‘Don’t pitch us dating or cooking shows’: Ten
Ten has admitted its programming slate for next year isn’t set in stone, but told those wishing to pitch a program that the network’s dating and cooking allocation is full.
The network also confirmed another program from Pilot Week could help fill the gap in its 2019 schedule, bringing the total number of successful programs to five of a possible eight.
The gaps in Ten’s programming slate – which won’t be plugged by cooking or dating shows, but could be filled by more Pilot Week programs and as-yet-undetermined offerings – are in the latter part of 2019 calendar year at 7:30pm and 8:30pm, according to Ten’s head of programming, Daniel Monaghan.
“Our holes are clearly, as I said, at 8:30pm. They’re around now, this time next year,” he said.
“We will be investing in content. We are not set on what we will be making in some 7:30pm and 8:30pm slots next year.”
In addition, the network is seeking additional programming ideas for the recently rebranded Ten Peach, but not its stablemate Ten Boss.
“We’re not really commissioning for Ten Boss at the moment, because we have quite a lot of content coming through the pipeline for that,” Monaghan said at the Screen Forever conference in Melbourne.
Monaghan also espoused the benefits of its recent Pilot Week experiment, noting it helped generate cheap content ideas, and gave smaller production houses the opportunity to work with a free-to-air network.
“We actually put out a tender at the beginning of last year where we were after content that was cheaper to make. We wanted to make those 8:30pm shows that you don’t have as much money to invest in that time slot. So we actually put out a tender to try and get shows to come to us first within a price point.
“And out of that we realised that there was quite a scope if we wanted to make a number of the ideas, however we didn’t have the capacity. So we thought Pilot Week was a great opportunity for all of them to showcase their [work].”
The remaining uncommissioned Pilot Week programs are Drunk History, Disgrace, Skit Happens and Dave, with Ten hinting one could get across the line before the end of this year.
There’s some serious pipe being laid here.
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Pitch to another channel that actually has viewers
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Ah, now I can see the underlying strategy. Cheap over quality,
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