Hamish McLennan in the frame as Ten boss?
Y&R boss Hamish McLennan’s name is being linked with the top job at Network Ten.
McLennan, global CEO of Y&R Advertising, announced on February 10 that he intended to return to Australia although he gave no indication on his career intentions.
February 23 saw Ten fire Grant Blackley and appoint Lachlan Murdoch as interim CEO.
Murdoch became a shareholder and board member late last year.
Writing in today’s Media section of The Australian, columnist Mark Day, who is usually well informed on issues involving the Murdoch family, said: “Seven sales supremo James Warburton has been mentioned as a possible new chief executive, but there are also whispers around the traps that New York-based Hamish McLennan, head honcho of advertising agency Y&R for the past five years who is returning to Australia, might be ready to accept a new and different challenge. That would be an inspired choice. Watch this space.”
McLennan’s career to date has been within the advertising industry, beginning in Sydney in the mailroom of what was then George Patterson Bates. He later became national MD of the agency before moving to Y&R as chairman and CEO of the Australasian operation. He then masterminded Y&R’s takeover of George Patterson before becoming global CEO in 2006.
Although McLennan has little in the way of direct TV experience, he is highly connected. His Cannes sessions have included Rupert Murdoch and Al Gore.
This is a fun game isn’t it?
Speculating who is probably going to have one of the toughest, if not the toughest job, in Australian media this year.
The piece in the AFR this morning highlighting the move of $40M in revenue away from Ten that “the Ten sales guys don’t even it’s happened”, if true, shows what a difficult time lies ahead. Assuming that most agency deals are locked away for the first half of the year, with the exception of Group M (still working to FY deals?) there probably isn’t much spare money floating around for the next 4 months. Ten’s audience share continues to fall away, with the market and the Board apparently losing faith with much of the old management’s channel / programming / digital strategy. Let’s hope that the strategic review is conducted quickly and decisively, and that the new CEO (whoever it turns out to be) has the talent, connections, determination, and resilience to turn this situation around. The market needs all 3 networks to be firing, not just two, or even one for that matter.
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Hamish @ 10. What could possibly go wrong?
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(Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy).
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