Media agency bosses: Mott’s departure ‘not surprising given Ten’s failures’, Adam Boland replacing Mott ‘makes sense’
John Steedman: Mott leaving is not a surprise
Leigh Terry: Boland replacing Mott makes sense
The bosses of two of Australia’s largest media buying operations – GroupM and Omnicom Media Group – have said that it is not surprising that Network Ten’s programming chief David Mott has left the broadcaster, announced this morning.
“It is not surprising that David is leaving after the failures of the network,” John Steedman, head of GroupM, told Mumbrella.
“The network has a lot of work to do to revamp its entire schedule. The reality is that Ten will probably have to look at bringing in more overseas products to bring viewers back.”
“To date, its local programming offering just hasn’t worked,” he said.
Leigh Terry, CEO of Omnicom Media Group, said: “David is a smart cookie, but he’s had a difficult run with ratings for Ten. But ratings is such a fickle game, and you’re only ever one of two shows away from a good run. But if you don’t produce those few shows, you’re in for a hard slog.”
Terry said that it “would make sense” for Mott’s replacement to be Adam Boland, Seven’s director of social media/executive producer, who has been widely tipped to be teaming up with his former colleague Ten boss James Warburton.
However, a Ten spokesman has said today that to assume Boland had got the job was “completely wrong.”
“Given Adam’s great track record turning around Sunrise, and given that Adam and James used to work together, a move to Ten would certainly make sense. He’s clearly a talented individual, and if he’s looking to move into a wider programming role, it would be an interesting move.”
“New blood is needed to bring a fresh perspective to some tough challenges,” he said. “James [Warburton] needs a game changer.”
Ten announced the departure of Mott after 16 years with the network this morning.
I can understand the reason for changes in staff at the channel, but as far as the scheduling goes, the last thing to do would be to buy overseas shows; this will only serve to maintain the status quo. As an experienced producer I find it very odd to see a line up of UK and USA shows when there is the talent and the desire for homegrown original format shows in Australia
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All Adam Boland has done is be a producer of a morning show. All his innovations were just elements he swiped from USA breakfast TV.
A good programmer he ain’t
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Boland @ TEN? OMG! That will be as successful as Warburton’s first Head of Sales.
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Ten and Fairfax should merge
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The bigger picture here is that broadcasters as we know them are becoming irrelevant. Increasingly, people are seeking out the shows they want by whatever means they can get them. Some smaller program-makers are already selling directly to the public – or giving away content on YouTube (as Jerry Seinfeld is with his Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee). FTA TV just doesn’t have the flexibility that viewers are demanding. Unless they produce good original content, their days are numbered.
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The media industry seems to have gone into knee jerk panic mode. How many experienced and skilled senior execs are now spending the spoils of a resignation?
Panic buying extortionate, unaffordable sports rights, bizarre local productions that last a week, imports that should have never hit the satellite?
There is a trend to “out with the old and in with the new” despite the new often having distinctly sketchy results in prior non relevant roles, or having just stepped off the London flight.
Other industries treat people with more respect and approach problems in a genuinely collaborative manner rather than proportioning individual blame. Media is becoming the unprofitable laughing stock. Literally.
The lack of accountability from the top is worrying as is the resulting programming on our screens. Pay TV anyone?
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I’ll do it, for free, part time. Just email me the show overviews. Ill get back to you within the hour with a GO or NO.
Also have a read the list of claimed ‘successes’ (masterchef, big brother, idol, biggest loser, Thank God you’re here). All tried and tested OS.
Go back to standing for something 10. Stop sitting on the fence.
You cant have paul Bongiorno and Andrew Bolt on the same station. Too confusing for us public.
Imagine if you ditch news and news related products altogether. We get that from fairfax.
Who cares……I’m off to Perisher….who owns that?
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It is interesting to watch what has happened at Ten since Lachlan and Gina started to help the channel.
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This ‘TVs days are numbered’ sentiment is such bollocks. In 2011 ppl watched 6% more TV than in 2010 in Australia … the average person is watching an extra 35 mins a week.
People will watch good TV. They always have and always will. The Seinfeld thing is good and more my taste, but it’d be lucky to be doing 200k total view starts (ie ppl pressing play only) WORLDWIDE.
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Anyone who truly thinks that Australians are watching more FTA TV today than last year or a couple of years ago is living in some parallel universe. I know the networks want to believe this is true and the media buyers want this to be true (because buying FTA time is so much easier than the complexity of buying space on the web where you have that pesky issue of ACTUAL measurement) and ad agencies want to believe it (because a lot of them just love making big budget FTA commercials filmed on some remote pacific island and all set up to win some creative award at Cannes)…Of course people will watch good TV and they do but they also watch what they want to watch and with Apple TV, IPTV, Pay etc etc the reality is people will end up watching less and less FTA….And in the end it comes down to the economics (ie Ad $ for an audience) and is here that FTA is so exposed..
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Sorry Ivan, but I didn’t realise that the creators of Thank God You’re Here, Working Dog
were from overseas, but I guess some people do consider Victoria to be a different country.
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@Ivan – Don’t think you could sayThe Biggest Loser and MasterChef were tried and tested overseas formats. It was very risky for TEN to strip them over the whole week at prime time. Being a programmer is probably tougher than you think.
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Daniel Petre – cool and completely unfounded conspiracy theory, coupled with a bunch of uneducated generalisations. Nice work.
I would love you to be investing my money …
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