Opinion

Is total re-branding the only means left to end Network Ten’s torment?

TenWhile the Ten Network’s ratings woes well documented Luke Devenish asks if their best way to turn it around is a brand overhaul.

We all find it difficult to get out of bed of a morning, but spare a thought for the powers-that-be at Network Ten, who must surely be belting the snooze button on a daily basis. Their annus horribilis is now nudging half a decade thanks to a waking nightmare that is two pronged in its torment.

In recent weeks media junkies have looked on aghast at the John Stephens saga.

Earlier in March Ten announced a coup with its appointment of the veteran TV heavyweight and programming maestro to the Pyrmont posse.

Stephens was a good get for Ten but corks had barely popped before the words “court injunction” were heard and Ten was tied up in reef knots with Stephens’ long-time employer Seven. Stephens then released a surprise statement implying his Ten contract negotiations had been conducted while he was post-op on painkillers for a dodgy hip.

For those of us daring to squint between the lines, the great unsaid seemed to be that Ten had somehow taken advantage of Stephens while he cruised through the Valley of the Dolls, something CEO Hamish McLennan has denied.

This debacle remains ongoing and what’s more, is a recurring echo of earlier executive embarrassments. Two and a half years ago Ten’s announcement that James Warburton would be defecting from Seven to become Ten CEO was tarnished by legal shenanigans from Seven that saw Warburton sniffing roses for months on “gardening leave”.

When Warburton finally did get to sit in the swivel chair Ten gave him just fourteen months to reverse their ill fortunes, before presenting him with a pink slip.

Yet these backstage melodramas are nothing compared to Ten’s on-screen woes.

2014 has delivered a raft of new product along with returning warhorses, just like 2013 did, and 2012 before it.

And just like those preceding years there’s been lots of colour and hype in the offing, plenty of audience-friendly dazzle, and yes, some programs of genuine quality, too. Unfortunately, hardly anyone’s watching. Hapless Ten have become the tumbleweed network.

The real shame here is that if Ten’s performance was assessed on strength of programming alone it would not be found wanting. Ten is actually doing nothing its commercial rivals aren’t doing too.

It has the requisite reality juggernauts, some glittering on-air talent, some fine US imports and a slate of home-grown dramas, two of which, Puberty Blues and Secrets and Lies, both currently on air, are as good as, if not better than any other Aussie drama elsewhere. But no one knows or cares about this, it would seem, apart from the TV critics.

2012 was thought to be the nadir of Ten’s nosedive with its slew of fresh-and-funky shows that almost universally flopped, but 2014 is already proving that pronouncement premature.

Heads rolled in 2012 and we might well expect to see the guillotine greased again by Easter. But all the executive purges in the world won’t get to the very heart of the problem, which is, as I see it, to do with the Ten brand itself, not the shows.

Brand “Ten” is looking like junk and has been heading that way for some years.

It is my belief that this has come as the end result of what could be construed as contempt shown by Ten to their viewers.

Always first and foremost among Ten’s stated concerns are its shareholders, which is well and good for the Murdochs et al, but in reality not good for anyone, billionaires included. Ten’s shareholder interests too often seem to outweigh the interests of Ten’s audience, upon whom share profitability ultimately depends.

One of the factors that might be said to have led to dwindling viewing figures is that Ten becomes the panic station whenever a debuting show fails to gain the numbers hoped for. Just like it did with ex-CEO James Warburton, Ten too easily drops under-performers in the hope of bringing bigger audiences with something else next week.

Unfortunately, “something else” is mostly Modern Family repeats – and in the years before that sitcom existed it was Simpsons repeats. The audience that tuned in for the fresh new show turn up for the next instalment only to find it replaced by something made stale by over-exposure. Ten are by no means the only network guilty of this short-term bandaid-ing, but they are the worst offenders for it.

Another loyalty-busting factor is Ten’s on-air promotions. I must disclose here that in an earlier life I was employed by FremantleMedia to write for Ten’s long-running soap Neighbours. Almost nightly we in the Fremantle script office were dismayed by the angle Ten’s promotions department would take with the show’s promos. (This was before Neighbours’ current exile to Eleven.)

Back in the mid-2000s the promo default setting was “sexy”, whether the episode was sexy or not, and the breathy female announcer as good as promised on-air intercourse several times a week. Sometimes the promo producers would further imply upcoming sensational moments they’d plucked from their own imaginations rather than the scripts.

The core elements of the soap – the dags and the dearies, the kids and the kooks, the big-hearted silly-billies of flat-white suburbia – were simply not promoted at all. Dags aren’t sexy.

Ten’s promotional untruths extended to many other shows. Outlandish promises were made to the accompaniment of musical stings snatched from Tom Cruise thrillers. Revved-up viewers tuned in expecting big screen fireworks only to get small screen fizz. There are only so many times a viewer can fall for such tricks – even the least-savvy among us eventually grows cynical.

A decade on, Ten’s promotional repertoire remains as one-note as it ever was and viewers are near deaf to the message. It doesn’t matter how good a show like Secret and Lies is, Ten’s promos would seem to be incapable of convincing people of it. Could it be that the audience has learnt not to believe what it’s told?

When Ten’s current CEO and now chairman Hamish McLennan took over the swivel chair in Warburton’s wake he gave vague hope of an image change. So far he’s changed the logo colours.

While I have no doubt that incalculable time, tears and energy are being expended in bunker Pyrmont to redress Ten’s state of affairs, the truth is that Ten should consider nothing less than a total rebrand.

For what it’s worth, I say ditch the logo and the name – both are looking shopsoiled past salvaging. Why not re-christen Ten something else – a snappy one-word moniker, perhaps, in preference to a numeral seen as negative?

Then, publicly acknowledge the crimes of the past and make a vow to atone for them with behaviour that is exemplary from here on in.

When it comes to offering new shows, buy with courage and commission with conviction. And why not throw the whole schedule up in the air and see where it lands? Program laterally rather than reactively and then have the guts to stick with it.

We’ll be poorer as a nation if Ten slips into oblivion, or worse, if it proves the conspiracy theorists right by becoming a hollow clone of the US Fox network with nothing ‘Aussie’ about it at all.

Once upon time, not so very long ago, Ten was our most profitable commercial network and the go-to spot for easy laughs, harmless trashiness, and the occasional pot of gold.

Yes, the TV landscape has dramatically changed since then, but people still watch telly when inspired to and TEN could be that go-to network again.

I, for one, very much hope it will be.

Luke Devenish is a lecturer in film & television at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne

Disclosure: Luke Devenish is not now nor ever has been an employee of Network Ten. He has in the past been employed as a writer by FremantleMedia Australia on dramas purchased and broadcast by Network Ten, including Neighbours and Mrs & Mrs Murder. He is not a shareholder in Network Ten, nor is he a shareholder in any of its commercial rivals.

ADVERTISEMENT

Get the latest media and marketing industry news (and views) direct to your inbox.

Sign up to the free Mumbrella newsletter now.

 

SUBSCRIBE

Sign up to our free daily update to get the latest in media and marketing.