Ten ‘picks up 2014 Winter Olympics for $20m’
The Ten Network appears to be on a sports spending spree with the struggling television network reportedly laying out $20 million on the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
According to The Australian Financial Review, the network secured the games over the weekend after the IOC agreed to split them off from the Summer Olympics in Rio De Janeiro in 2016.
The IOC will now reportedly attempt to sell the networks a sports rights deal consisting of the 2016 and 2020 summer games, along with the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Ten’s latest sports right purchase comes just days after the network reportedly laid out a $500 million bid over five years for the cricket rights.
New CEO Hamish McLennan has made no secret of his desire for the network, which has been languishing in the ratings, to pick up more sport as a platform for the network to then cross promote other content and raise the overall ratings.
Sports such as the Olympics and the cricket are often run as “loss leaders” with the networks losing money on them but using them to help boost the ratings on other programming.
The Sochi Winter Olympics begin in nine months’ time. The six hour time difference between Sochi and Australia’s east coast is reasonably favourable for Ten, with much of the action likely to be happening in prime time.
Update: Ten has this morning confirmed that they broadcast the 2014 Olympic Games.
The announcement:
Ten Network Holdings today announced it had signed an agreement with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to broadcast the XXII Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, in 2014.
The agreement covers the rights across all broadcast platforms, including free-to-air television, subscription television, internet and mobile phone.
Ten Network Holdings Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Hamish McLennan, said: “We are delighted that Ten will be Australia’s Olympics network in 2014.
“The agreement with the IOC delivers on our strategy to increase our investment in premium sport.
“Australia will field its largest-ever Winter Olympics team at Sochi and we are confident that some of those 56 athletes will be among the Games’ star performers,” Mr McLennan said.
“We are also confident that Australian viewers and advertisers will embrace our coverage of the Sochi Games.”
Is this Delhi 2010 pt. 2 for Ten?
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Given how screwed up and disappointing Nine’s coverage of the London 2012 Olympics were, any channel but Nine is fine with me.
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Well done Ten. Re-engineering the network was essential and they seem to be doing it boldly. Plus the Winter Olympics seems a steal at $20M and it is much more interesting than its excessive summer cousin, but thats just MHO.
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@Shamma, yeah it is, except that the Winter Games > Summer Games > Cth Games
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With this and the potential of Cricket, just as well they killed off ONE Sports.
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What a ridiculous buy…it is in Russia (bad timezone), will cost more than they expect to make (lost leader) and last time I looked Aussie’s do not feature well at the Winter Olympic’s (lower ratings than normal).
Adds up to a free kick for Seven, Nine and most importantly the IOC. Interesting first move ????
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Hi Hampster,
Your calculations must be different to mine. The time difference appears to work in Ten’s favour as far as I can tell.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
So Ten pays $20mil for the rights and depending on their level of coverage can add $5-7.5 for production. $10mil is the figure being thrown around for sponsorship/ads.
By my calculations that means they’ll need to on-sell the subscription rights to Foxtel for $10mil and do some deal with Telstra for mobile for a few mil.
They they’ll only be $5-10mil down for 2 weeks of great tv, roughly in the right timezone and at a perfect rating starting time of the year to promote their new shows and disrupt the others.
Good call in my book and possibly the most proactive thing they could have done.
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Well they just need Australia to pick up a few medals and it could be worth it. Who are the Australian winter Olympic hopefuls but lol.
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