Screen Forever 2022: 7plus looks to drama commissions

Last week at the Screen Forever conference, Seven was quizzed by Brian Walsh around the network lacking a streaming platform equivalent to Nine (Stan) and 10 (Paramount+).

Both Seven & Foxtel had previously dabbled in the short-lived Presto platform.

Head of Scheduling Brook Hall indicated the network was looking at commissions for 7plus.

“50% of our audience now is non-broadcast, but we haven’t made a huge content investment there. We’re just doing smart, economical deals there, trying to leverage our existing audience, push them across,” he replied.

“But there’s a couple of bigger plays, we’re looking at for 7plus at the moment. Two of those will be drama-focused. Of course, we still make things as a as a total play. Before things might have had an 80% broadcast focus … as the importance of digital comes up, you might need a 50/50.

“That was seen as too financially-hard to achieve before, but we’re hitting the point where now that’s possible.”

Hall even flagged dropping an entire drama season at once on 7plus.

“Viewers might watch a reality show, news and sport each night, but it’s hard on traditional broadcast to wait a week for drama. It’s probably been the most consumed by the binge mentality. So for our next big broadcast / BVOD drama, maybe we’re promoting it as 8:30 Sunday on Seven, and then the whole thing goes (on 7plus).

“Now I know a lot of other players are doing that already. But it’s different when you’ve got a commercial lens on it…. I think we’re going to reach that point where suddenly 7plus economics can help justify it in both places.”