McLennan: Ten will be the home of event TV
CEO of the Ten Network, Hamish McLennan has declared he will change the station’s programming mix as the station chases an older demographic through a combination of sport and event TV.
McLennan told Mumbrella editor-in-chief Tim Burrowes about the station’s new focus on the 25-54 demographic and how it would lead to the network’s revival.
“We see the 25-54 demographic as the most important in the market, about 50 per cent of the population falls within that demo, we would have gone out of business if we had stayed with our traditional 16-39 year old demographic,” said McLennan.
“We were getting caught in a narrow band because of a lot of the viewers in that younger demographic are using PVR devices or are regular downloaders,” he said.
“The reality is that viewer in that (25-54) demographic are more stable and for us we want to be known as the home of great event TV.”
McLennan also criticised the former Ten regimes of Grant Blackley and James Warburton telling the audience “I wouldn’t have done the Negus project”, referring to Ten’s ill fated news program hosted by journalist George Negus.
“It cost a lot money and it was competing with Seven and Nine and we already have an audience for News at Five, which is very committed.”
He also told the audience the move to an older demographic should have happened earlier and that the network . “That younger demographic is just not watching TV the way they used to,” he said.
“We should have moved sooner and we should have launched (digital channel) Eleven before we launched One.”
The Ten network CEO also spoke about the process that went into the recent sports rights negotiations which saw them pick up the Big Bash league.
We are delighted with the Big Bash and believe it is a format with a hell of a lot of potential and it is a foot in the door of more live sport that is incredibly important for a free to air network,” said McLennan.
“We always knew that Nine would do whatever it took to match the bid but we still had a red hot go at the internationals series and saw that the Big Bash wanted to be put on free to air TV.”
“So we felt confident in our bidding, Lachlan and I had a meeting with Cricket Australia people and saw how serious they were in timbering all the cricket together.”
“And so we picked a number that we thought was fair and reasonable and then added $20 million to it,” he joked.
He also spoke about the decision to pick up the rights for the Winter Olympics.
“With the Winter Olympics we secured that at a really good price and we think we’ll be able to make some good money off the back of that.” he said.
“We are changing the whole programming mix of the business. We still think Australian drama is importance and we are maintain our commitment to that, but the past shows that what made Ten famous over the years was shows like Australian Idol and Big Brother.”
“The big format reality based shows are important from a client and product integration point of view. They are reliable, they are more immediate.”
Nic Christensen
How predictable a new CEO blames former management on all their stuff up’s. Maybe 1 day someone else might be saying why did 10 buy Winter Olympics and chase the cricket, a summer out of ratings event and Big Bash is exactly that – 1 better than park cricket
A very welcome and interesting point of view. The unfortunate aspect of this proposed approach to television is the possibility that it is frighteningly flawed.
A careful read through reveals the notion of casting away the past , which is a good idea in the case of the Ten Network, and an embracing of change based upon what has been popular in the past.
Though not a complete circle, this proposal is at best a U turn.
The big format reality based shows may have been important once, today they are a return to the too near past, within the recent living memory of most, and as such they are, what used to be called “Old Hat,” and are both likely to fail and likely to be expensive.
I hope I am wrong, but I doubt that this is so.
I am also wary of statements such as [quote] “We still think Australian drama is importance(sic) and we are maintain (sic) our commitment to that” [unquote]
Australian Dram and Comedy is of paramount importance and should be pursued and produced with very much more care than it has been afforded in the past.
Grundy brought soap to the top of the tree in the shape of Prisoner, and a later little beauty called Neighbours, which Ten had the good sense to pick up and run with when it was dropped by others.
Mr and Mrs Murder is a series with every conceivable component of brilliant television light drama, but its considerable attributes are let down badly by the absence of devoted “hands on” production and direction values.
I live in hope that Ten can turn the corner and achieve great things, I also hope that it turns that corner without effecting a U turn.
To ‘Been there done that’, If you had been at the talk you would have heard that Hamish McLennan did not just point the finger accusingly at the ‘old regime’ and blame them for past mistakes. He was asked a couple of times ‘What would you have done differently?” and he gave a straightforward, honest answer. I would suggest that the summary above, slightly distorts how he came across in the interview. I don’t think he overtly ‘criticised’ the former management.
Didn’t Ten invent “Event TV” with shows like Big Brother, Idol and Masterchef? He’s a brave CEO to admit that Ten would have gone out of business if they had stuck with the 16-39 demographic considering it is publicly documented that Lachlan Murdoch changed Ten’s focus from the older 18-49 and 25-54 demographic they were targeting when he came on board back to 16-39 with his declaration that Ten needed to get back to the cheap younger skewing channel it once was. So essentially McLennan is saying that Murdoch was wrong (without actually mentioning his name or saying it was his idea) and that he set the channel back years with his 16-39 plan. Ten’s previous management all knew that with the new younger skewing digital channels and internet viewing…the elusive 16-39s now so fragmented were not enough to keep the business going like it had been ten years earlier. That’s why they were trying to broaden their target audience. And now McLennan is agreeing with them!
With the benefit of hindsight, putting Negus in was probably not the right decision, but going back to The Simpsons is not right either (probably also a Murdoch decision!). I look forward to seeing what his plan is for 6pm to attract all the 25-54 year olds that are entrenched watching the Seven and Nine News. It’s really easy to say what not to do, especially when you know something hasn’t worked…but not so easy to come up with a successful solution.
It seems that everything McLennan is saying agrees with the strategy of the previous Ten management…so I do wonder how Ten would be today if they had not had the unfortunate change of focus during the last 2-3 years. Simpsons, Bingle and Shire would have stayed on Eleven. The Voice could have been on Ten. How different things could have been.
I wonder if the penny may drop for Hamish McLennan when he sees Seven continuing to invest in drama shows with a good many running for years such as Packed To The Rafters which gains consistent audiences of 1-1.3 million. If you can get them up and running then they form a vital part of a networks slate and far less vulnerable to audience taste than reality television. The previous management were pretty clueless about drama and had some absolute turkeys including Secretary, a hugely expensive pilot which was so bad they didn’t complete it. If given an increased drama development and production budget Ten could well pull a few rabbits out of the hat. Just look at the Seven Network.
“We were getting caught in a narrow band because of a lot of the viewers in that younger demographic are using PVR devices or are regular downloaders, we would have gone out of business if we had stayed with our traditional 16-39 year old demographic”
What happens when the older TV watching gen keel over?
Will IPTV save the day?
Interesting future.
It may be cheaper to create stripped series but if people aren’t going to commit to them you’ve got a very expensive dud. One of the few ways to get people to watch tv is narrative first run Australian drama and comedy. It’s expensive but you can’t download it. It will not be long before the older viewers start downloading too. How many are already watching iview? They need to go for quality shows you can’t get elsewhere. They were ten years too late with their Shire/Lara Bingle trash experiment.