Who Killed Channel Ten?
The first rule of media agencies is that you never talk about the poor performance of a TV network.
They do too much business together to risk the relationship.
But behind the scenes, the drums have been beating about Ten long before the arrival – and tonight’s sudden departure – of James Warburton.
I remember chatting to the boss of a top ten media agency three or four years ago, just after the launch of Freeview.
His prediction was that the arrival of the secondary channels was going to screw Ten. Previously Seven and Nine had done battle for middle Australia while Ten came a profitable third by controlling costs and targeting an ad-friendly younger demographic with the likes of The Simpsons and Neighbours.
But once the digital channels came along, the rival networks could begin to squeeze Ten. Sure enough, that’s what Nine’s Go and Seven’s Mate have been doing. This week we saw SBS2 announce its plan to do the same.
But for a while, I thought the media agency boss was mistaken. Along came MasterChef, bravely launched by then programming boss David Mott. Suddenly the network wasn’t just competitive in 16-39 and 18-49; it was getting wins in all people too.
The network began to change strategy – investing in beefing up its news output and commissioning big shows such as The Renovators.
But the revenue wasn’t keeping up with the increased spend, not least because the media downturn was beginning to bite.
New shareholder Lachlan Murdoch shot CEO Grant Blackley and announced he’d be bringing in his man, the well respected James Warburton, from Seven.
It became something of a debacle when Seven went to court and Warburton was forced into lengthy gardening leave, meaning Murdoch had to babysit the company while “Mr Ambitious” stayed at home.
By the time Warburton arrived, the pattern was set. The Renovators had been an expensive failure, and Masterchef wasn’t delivering the same ratings magic as before.
Warburton made an early blunder, bringing in Mike Morrison as his sales chief.
This week another one of these nothing-on-the-record media agency bosses told me how unimpressed he had been. Morrison may have been a smart strategist, but he wouldn’t shut up and listen for two minutes to his customer, I was told. By contrast Seven’s sales boss Kurt Burnette is “a quiet guy who listens and tries to understand what you need”, the agency boss said. He put Nine’s Peter Wiltshire in a similar category.
After less than six months, Morrison was gone. Warburton moved to steady the ship by bringing in former PHD CEO Barry O’Brien. The avuncular O’Brien, well liked in the industry, called in some favours and kept the network in the fight – or as well as he could given the declining ratings.
Mott also got the bullet as the network coped with the humiliating failure of Everybody Dance Now – presented by Murdoch’s wife Sarah. I Will Survive, a show inspired by drag queen movie Priscilla Queen of the Desert also failed to connect, despite being a well made show.
Being Lara Bingle and The Shire drew headlines and initial ratings but quickly faded.
The Circle got the chop after failing to get ad support. The backlash to Yumi Stynes’ comments about soldier Ben Roberts-Smith didn’t help its commercial situation.
The Paul Henry-hosted Breakfast suffered diabolical ratings, including a zero rating in Melbourne for parts of its first day on air. (Declaration of interest: I was an occasional guest on the show). It was axed too.
If you were to write a book about the worst year in a network’s life, this would be it. Who Killed Channel Nine has nothing on 2012.
This year, things started a fractionally more brightly. Masterchef: The Professionals went to air well before the ratings season began. Initially it started brightly (deservedly so: it’s a well made, entertaining show). But once Seven’s My Kitchen Rules launched, Masterchef was blown out of the water, not least because MKR was better marketed and better promoted.
Then came the new series of Can Of Worms, debuting with just 351,000 viewers, down in Everybody Dance Now territory.
But the big test – and I admit, I didn’t realise how big – came on Wednesday night of this week, with the debut of Ten’s new drama Mr And Mrs Murder.
In what is (with that huge benefit of hindsight) a foolish piece of programming, Mr And Mrs Murder was given Glee as a lead-in. Glee rated an awful 269,000. We’ve still not been able to find a weekday primetime network show that has ever delivered a worse number. It robbed Mr And Mrs Murder of what could have been a far bigger win.
And now Warburton has in turn been fired.
That’s fair enough. As the boss, you get a big pay packet for taking responsibility,whether it is your fault or not. But he will, I’m sure, make a swift return to the media world. Nobody I’ve come across doubts he was an excellent head of sales for Seven, or before that boss of media agency UM. I bet he’s already had offers.
So what does the arrival of Hamish McLennan mean?
