Media Mayhem: Michael Stephenson – ‘I don’t think there is turbulent times’
A discussion of diabolical challenges and bold solutions for our industry.
These are interesting times, and the challenges faced by Australian marketing and media are frequently diabolical. There is always opportunity in a crisis, but rarely a single solution that is easy to see. Many are worried, searching for answers and seeking the guidance of our best thinkers. At Mumbrella, we interview industry leaders to understand their insights, learn how they handle the challenges, and structure for the future. We hope this can help our industry trade through the storms and reach the best global standards. The point is to engage in expert discussion to inspire us all.
In this week's Media Mayhem, we chat with Nine's chief sales officer, Michael Stephenson.
How is the operating environment impacting your team, clients and partners?
There’s no doubt that there has been a tough economic environment, and consumer and business confidence has been low.
But when I look at the listed companies and how they’re performing, a lot of brands are actually performing quite well. So I take heart in that. It’s not lost on me for one second that marketers, in particular, are being asked to do a lot more with a little bit less.
So, the opportunity for them and for us is to work more closely together to take advantage of all of the opportunities that exist, I would say, in proven media businesses that are full-funnelling execution, awareness, consideration, and conversion to help them deliver better results. That’s the only way that you get out of this. You can’t spend all of your time at the bottom of the funnel in performance-based channels.
What changes are you seeing in consumer behaviour and preferences?
I think the Olympic Games is the greatest example of a change in consumer behaviour. Whilst we saw the underlying strength of broadcasts and the rise of streaming, we saw three and a half times the number of daily active users consuming 9Now through the Olympic Games. Of course, that flows through into the rest of our schedule as we come out of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. So this change in consumer behaviour in terms of how we will consume content in the future is happening, It’s accelerating. The good news is that Seven, Nine and Ten are all really well-positioned to take advantage of that.
How are you using technology to your advantage?
Well, we’ve always been the leaders of technology. So if you think about the launch of Nine Galaxy seven years ago, the launch of Nine Predict – our algorithm to accurately predict future audiences across our television and streaming assets. I think that’s critical. Now, of course, we have teams of people working on building and accessing generative AI to both drive automation, drive efficiency and increasingly access, create and curate content for consumers at scale at a much lower cost base.
Despite the turbulent time the industry is facing, how are you thinking ahead?
I don’t think there is turbulent times. As I keep saying, the ad market has been incredibly resilient. I think it’s how you operate within that market and how you take advantage of those opportunities. And so for me, if I get my head out of my laptop and I think about our business in particular, we’ve got amazing content. We’ve got 22 million signed-in users, so we’ve got an amazing data product. We’ve got audiences at scale. How do we drive a positive return for our shareholders utilizing that content and data?
And back in the day, it would have been through advertising. Increasingly, it’s through subscriptions, it’s through licensing, and into the future, increasingly, I think you’ll see more through transaction. So if you take five minutes to get your head out of your day to day, there is opportunity everywhere if you’re willing to look for it.
What proposals for legislative change would you prioritise, or are there areas you would like government assistance on?
Well, of course, topical right now is the the News Media Bargaining Code. So there of course is is more work to be done in around that by government. You have the work and conversations ongoing with large language models and generative AI to to make sure that we’re fairly compensated for any content that’s used to train those engines. I think both of those things are very topical.
A little bit closer to home and things that are live, you’ve obviously got the ongoing conversations around wagering. And importantly, for us, prominence. As increasingly you see consumption of our content on a connected television by 9Now and Stan, the prominence of those apps on the home screen ahead of and in preference of the global platforms is important for Australian consumers.
What opportunities do you see, and how are you positioning your organisation to exploit them?
We’ve got a very clear strategy. We’ve got an integrated audience platform that gives us a competitive advantage against most. This real obsession with growing audiences, utilising our first-party data to inform the type of content and the type of audiences that we can curate in and around our platforms, is critical. And then monetising them through advertising, subscriptions, licensing, and transactions is at the core of what we are doing.
Over time, right through any cycle, should see us be able to increase our revenues. And, then, as every company is, and we will continue to do, resetting our cost base for the future as we look at Nine of the Future as it transitions and accelerates towards being an entirely digital company.
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Neil Griffiths is the Managing Editor of Mumbrella. He joined the company in October 2023.
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