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Screen Forever keynote speech: 10’s Paul Anderson

"We have always relied very heavily on our production friends. And we don’t see that changing anytime soon," says Paul Anderson.

Here is the full Keynote speech from 10 CEO Paul Anderson given this week at the Screen Forever conference:

Welcome. It’s great to be here.

As Matt Deaner will tell you, the relationship with SPA and Screen Forever could be classified as an ‘uneasy’ alliance at times – competing interests and challenges and all that – no surprises there. But the one thing we have in common is the production and broadcasting of great local content.

So, thank you for coming to hear my thoughts, not just on the current state of the industry, but the challenges we are all facing together, how we are tackling them, and most importantly how we can all work together.

There’s obviously no crystal ball here, but I do hope to have some insights for you, in particular, how we think about things.

Any business that you manage needs to acknowledge the basic fundamentals of supply and demand.
In Australia we have capped demand as our population is what it is. And we now have more players in our media space than ever before.

So, the supply chain is essential.

You guys manage that. You create the ideas. You bring them to reality. And perhaps you have never had so many opportunities to create brilliant content.

This is all great news.

Fragmentation doesn’t necessarily mean “less”, it means more content – just not necessarily local content.

What it does mean, however, is pressure on margins for incumbents, which in turn raises a whole bunch of regulatory issues that, if left unchecked, will play havoc with our industry.
We must have a playground that is even.

In the US they currently have three streaming services per household. They expect each household to have 10 subscriptions within five years.

We currently have 11 streaming services available in Australia plus the free-to-airs including multi-channels, Foxtel and Kayo. And more are on their way. By this time next week, the landscape will change again with Disney+.

We are currently at 1.4 streaming services per household, but we’re projected to have three per household in the very near future.

What this can and should mean is much more opportunity. For you. And for us.

Our brand
Let me talk a little about 10 for a minute.

10 has been a publisher and broadcaster for most of its existence.

For the third channel to market we didn’t have the resources to manufacture and broadcast. So, we have always relied heavily – very heavily – on our production friends. And we don’t see that changing anytime soon.

You are our life-blood.

We actively seek the best content, given our very specific requirement for our demographics, and the tone of programming we seek.

Pilot Week is something we are very proud of, and a great example of us saying, “here’s what we want, what genre, what price point – come and pitch! If we like it, we’ll give it a red hot go.”

We actively seek content that fits seamlessly into our schedule and we are very specific about what we want.

Why? It just makes plain commercial sense to build on our brand and our strength. We are a network that knows who we are and what we stand for.

That’s why you will find our Dramas are commissioned to sit alongside our strong reality brands.
That’s why you will find our Comedies have a certain essence of 10. From your point of view, that means opportunity.

Too often we see projects that are either clearly not designed for us, and that would fail to attract the audience they would otherwise deserve.

Our brand is our strength. Our identifier. Our DNA. And that ethos applies across all genres.

When you talk about Current Affairs, please consider the way we approach The Project.

When you talk about Lifestyle, please consider the tone and voice of The Living Room.

These are distinctly 10 shows. These shows demonstrate the tone and attitude we look for in all our shows, and the tone and attitude we look for when new projects are brought to us.

We know the essence and heart of 10 content, what will work with our audiences and what won’t work.
When focus testing new programs, we don’t tell the audience who they’re for, but we do ask which network they would expect to find them on.

If 10 is the resounding response, we know we are onto something.

The new world
Like some of you, I suspect, I grew up with one TV in the living room.

We had three commercial channels and one public broadcaster. Choice was a lot simpler.

The channel we watched depended upon which parent we were watching with.

The world is obviously very different now. Our children are finding content everywhere, on every device.

We also know our kids are also not respecting the some-could-argue ‘arcane’ restrictions imposed on free to air.

The lightning bolt for me in this regard was Married at First Sight.

The sheer volume of audience told us this was the entire family sitting together watching. Here was a program clearly not designed for children.

