Advertiser backlash over poor performance of The Biggest Loser
With sliding ratings and a reshuffle in its programming schedule – which saw it removed from Sunday night television – Ten’s new season of The Biggest Loser: Transformed is now facing backlash from an advertiser who is concerned about the show’s performance.
The Biggest Loser: Transformed trainer Libby Babet, host Fiona Falkiner and trainer Shannan Ponton
Off the back of the show’s dismal ratings, Ten axed the reality series from its Sunday night timeslot, removing the show from Sunday night television altogether.
The show’s performance however has continued its downward trend – after debuting with 450,000 metro viewers last week, the show averaged just 289,000 viewers for last night’s episode.
An advertiser affiliated with Ten told Mumbrella they found out about Ten’s change in programming and the show’s progressive loss of viewers from media reports.
According to the source, Ten failed to contact the company to alert them of the scheduling changes and what it meant for their reach and frequency.
“Are we going to hit the target audience that we wanted, not just for reach and frequency but for an audience that should’ve been watching it and as potential customers for us?” said the advertiser. “It is not good to hear.”
“[Ten] held very strong on their expectations and what they charge advertisers, so for us to invest it’s a considerable amount of our annual budget,” they said.
A Ten spokesperson told Mumbrella the network “alerted clients on the same day the decision was made,” and no further changes have been made to the show’s schedule.
“As is the standard practise across television advertising, all shortfalls are made up across other parts of the schedule,” said the spokesperson.
In response to questions from Mumbrella about the backlash and The Biggest Loser’s ongoing struggles, a spokesperson from Ten flagged that I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! was up 10.3% year on year and Network Ten had its highest commercial audience share in total people and under 55s since 2012.
During weeks one to 11 this year Network Ten’s share of under 55s is just over 30% and the network has had its third highest commercial share in 16 years, the spokesperson said.
Sharing their opinion on the show, the advertiser said they didn’t expect the show to do as badly as it has.
“We actually thought it would be good and a bit of a re-surge because of the different format. Honestly I don’t think it was marketed very well in the lead up to it.
“There’s two different sides, I don’t know whether their own marketing was good enough, but on top of that I was bored [watching the program].”
The weight loss transformation reality program underwent a makeover for this year’s iteration following poor ratings in 2015, swapping out long-standing trainers Steve ‘Commando’ Willis, Tiffany Hall and Michelle Bridges – leaving only Shannan Ponton from the original cast and bringing on board new coach Libby Babet.
Ponton called for the show “to get back to content that shows the essence of weight loss” in an interview with Mumbrella after season 10 concluded.
Abigail Dawson was Mumbrella's senior content journalist covering event content. She left Mumbrella to move into an agency role in 2020.
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Mumbrella why are you asking clients about when Ten told them (they presumably told the agency)…
The real question for Ten is are they doing make-goods and if so where are they coming from in the schedule (where nothing outside news is rating) and at what point do they have to pull Biggest Loser completely (assuming they have anything to replace it with)? Be good to get an agency perspective on this.
Can they meet their commitments to clients across the prime time schedule?
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at 289k viewers in prime time that is not sustainable full stop. Be lucky to last a few weeks as doing massive damage to other parts of the schedule. As far as client make goods on rating expectation versus actual suggest the logs would be full of no charge spots.
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Hi Tim,
Why haven’t you disclosed the extent of your financial entanglement (Focal/Mumbrella/Tim) with Lachlan Murdoch’s business interests considering that the combined amounts of money flowing from News/MCN/Foxtel/Fox Sports/Nova/TEN/REA went a long way in bringing Focal back from the brink of insolvency? This Included today’s ads along with some long running and presumably high value campaigns over the past 3 years.
Without knowing their/other affiliated business entities combined contribution to how you keep the lights over the past couple of years, your readers are left wondering how much of Mumbrella’s editorial is cash for comment and/or in other instances selectively covering scandals to not damage friends/business partners/ideological compatriots.
Editorially what checks and balances does Mumbrella have to ensure its editorial is not cash for comment geared towards Lachlan Murdoch deliberately tanking TEN so that he can bolt it on to his right wing media empire on the cheap… because so far it looks like you are highlighting why advertisers shouldn’t spend on TEN, how Lachlan can avoid getting his hands dirty by utilising the independent share holders obligations and apparently acted as an unregistered lobbyist to federal government on how their vote on 2/3 help right wing business interests…
What’s the deal Tim? Are you in the bag? Or just are you shirking your responsibility to your audience?