Questions are going to be asked. If bringing in a CEO with no program-making experience didn’t work, why bring in somebody with no TV experience whatsoever?
And while McLennan rose smoothly to the top of Y&R locally, his successor in the CEO of Y&R Brands role Nigel Marsh did not inherit a healthy operation. Management revolving doors, the death of The Campaign Palace and last week’s messy court case with Paul Fishlock all occurred after McLennan left, but saw roots in earlier management decisions.
So why appoint him? Well, he is close to the Murdochs. Most recently he was in (from the outside) a nebulous local role for News Corporation.
And here comes my conspiracy theory. Under the current media ownership laws, News Corporation would struggle to make the case to buy Ten while it also owns 50% of (and has management control of) pay TV operation Foxtel through its local arm News Limited.
But… News Corporation is being split into two companies – new News Corp which will hold its old school publishing assets such as its newspapers. And Fox Group which will hold its TV interests.
Except in Australia, where Foxtel will remain part of News Limited, which will be held by News Corp. So I wonder if the separate Fox Group could buy Ten and put it with its global TV and argue that the ownership is separate.
McLennan would certainly be a good man to have at the helm for that.
First though, he’s got a bigger problem.
How the hell will he get Australians to start watching Ten again?
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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I don’t think the Australian public have forgiven Ten yet for giving us the final of masterchef 2011, sandwiched between an hour of The renovators, a million viewers tuned out never to return, and now they wonder why that million viewers won’t watch anything on Ten? I think the answer is clear
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good luck to him. it will be a tough one to fix. but i think that it will result in a complete makeover of the network, not just TEN.
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Forcing a loyal viewers to watch the renovators between the masterchef finals was certainly a way to kill the loyal viewers. I wish I never brought Ten shares, I bet Gina is not happy.
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A very good article Tim. Well said.
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nothing in this news says anything is about to change at ten. no new shows, no new strategy. just the ongoing announcement of new arrivals at ten.. seriously their PR department must now have a saved template to announce the new “head of xxx”
so i predict another ratings flop of a year for ten
some more angry board members
more blood on the floor as hamish blames james’s hires and gets rid of them
then hamish brings in his own hangers-on
and the cycle begins again
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channel Ten should go back to to being channel 0.
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The longer things go on the better Blackley looks.
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Great article Tim.
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The suggestion by commenters that having the Masterchef/Renovators sandwich is what killed Ten is ludicrous! Did it help? No. But audiences are not that fickle or have that long of a memory. The multichannel argument is a far stronger one. Though the simple truth is that Ten’s audience no longer watches broadcast TV. Ten targets youth and youth certainly don’t want to watch TV, they want to download it and watch it in their own time and normal,y as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, Ten is just a sign of things to come. Doomsday scenario: 7 and 9 are in the same place as Ten within seven or eight years.
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Bem – Ten was in good shape only a few years ago, your argument that ‘youth no longer watches tv’ is untrue.
TV stations live and die by programming decisions and customer marketing to get ppl to watch these shows. Ten has been lousy at both generally the past 3 years.
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Im with Ben on the Masterchef/Renovaters debacle. Worst ever example of programmers greed that backfired and Ten’s audience has never been the same since. Just chart it. The only bright spot blip was the Assange movie. But the audience, young and old, just dont trust TEN
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I predict more departures from 10 once they experience Hamish’s bubbly personality.
I wonder who will replace Hamish once he fails to revive 10 ?
Tip to channel 10 staff – do not look Hamish in the eye and do not expect him to speak to you unless you are very senior.
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People still agree to sit down and genuflect in front of a thin metal screen multiple times each day as decree by the Programming Lords of Idiotboxism?
As Australia becomes increasingly Internetistic, or at least primarily consisting of non-practicing Idiotboxists (who pay lip service to worshipping their household Idiotboxes but in actuality rarely attend programmed service), organised sects such as Channel Ten will continue to see their congregation numbers fall, no matter who they select as Papal CEO.
Here’s the most telling sign of the decline of the three old Channel sects, and the smaller and older pre-coming faith of AbC, that the Channels often shun for not following the Dollar Saviour).
Many Idiotboxist Advertising Priests have themselves strayed to the worship of so-called cults and false gods such as YoüTubé, iTúne and Tœrrent, let alone the many who have embraced Socíal Mædiå, a rival and, as considered by fundamentalist Idiotboxists, heretical faith.
if even the Priesthood of Idiotboxism is toying with heracy, why should the Papal CEOs of Idiotboxism hold any hope that their straying flock will return to the programmatic fold?