But families were watching as families. Why?

My theory – parents realised their kids would be watching by other means anyway they could, be it their laptop or iPhone, whether at home or school. So better to control the message and watch as a family.

What does that mean for you as content makers? And what does that mean for us as broadcasters?
An “M” rating means nothing. An “MA” rating means nothing.

So, we have turned a significant corner with regard to regulation and it really should be addressed.

The sell
Stating the obvious, the competition for the limited time people have to devote to entertainment and media products is intense and growing all the time – not just with streaming services but with all types of social media.

We all now need to work much, much harder to cut through and achieve awareness. But it is possible and with your help we have the ability to do it.

How? Great ideas. And a great sell.

We have the great ideas, and with this production community, we are making some brilliant TV.
We’re very proud of Five Bedrooms and we’re optimistic about The Secret She Keeps finding a big audience. Total Control is as good as you will see, same for Mystery Road.

But show business is made up of two very different elements.

We are world class when it comes to “show”. The quality of the television content created in Australia is second to none.

The question I have for you, is how well do we handle the ‘business’ part? In the US, the sell is as critical as the production.

A little while ago, the travelling circus that is The Bold and The Beautiful came to Sydney.

We were invited for a meeting at their hotel at 6 PM.

At 6 PM sharp the producers were ready to meet and greet.

At 6.15 PM sharp the entire cast arrived, fully made up and looking spectacular. At 6.45 PM there were speeches.

At 7 PM there was plenty of opportunity to meet, mingle and take selfies.

The cast stayed back until 9 PM and this was in the middle of an intense and very tight location shoot with a lot of bad weather.

In any given year this same cast probably ran this drill several times in different territories with beaming smiles.

The point is, they weren’t embarrassed to sell the work they had done. In fact, just the opposite. It was a point of pride. They were passionate about their show, engaged with everyone they met and willing to do whatever was asked of them.

Whether it’s cultural cringe or modesty, I think you are too quick to under-sell our achievements and not properly celebrate – or promote – the work you do.

We were taught modesty is a virtue.

Our reviewers continue to compare our programs with shows on enormous budgets and shows that operate on very different economics to free TV shows. Is the yard- stick really Game of Thrones or The Crown?
Does that make sense to you?

It is puzzling that, at times, our actors and their representatives are reluctant to do generic network promotions, when that same network has financed the program that pays their mortgage or their rent.

It’s time we acknowledge our productions – YOUR productions – are gold standard. Our production methodology is second to none. And it deserves to be celebrated and promoted at every opportunity.

Australian Survivor this year was regarded as one of the best seasons made – both here and in the U.S.
Masterchef Australia is sold to 140 territories. It’s an outrageous success story. And it is one of the best produced shows of its kind anywhere in the world.

Our directors start work here but are so incredibly talented they head straight to the
U.S.

WAAPA now has a show-case each year not just in every state of Australia, but in L.A. Neighbours is the longest running drama in Australian television history.

There are dozens of other examples I’m sure you could make. But do we celebrate any of these achievements enough? Or does our cultural cringe get in the way?

Is it time for us to actually acknowledge what we achieve and really shout it from the rooftops?
Is free-to-air dead?

So, we have a fragmenting market with too much choice, an over-supply of world class content and a static pool of resources from Screen Australia.

Surely, you think, something has to give, right?

Listen to our rivals and they insist that the days of free-to-air TV are numbered. They have been saying the same thing for about two decades now.

And they’re wrong.

Of course, free-to-air TV’s traditional audiences are changing.

But what our rivals never acknowledge is that the free-t- air TV industry is also changing as we build new audiences on new distribution platforms such as streaming and catch-up.

Free-to-air TV is not a static business. and it is not dying.

Let me remind you that there is a world of difference between BROAD-casting and NARROW-casting. BROAD-casting achieves something none of the others can achieve.

In fact, perversely, the more streaming services, the better this argument. Let me give you an example of what I mean.

