmes .biased sensored news stories that you dish out well no more the choice for the viewer is huge . The choice is huge today for viewers there is a smorgasboard of entertainment on line via streaming via the internet no need for foxtel or FTA anymore .
All of which must be paid for with real money. FTA is vital for the fiscally challenged. Not everyone wants, or can afford, Netflix, Stan, Presto etc etc. We also need FTA for news. I’m predicting FTA will still be here in 2050. Look what they said in 1956 about the wireless…oh sorry…radio.
Netflix is only $9 a month – $2.10 a week. While I’m sure that there are people who really cannot afford even that, most people could cut out a couple of trips to the corner shop for lunch or KFC for dinner each month if they wanted to.
I don’t know what TV’s going to look like in 2030. I wouldn’t be so bold to be making predictions about 2050.
and the wireless can be listened to in your car or workplace without much disruption….tv is a different beast
@GRM – Look what they said in 1956 about the wireless…oh sorry…radio.
Yes, let’s look. It was a bloodbath. In the blink of the eye the radio was ejected from the centre piece of the living room, where it would be listened to by all and sundry, and replaced with a TV. Only a few years later all the daily and weekly serials were gone and the radio had become nothing more than a source background filler noise in the kitchen or shed.
Heed that warning linear broadcast TV. The change to on-demand is already in full swing.
Ten bucks a month is all it costs to stream ten bucks the rip off days of foxtel charging 150 pm long gone , even if you get fetch TV with unlimited NBN unlimited calls on your home phone and all the EPL you want it’s only one hundred bucks a Month with your mobile with Optus .cheap as chips .
Add onto that the cost of unlimited internet – I think $60 a month at best from what I’ve seen – then many people – as I said before – can’t get unlimited internet and don’t have either the speed or enough gigs for streaming to be an option.