Ten content boss: Pilot Week reporting was saddening because of the women behind the scenes
The programming boss of Ten has addressed the controversy over the network’s all-male Pilot Week lineup a week after the row first blew up.
In a piece published on the media company’s Ten Daily website on Friday, chief content officer Beverley McGarvey said that although three narrative comedy projects involving women were “in development” none of them were ready in time.
The network’s Pilot Week sees several new formats aired, with viewer reaction deciding if they get full commissions.
All eight pilot episodes are fronted by men including Ten regular Rove McManus and radio presenter Kyle Sandilands. The gender imbalance was first called out by Triple M drive host Jane Kennedy.
Oh Look!! How very exciting for all these men!!! And look! … There’s a lady in this picture with the remote control so she can watch all the clever funny men who have the opportunity to pilot their own shows @channelten @Colvick @theheraldsun @DailyMailUK @dailytelegraph pic.twitter.com/amzX7N9EJv
— Jane Kennedy (@Jane_L_Kennedy) July 22, 2018
Ten had previously declined to comment on the furore.
In her piece, McGarvey said she found the reaction to the all-male Pilot Week “saddening” because she had been excited about the concept. She argued that the wider ensemble casts of some of the shows, and many of the behind the scenes staff, were women. She wrote:
“I started this week thoroughly excited.
“We have been planning Pilot Week since late last year after we announced it at our Upfronts, and after countless pitches from all sectors of the industry, we finally had to draw the line and make some announcements. We could not wait to talk about our brand new shows.
“Unfortunately, the response to our Pilot Week announcement was instead saddening, although I must admit Kitty Flanagan’s The Weekly sketch was very funny.”
The Pilot week blunder was also lampooned by the ABC’s Tonightly show:
McGarvey said she was also disappointed at the way Pilot Week has been covered by the media. She wrote: “The reaction has been particularly disappointing for the many people involved in the shows we have announced, considering the dialogue at present has not addressed the fantastic effort on their behalf.”
She said: “In areas where women are under-represented, like narrative comedy, we actively spent time looking for female voices and, in fact, are fortunate to have found three amazing and clever concepts that are in active development. Narrative comedy, however, has a long lead time and those shows will not make it in time for Pilot Week in 2018. We did not mention this in the media release announcing our Pilot Week concept. It appears we probably should have.”
She said that network should also have given the press images of the full casts, not just the men fronting them. She wrote: “We also should have provided some artwork to go with the shows that reveal their full casts, particularly for the ensemble shows. This is a mistake we will not make again.”
She added:
“At Network Ten, I work in a leadership team of seven that includes four women. Half of the creative leads in the team I manage are women. Ten is absolutely packed full of amazing, creative, talented and experienced broadcasters and creatives, female and male, on and off-screen, including a lead female News presenter in every state.
When we are casting shows we absolutely do consider gender and diversity issues and we work hard to create a platform across our three linear channels and two digital platforms that is truly diverse.
Sixty-two percent of Ten’s audience is female, more than any other primary channel. We make a concerted effort to offer content that not only caters to this audience, but to all audiences, and we will continue to do that.”
Yep it’s a compete beat up. The numbers speak for themselves – Ten Management is well balanced from a gender standpoint and McGarvey is very experienced and capable from a programming and audience perspective. I can also think of no other network that has put more effort into developing its female talent either.
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Isn’t this the issue?
“It’s ok, there’s still women there, they’re part of the cast, behind the scenes and in supporting roles.”
It’s great that TEN has equality in management but through their highest reaching asset they’re helping to feed the message that Women’s roles are in the background. It’s not good enough.
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TEN has been in a parlous state and is trying to establish a profitable schedule, with minimum series launch risks, and without the benefit of massive news / current affairs support, and sports rights. Otherwise Australia will end of with a further concentration of media.
TEN has to pick programmes on merit, and implies that the cohort of female comedians just weren’t good enough. That’s not the fault of TEN, that’s the fault of female comedians.
Give TEN a break.
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Congratulations to Ten and in particular to Beverley McGarvey.
The faux-outrage shows how out of touch many of the commenters were. Sadly one of them was one of Australia’s leading female comedy shining stars.
I guess it is a new take on the old adage … before engaging texting fingers (it used to be ‘mouth’), engage brain.
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Nope, I used to work at 10 and I’m not buying that PR crap. They got caught out looking like fools and they’re now scrambling.
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