Network Ten upfront: Nostalgic programming, futuristic advertising
This is part of Mumbrella’s coverage of the 2024 upfront season. Click here to see other articles in the series.
Network 10 is bringing back a slew of classic television formats, at it leans heavily into nostalgia with its 2024 programming suite.
As revealed at the parent company Paramount’s Upfront this morning in Sydney, Wheel of Fortune, Ready Steady Cook, and Deal or No Deal will join the previously announced Gladiators in a series of revamped classics in Ten’s 2024 lineup.
Wheel of Fortune will be hosted by Graham Norton, and will air in prime time, as will the revamped Ready Steady Cook, to be hosted by Miguel Maestre.
Gold Logie winner Grant Denyer will be hosting Deal or No Deal, with Ten attempting to own the 6pm slot traditionally held by competitors’ evening news bulletin, leading into The Project.
For more on the Gladiators reboot, read our interview with Ten’s chief sales officer.
The network is also subbing in Robert Irwin for Dr. Chris Brown for the upcoming season for I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here.
Aside from the ad-supported tier coming to Paramount+ next year (more on that here) the company has unveiled four new measurement tools to “ensure marketers can validate and amplify the impact of connected TV advertising within their entire marketing mix.”
The new measurement tools are:
Digital Brand Impact Study, which gives advertisers a “consumer pulse check”, testing digital campaign activity against brand KPIs.
Paramount Interactive Attribution, which identifies the impact of CTV interactive advertising, by tracking viewer engagement and customer journeys against business outcomes such as booking appointments, online inquiries, or sign-up forms.
Paramount Brand Lift Study, a responsive traditional brand lift study that tracks digital campaigns on 10 Play across all devices and creatives, with the ability to track up to five KPIs, such as ‘awareness’, ‘consideration’, and ‘ad recall’.
Paramount Data Collaboration allows advertisers to conduct their own attribution and “understand the role of Paramount within their broader media mix” through first party data on 10 Play.
“Essentially, with all of our product suite, we wanted to make sure that the brands were getting a high level of visit visibility, particularly around attribution, “and what they were seeing in terms of lift of sales,” Ten’s chief sales officer Rod Prosser tells Mumbrella.
“It essentially allows us to provide data to the clients that then can really help them better understand the attribution, and importantly, the role that Paramount plays in their sales, and the benefit they’ll get through advertising with us. But really importantly — because a lot of these ad products are new, and they’re not a standardised 30-second TVC — they have a high level of engagement, so it’s really for us to prove and validate the measurement cost; the benefit for the client.”
Paramount also announced that Australia will be used as a testing market for Shoppable TV, where smart TV users can click through to an online store in order to buy a product. The new retail feature will be tested with the 2024 series of Survivor.
Prosser explains how this will work.
“Essentially how Shoppable TV will come to life will be, we’ll start with Survivor — with a noisy brand, which which we can’t announce yet. But essentially, a prompt will come up on the screen, which will then prompt the viewer to pause. And, when they pause, icons will come up on the screen, of various on-sale products.”
Prosser teases one such item might be the Survivor buff — “believe it or not, everyone goes crazy for it” — and once they make their selection on the on-screen menu, a QR code will come up, which they’ll use with their phone, taking them to the online shop.
“And in this proof of concept, it will be the Paramount shop, there they will be able to go in and purchase the item. Now, that might relate to food and or any other brands that come to life within Survivor.”
Survivor was chosen to pilot Shoppable TV, Prosser says, because it’s a global format, brand safe, and brand-friendly.
“I think the integrations that we’ve done historically within that format have always worked really seamlessly,” he notes. “And brands have always enjoyed the way we’ve integrated them, and it’s been a good experience for the viewer. So it’s a really exciting extension and evolution in e-commerce.
“We’ve had a lot of discussions, not just here locally, but globally, around how we’ll roll it out. So, we’re really thrilled that we can test it out here and potentially have it rollout around the globe, within the Paramount environment. And then, of course, for us to extend it into two other franchises and NGOs.”
Prosser assures Mumbrella any future integrations will make sense to both the brand and the program.
Maybe soon you’ll be able to buy your very own Wheel of Fortune board game through Shoppable TV, with Graham Norton’s face smiling back from the box.
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Nathan Jolly is the Deputy Editor of Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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