Who sank and who swam this upfront season
This week, Foxtel revealed news so important, it could only be imparted to a select few on an abandoned convict island in the middle of the harbour.
Earlier in the week, Ten got Sandra Sully to report their news — more on that, later – while Seven used South by Southwest and the ICC to tell a thousand of its nearest and dearest that Dr. Chris Brown will be appearing in three television shows next year, and that they also know how to stream AFL games now thank you very much Foxtel.
But back to Foxtel’s upfront at Sydney’s Cockatoo Island. It was drizzling, because we were on a convict island, and we were in a metal barn with a 50-foot high roof and a cement floor, so the reverberations during the presentations were akin to a My Bloody Valentine concert, but the message was delivered: Foxtel have fixed the biggest problem with streaming services, and have also launched their own measurement system, finally putting those millions of black boxes sitting in lounge rooms across Australia to good use.
They will be extracting the viewing data from over one million Foxtel boxes and using it for their own comprehensive ratings system, and no doubt, a comprehensive targeting system for advertisers to boot. Interestingly, they will be able to pull data from the past two years (at least), meaning they will have very real viewership figures for the major sporting events they have aired in that time. They have teamed with Kantar, which gives transparency, and such accurate audience metrics are likely to be a boon to advertisers still relying on viewership statistics done by the old-fashion system of viewer self-reporting (also still used in rural road-side fruit stores) and, even worse, by blowing tiny sample-sizes out to represent the entire viewing population. This is the same method used by NewsPoll, whose polling predicted for two years straight that Australians would vote for Bill Shorten as PM, including on the eve of the election he decisively lost. I bring this up to simply say: it’s 2023 – why haven’t we learned how to count?
The main problem with streaming services is, of course, the amount of streaming services.
Foxtel hopes to solve this dilemma by bringing them all under one roof, one menu system and – naturally – one bill. Their solution is called Hubbl, and it will reside inside either a puck, or come wrapped in a television – the long-touted Hubbl Glass that the network has been whispering about for two years.
As it stands, Foxtel’s menu system allows users to sign into their Netflix, Prime, Disney+, and Paramount accounts, as well as 9Now, SBS On Demand, ABC iView, and 10play (you’ll notice 7Plus is absent) so this is an obvious step forward from this current mode. Foxtel has long worked out, they don’t need to create the content, in fact they don’t even need to have the broadcasting rights to the content – they just need to serve it up to you. It’s an attractive prospect – and ‘well-plated’, as the TV chefs like to say.
The latter, more expensive option – Hubbl Glass – is a huge play. Basically, it will be a smart TV, with a Foxtel interface. It’s smart in many ways: it’ll lock you into Foxtel’s ecosystem, and it will remove the hassle of multiple menus, the hassle of multiple bills, and the hassle of trying to figure out where on earth 90210 season two is currently streaming (Answer: on this FAST channel over at 10 Play – it’s currently up to the episode where Brandon dates the racist volleyball player.)
Speaking of Ten and Paramount and FAST channels, unlike Nine and Seven, who packed out the Hordern and a thousand-seat-room at the ICC respectively, Paramount went intimate, splitting its upfront over several sessions and cities; given it ss a presentation aimed at those who buy ads, hosting the Sydney-based folks of the industry at its own studios in Pyrmont was a canny move – as was having Julia Morris cracking jokes from the back of the room (although this was certainly off pist), and getting Sandra Sully to present the audience questions to the executives in her authentic newsreader voice.
Hot take: 2024 is going to be the year of Robert Irwin.
He starred in a genuinely funny promotional video for his new co-hosting role on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!, and was sitting with the aforementioned Morris at the upfront. As the son of Steve Irwin, he is an obvious choice to replace Dr. Chris Brown as Morris’ sparring partner on the show, assuming that ‘knowledge of animals’ was a vital attribute to Brown’s role in the show (it wasn’t).
Luckily, Irwin and Morris already have a natural chemistry, and he is currently being immensely likeable on Celebrity Gogglebox – his appearances so far also show he isn’t afraid to shit-can competing shows, which is always a good sign. Working with Morris will no doubt tame his crikey-isms and make him a funnier, better performer. So, yeah, 2024: year of Robert Irwin. Act surprised.
Seven’s big programming play – aside from Dr. Chris Brown – was crime dramas/documentaries and reality dating shows. Ten have taken a completely different approach.
It was fitting that Paramount’s upfront was on one of their shiny-floor TV sets, given the sheer amount of traditional television formats they are reviving in 2024.
There’s Wheel Of Fortune, which will run at 7pm, and Ready Steady Cook, which will be resurrected as a primetime show.
This summer will see Gladiators return (and probably be an Olympic sport by 2032 – which, by the way, was the main thing Nine banged on about at their upfront a few weeks back) and the welcome comeback of Deal or No Deal, which will take on the evening news at 6 with Grant Denyer in the hosting seat (does the host sit in that show? I can’t recall).
At the risk of writing about Home and Away two weekends in a row – when the show debuted 35 years ago, it was pitted against the 6pm news – which was seen by many as programming suicide – but quickly succeeded because of this fact.
That was 1988. This is 2023. The news is still a horror show. I just checked.
Parents who might not wish to serve up war coverage along with the evening meal (or just frazzled humans tired from the horrors of transit) might find a smiling Grant Denyer and a series of mysterious moneyed briefcases to be far more suitable dinner fare.
It’s a great play by Ten – and good to see them leaning into traditional TV formats. Now, if they could just bring back Harold Bishop from the dead again…
Enjoy your weekend.
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Listen to this week’s Mumbrellcast, for even more on the upfronts, plus the good and the bad of SXSW; the latest on ARN’s SCA takeover bid; and one of Australia’s biggest names in TV talking about the misinformation cycle in news and social media.
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