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Ten to revamp One as bloke-focused entertainment channel

sons_of_anarchy

Sons of Anarchy

Ten is to reposition its digital sports channel One as a general entertainment channel skewing towards men in the advertiser friendly 25-54 demographic.

The announcement came as Ten revealed a disastrous set of financial figures with TV profits down 13% in the six months running to the end of February compared to the year before. However, the numbers did not provide a major surprise to the market as they were flagged up when Ten’s board fired former CEO Grant Blackley in February.

In the announcement, interim CEO Lachlan Murdoch said: “The half year results are not acceptable and immediate action is already underway to address them. Disappointingly for Ten’s 1300 employees and 22,500 shareholders, these results do not demonstrate Ten’s underlying strengths and potential.  

“Ten is at a crucial juncture in its history. Free-to-air television is an excellent business with strong growth prospects. However, Ten has been under-delivering and this must change.”

The repositioning of One also does not come as a major surprise, as Ten had already been working in some general programming. Last last year the channel had been hovering around the 1% audience share mark but will now be aiming for 2.5%+.

The challenge for Ten’s programmers will be to avoid hurting the successful progress of sister digital channel Eleven or indeed the flagging main channel Ten while bringing the fight to Nine, which also targets the 25-54 demo, and to the the bloke-focused 7Mate.

ice_road_truckers

Ice Road Truckers

The types of male-skewed drama shown on One will be the likes of Sons Of Anarchy, while an example of the man friendly movie line up would be Last King Of Scotland. There will also be factual shows such as Ice Road Truckers. The channel will still feature some sport.

Ten said: “The company is confident this will result in additional revenue and an earnings improvement.”

The company also announced changes for its main channel: “A new program, The Bolt Report, hosted by journalist Andrew Bolt, will be launched on 8 May 2011, to air onSundays at 10am, before Ten’s agenda-setting Meet the Press, which is moving to 10.30am.”

David Mott, Ten’s chief programming officer, said in the statement: “The bold, broad appeal of Ten along with the already proven performance of the distinctly youthful Eleven and now with the broader content offering for the male-skewed One positions us to capitalise on viewer and advertiser engagement. We have the market covered.”

Meanwhile, Ten’s outdoor business Eye is in much better health than its TV relative, with the outdoor business delivering Ten a 41% increase in profits.

Ten also revealed: “For the first time, the sales teams are also offering clients a joint offering, where appropriate, across Television and Out-of-Home.”

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