Ten unifies brand with one name to rule them all
Today, Network Ten is making a number of significant changes to its station branding, its approach to news journalism, and its streaming service.
The Paramount-owned network is consolidating its free-to-air, streaming, and sub-brands under one name: “10”. The network’s streaming service, 10play, will now become simply “10”, alongside the free-to-air station, which will also be known as “10”.
Elsewhere, 10 Bold Drama becomes 10 Drama, 10 Peach Comedy becomes 10 Comedy, 10 News First becomes 10 News, and 10play.com.au will now be 10.com.au.
To get around any confusion, the network will work with a tagline ‘watch and stream on 10’ where ‘watching’ refers to the traditional linear mode, and ‘streaming’ is anything online.
“Fundamentally, it’s actually removing confusion,” Karen Song, head of network design, tells Mumbrella.
“Reflecting how audiences already interact with our content. They don’t see a difference between linear and streaming. Our brand didn’t need to do that anymore. So we simplified the need for those sub-brands. We focused on building equity on the 10.
“It was really about reducing fragmentation, reducing complexity, and modernising our identity. It’s the master brand approach. It’s all 10. Wherever you consume it, it’s 10.”
It makes sense. Ten is the first in the local market to unify free-to-air and streaming offerings under one name. It looked to Channel 5 in the UK for guidance, after the latter unified the My5 and 5 brands.
“That’s just meeting the audiences where they are. They’re fluidly flowing throughout your platforms. They’re not delineating between two brands. Our audiences know and trust 10. They search for 10. They don’t search for Play.”
As Claudio Amati, head of network creative, explains to Mumbrella, when the network last rebranded in 2018, a lot of the streaming services now in market didn’t exist.
“There was a lot less clutter,” he says. “The market is so cluttered now, that we can’t afford to be cluttered within our own ecosystem. It’s just to make things really obviously clear.”
“10 Peach and 10 Bold needed to exist when we rebranded in 2018 – you wanted to give variety, and an identity, a sub-brand,” Song adds.
“But the choice to now simplify those to 10 comedy and 10 drama is because it’s increasingly hard to give meaning to those words: Peach and Bold. It’s just not how our audiences need us to be. So we’re simplifying things for them.”
With the genre now affixed to each station, Song says, they are now “tilts to the master brand rather than being sub-brands.”
“In our current landscape, we can’t afford to split equity anymore.”
It’s a great idea, but it comes with difficulties when trying to distinguish the streaming BVOD platform and the traditional station. Again, Ten looked to Channel 5 in the UK.
“They did a lot of research for their brand,” Amati says. “And their line was ‘watch and stream’, which was really simple, you know, ‘5 watch and stream’.”
Network Ten’s own research found that there remained confusion over whether BVOD channels required payment to watch.
“We wanted to make sure that we really got that message across, that 10 is free wherever you consume it, whether it’s on linear or whether it’s online, it’s free. And it also helps us delineate between our subscription service, which is Paramount Plus.”
Claudio Amati and Karen Song
Tonight will also see Ten go head-to-head with Nine and Seven in the hallowed 6pm news slot for the first time since 2012, with 10 News+, the network’s new hybrid of news analysis, current affair, and investigation journalism.
10 News+ will follow the network’s 5pm 10 News First local news bulletin, which will be renamed 10 News.
It aims to offer “extended context and deeper reporting”, according to the station’s press kit, and will be anchored Sunday to Thursday by Denham Hitchcock and Amelia Brace, both of whom were poached from Seven’s beleaguered Spotlight program. Ursula Heger, host of the network’s Late News bulletin, and national affairs editor Hugh Riminton, will host on Friday.
But what exactly are they aiming for? Will it be A Current Affair? Spotlight? Four Corners? The Project? Will there be horoscopes?
“It stands on its own”, Hitchcock declares, when Mumbrella attempts to pigeonhole the new program.
“It’s certainly not the once-a-week, really long-form investigations that we see on the likes of Four Corners and 60 Minutes,” Brace clarifies, “but we will have really meaty, hard-hitting stories each night. And, we’ll have those longer-form news stories that might look a bit more like a 6 pm or a 5 pm bulletin. It’s a real new hybrid of everything in the current landscape.”
This hybrid style was integral to its design, allowing for a blend of reporting style and package lengths, while also covering off the day’s events.
“I’m excited about the flexibility that we have with this show,” executive producer Dan Sutton says. “Potentially, just on one night, you might have an investigation that we’ve done, and you might have some deeper analysis on one or two of the really big news stories of the day. But you’ll also be able to have news headlines and a short, sharp summary of all the other day’s stories in there, in one hour.”
His ambition for the show’s reach is bold.
“I’m hopeful that that’s the only place that you get your news. You’re not going to miss anything, and you’ll also have the ability to see something that you won’t see anywhere else.”