Years ago. Home video was invented. You may remember you had a choice – Betamax or VHS.
And get this, you could record off your own TV and watch whenever you liked!

Better yet, you could walk down the street to Blockbuster and rent the very latest smash hits and watch them at home when whenever you liked!

You didn’t have to pay a baby-sitter.
You didn’t have to park the car.
You didn’t have to pay for a choc-top.

You could sit at home in your pyjamas and stop the tape as often as you wanted.

And every single pundit in the world said this was the end of the movie business. Distributors would go broke. Exhibitors would go broke.

And guess what happened? Exactly the opposite.

The movie business thrived. The distributors and the exhibitors thrived.

More people watched movies at home and that in turn created even more interest in movies at the cinema and the multiplexes.

Why? Because in all of us, there’s an inherent need to belong. We like to understand each other. We like to exchange ideas on the same subjects at the same time.

This could also explain pop music, fashion, mullets and everything else humans do. At our core, we are social creatures. Belonging is important.

When we BROAD-cast we are still reaching potentially 100% of the population. NARROW-casting can’t do that.

So, if you’re on the bus or train speculating about last night’s Masked Singer or The Bachelorette, guess what, you had to be there.

Does this mean everything has to achieve critical mass in a fragmented market? Not at all.

But we are using these tent-poles as catchment areas. From there we can promote everything else in our schedule – comedy, drama, light entertainment and factual.

Long live drama

So, I can imagine you’re thinking I am now expecting you to buy in and worship reality TV. Not at all.
You might also be sitting there thinking, well if all your focus is there, what’s left for us?
It is no secret drama is as tough as we have ever known it to be.

Tough to finance. And it faces a stack of competition.

But here’s the thing: Australian stories will not go away.

In 1964, 97% of drama broadcast in Australia came from the U.S. Yes – 97%. Then along came Homicide, breaking every record under the sun.

In the late 70’s, three Crawford Production dramas were cancelled across three networks in one fell swoop.

Then along came The Sullivans. Again, breaking every record. And this has been repeated time and again.
Whether it was Number 96 or A Country Practice or Neighbours or The Secret Life of Us or Underbelly.
These shows were all hits for a reason.

So, if you believe in supply and demand, as we do, this isn’t a conversation about quotas or financing – it’s about quality content. And it is always about our stories.

The future
As I said, there is no crystal ball. We all know content is king and we also all know that technology will continue to drive change in how people spend their time and how they consume entertainment content.

For years Disney contracts have stated “In this universe and in every other universe”. They were thinking ahead, even back then.

Planning for the future is difficult. And we don’t know precisely how content will be consumed, even in a couple of years time.

But at 10 we can, and we have, created an ecosystem that can adapt with change.
We now have our main channel. Our multi-channels.
Our catch-up service.
Our online news service.
Our podcast service.
And our streaming service, 10 All Access.

We are evolving, just as our competitors are evolving. And we need all your help in this fast-changing market-place.

Contracts with crews, writers and directors need to evolve. Music rights need to evolve. Talent options need to evolve.

It’s fair to say, we all need to challenge the way we do business and every facet of everything we do.

And we all need to press Government to fully support Screen Australia and our State funding bodies.

We also need to re-invent the wheel wherever we can. Find economies in production. Don’t just use the argument “we’ve always done it that way”.

Challenge everything. If there’s a smarter way of licencing with a Network, tell us.

If there’s a more efficient way to produce without compromising quality, we need to find it.

Evolution is difficult, we know that, but it can be done.

Australia leads the way in post-production technology. How did that happen? Well, it just had to.

And the same applies to every single facet of our business. We all have invested so much here. We need to change together.

As I said at the star, at 10 we are enormously proud of our history of working alongside our production partners.

Along with 7 and 9, we spend $1.6 billion on local content each year.

Our success is your success. And we are only ever as good as the ideas, the expertise and the passion you bring.

Long may that continue. Thank you for your time.

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