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Quite hard to know where to begin with this spectacular theory…
By “financial entanglement”, do you mean that they advertise with us? Yes, yes they do. And we’re very glad to have their business. The giveaway is where you see the ads running with their logos all over them. We’re in the fortunate position that many media companies do see the value in speaking to our audience. But all of our advertisers are aware that what they are purchasing is the ability to speak to our audience, not our editorial point of view.
And it’s not been just “the past 3 years”; News Corp have been a consistent advertiser with us for at least twice as long as that. As have many of their rivals.
“Brink of insolvency”? You’ve really been reading too much of The Australian’s media diary, which attempts to write that story (or the one about us being for sale) about once a year. Come to think of it, it must be nearly time for the next one. Bear in mind that last time they wrote it, it was just as we were coming to the end of a financial year where we reported a $630,000 profit. https://mumbrella.com.au/mumbrella-eight-beating-burnout-414689 For the record, we did request a correction but didn’t get it. Odd, considering how close you seem to think we are to them.
“cash for comment geared towards Lachlan Murdoch deliberately tanking TEN so that he can bolt it on to his right wing media empire on the cheap…” Brilliant – So just to check, your theory is that he’s paid us to write this piece? Lumme… no.
“acted as an unregistered lobbyist to federal government on how their vote on 2/3 help right wing business interests…” Thank you for the flattering assessment of my influence in the inner halls of government. I don’t think I hold quite as much as you might think there though…
And thank you for your theory. My favourite thing about covering the media is that everybody’s got a theory. And you’re entitled to yours…
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
my family has been committed ‘Biggest Loser’ loyalists for the past 4-5 years and have been very disappointed with this season’s efforts
having a weekly cooking challenge episode may have seemed like a good idea in brainstorms, but just hasn’t worked at all we’re close to pulling the pin
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Where do each one of Lachlan Murdoch’s business interests rank in billings in relation to a comparable set of their peers (including co-branded creative)?
What proportion of your total billings come from Lachlan Murdoch’s business interests?
If you were to deduct all of the revenue from Lachlan Murdoch’s business interests, would you still turn a profit?
What happened to year 7?
When and why did you stop disclosing conflicts of interest?
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If this biggest loser thing were a drama, it would have been axed by now, but since it isn’t a scary theatre thingy that perplexes anyone in television who wears a suit and tie, or creates a frozen blank for anyone in authority who is asked to explain, it will be manipulated and injected with various tonics, to try to get the goose laying again.
When the goose finally dies, it will be unfit even for stuffing and roasting.
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Thanks for your follow-up, “Let’s try this again”… do we have to?
But go on then. I’m feeling lucky…
Dunno. Our financial controller is a pretty busy person so I’m not actually going to ask her to give up a day to crunch the numbers for you…. About proportional to their size in the market I guess?
I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean by “co-branded creative”.
And yep, I reckon we would. But I’m glad we don’t need to.
Sorry, I don’t really understand what you mean by “what happened to year 7?”
Disclosing conflicts of interest… If it makes it easy for you, I could give you this blanket declaration: Mumbrella is a website that writes about the media – we write about most media companies and most of them advertise with us. In the same way as happens with any reputable newspaper or TV news output, our journalists pay no attention to that (and have no advance information about who is on the advertising schedule ahead of time) when they write their stories.
(The thought also occurs… did you actually see what I wrote about Lachlan Murdoch’s involvement with Ten a couple of days back? https://mumbrella.com.au/just-much-trouble-ten-433484 – or is that part of the plot too?
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Stop eliminating people so quickly. Let them have a go!!
I love this format. I love hearing idea’s to get my head in the right space. The cooking challenges are good. I hate seeing people kicked out before they even get a chance. Let them get in lose lots of weight then get the public to vote on who deserves to fight it out. BUT be real! Don’t mess with the image you give people. The public notice. EG. I notice all the drama being created that this contestant colapsed and let the whole team down… next thing they have a clean shirt on but every second counts???? How did they have time to change shirts when every second counts??
Love the show. Love the inspiration.
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Sonya, its not real. Real doesn’t work in place of drama, that is why theatre and documentary disciplines developed separately, the two are not related in any way.
Theatre, drama, or comedy, can never be real, reality can never be fake. Lots of people do not realise this, Donald Trump is one, but one day ( I hope soon) he will.
The nit wits who are programming and producing much of the free to air television today, have no idea of the restrictions of reality and theatre. They live in the outside world, where too many people believe that good drama is to be judged by the most realistic portrayals, or credible action shots .
These people believe that acting is about remembering lines and speaking them in the right order, without moving your face muscles too much, they think that reality can be captured and remain interesting and even exciting, or that theatre is an outrageous and even weird way of behaving, and is often called “arty farty.”
They think ballet is high brow, and that opera is a fat lady in a horned helmet, squawking in tune. In other words, they have NO IDEA.
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