Given the show is going head-to-head with both Nine and Seven’s flagship 6pm news, both of which regularly trade places at the top of the ratings each evening, this ambition will be needed. Sutton has been working on the show in secret for a number of months, testing formats, and attempting to poach staff from other networks without being able to disclose exactly what he was brewing.
“It was a challenge to try and bring people into the fold without going into too much detail about what we were doing,” he said. “But I think the big sell, when I was approaching people to come and join the show, was to work on a new show, and put the journalism first. It’s a journalist-driven show.”
Brace said it was “the idea of building something from the ground up and trying something new” that sold her when Sutton attempted to woo her across from Seven.
“Doing longer stories, giving stories more what they’re worth. This was a chance for every day to be different, and to move into presenting while still being an on-the-road journo, which for me is the perfect job, because I think I’d be bored if I just sat behind a desk.
“To still be able to chase stories and tell stories, but also step into that host role was a really exciting opportunity.”
Likewise, Hitchcock says he was “excited by the concept.” He explains: “For the last 12 years, I’ve done long form. So I’ve done either 60 Minutes, Sunday Night or Spotlight for the last 12 years. But, having a show that delves into the daily news, but just not the car crashes and the factory fires, the stuff that affects people’s lives, the stuff that I like to watch, and still retaining that ability to do long form as well.”
There was another drawcard.
“I like the fact that we’re kind of pissing everybody off, really,” he laughs. “We’re chasing daily news. We’ll be scrapping it with daily news on the important stories. But we’ll also be at the table with the big boys with the big stories to tell, too. And that’s a really exciting prospect.”
Once Hitchcock and Brace were locked in, the rest of the team came easy, Sutton recalls.
The team: Samantha Butler, Brianna Parkins, Angela Bishop, Hugh Riminton, Amelia-Brace, Denham Hitchcock, Ursula Heger, Ashleigh Raper, Bill Hogan, and Carrie Anne Greenbank.
“We’ve got two hosts who are hard-working journos. They are driving stories as much as anybody on this show. They’ve got the notebooks out, they’re hitting the phones, making calls and pounding the pavement. Once we had that framework built, it was pretty easy to try and get journos to join the fold.”
The show will also be inventive in its distribution model, with the show playing on both 10 streaming and linear, and also on Youtube and as a Spotify video podcast. The latter of these is of particular note, marking the first time an Australian free-to-air broadcaster has made a show available on Spotify, traditionally the home of music and audio podcasts.
“It’s just another platform,” Sutton says. “It’s another way of reaching the audience. We’ll chase people wherever they are. Wherever they are, we want their eyeballs. I just don’t see any reason why we should place barriers or impediments, whether they be time barriers or technological barriers, on people.
“If they want to see the work we’re doing, we should deliver it to them, to our audience, in any way they want to consume it.”
Just because they are promising hard-hitting journalism, doesn’t mean it’s going to be filled with confronting news stories.
“There’s always room for light and shade,” Sutton says. “There are some beautiful stories to tell that are inspirational, emotional, uplifting and exciting. We don’t always have to be negative and pessimistic. The news doesn’t always have to be dark and negative.”
Regardless of what it delivers, the show will inevitably be compared to The Project, the light current affairs panel show it will be replacing after 16 years on air.
Sutton said the show had “an amazing run” but doesn’t offer a neat comparison.
“What we’re doing is different. This is a harder news focus. We’re not telling anybody what they should think. We’re not trying to scare them. We’re not trying to push an opinion. We’re ready to hear lots of different opinions. What you’ll have from our host is straight down the middle journalism. They’re going to be impartial. They’re going to be relentless, and they’re going to be tough.”
It also doesn’t slot in neatly with its 6pm competitors, according to Sutton.
“I think we’ll be a good alternative. if we’re talking about direct rivals at 6, you’ll often watch those bulletins and they’re almost carbon copies of each other. Almost story for story. You watch the openers, they’re almost carbon copies. What I expect is you’ll see something different on 10 at 6 o’clock.”
“And also different between our shows each night,” Brace adds. “We won’t be that cookie cutter. You’re not going to sit there and be like, ‘Oh, this story will go for two minutes and then there’ll be the weather.
“It’s going to be completely different every night, depending on what the day throws up for us.”
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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“10 Peach and 10 Bold needed to exist when we rebranded in 2018 – you wanted to give variety, and an identity, a sub-brand. But the choice to now simplify those to 10 comedy and 10 drama is because it’s increasingly hard to give meaning to those words: Peach and Bold.”
Almost no effort went into developing “Peach” or “Bold” as brands. Which is fine. Couch Time was a strong effort made with predecessor Eleven, and One being all sport for a time was at least a differentiator.
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