The signs of decadence and decay have been visible in the Idiotboxism hierarchy for a decade, with Programming Lords increasingly gathering the strings of power in their Channels to themselves and ignoring the Idiotboxist faithful. I know many who have tried to maintain their faith personally, but have had doubt raised in their hearts by the constant changes in worshipping schedules and cancellation of popular sermons.
Alongside that doubt has been the rise of false gods who promise worshippers modern and heretical ideas such as self-selected worshipping sessions, greater choice of sermons and greater influence over their hierarchies.
While the old Channel sects have haphazardly tried to adapt with tiny changes, they have, for the most part, failed to recognise that it is their very hierarchies that no longer reflect the needs of worshippers in the modern world.
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I have to admit I don’t watch 10. But I don’t watch 9 or 7 either. Same reason. They don’t programme the kind of shows I want to watch & they bombard you with so many ads I switch off. There is whole group of potential viewers out there for unsensationalised news coverage, documentaries,quality drama & adult comedy that is being completely ignored. Perhaps instead of serving up the same moronic competitive singin’ dancin’ & cookin’ shows 10 could change direction & aim for a demographic that isn’t being catered to. The other two channels have the bogan base well covered & I don’t see why the 3 commercial channels insist on showing the same shows as each other. If I don’t watch it one channel I’m not going to watch it on the others.
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You can pontificate and theorise all you like, but all you have to do is look at the fare being dished up by One/Ten? As evidence:
Gator 911
Meghabreakdown
World’s Toughest Trucker
MASH (again and again and again)
Get Smart (ditto above)
COPS
COPS Adults Only
Undercover Boss
Bondi Rescue
Need I say more? This is cheap, juvenile and puerile rubbish.
The only shows I watch on One/10 are IFISHTV (as it interests me personally and I have had a small involvement in it (http://auscamonline.com/issue/.....ackleworld). The rest of my viewing is ABC and Foxtel on XBOX frankly.
At least there are things there worth watching. So here’s a tip Mr McLennan. Ask the ones that count – the viewers!
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No one is mentioning the terrific Offspring, one of the best shows on TV and regularly bringing in a million viewers.
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I think you’re spot on with the conspiracy theory Tim.
Also, pundits would do well to remember that any dip in ratings has a flow on effect to new shows. new shows don’t survive because they are ‘great shows’ – they live because they are launched to a big audience. So when a Network is doing well, a healthy proportion of their new shows flourish in that environment. when they are doing poorly, even their darlings must be killed as they have a much smaller audience to engage.
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Agree, Puberty Blues and Offspring. Lets hope these two excellent Australian shows don’t get lost in the rabble.
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I watch TEN, but I watch “Elementary” and Graham Norton” and NCIS and that is about it The rest I watch on ONE especially of a Wed night and I hate the puerile Snog Marry Avoid type of show. Undercover Boss is sometimes interesting and some of the other shows are a bit of garbage. i think trying to cater to the “baby boomers is a good idea we have ABC trying to show some for us but Chris Lilley ..get a grip. I like “Neighbours” and there was a promo when “Neighbours” was on with Charlie Pickering telling people to change channels then ….why why tell people to switch off ?
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Very nice and interesting article Tim.
It matters very much why and how the TV network became reduced, it matters even more that it did and that it is.
It doesn’t mater what you and/or I like or dislike in television viewing, it matters that the network can re-invent itself and once again produce and program good television.
Wildly grabbing at ratings, will produce (has produced) a succession of time and money wasting ventures that get up and drop out on a regular basis, setting the trend for failure after failure, which shows up as a sinking ship unloading its cargo and passengers at sea, as it desperately attempts to stay afloat.
It’s difficult to promote yourself as a winner, when you are wearing a life jacket, clutching a ration pack and sitting in a lifeboat.
Drop the hype, stop the race and start again at grass roots. Build again from the ground up. I would look at News, daytime television, magazine television, children’s shows, a variety show and a faith program for Sundays. I would look at an inexpensive drama with new dramas each week. I would also look at a “Mills and Boon” style soap.
Sound old hat and boring? Maybe, but it’s better than failing and clinging to a life ring in the ocean of sharks.
The strength of free to air television is not in its ability to compete with internet or pay TV, it is in its unique ability to produce good television.
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Channel 10 mismanaged?
That’s nothing. The ethnic broadcaster, SBS, doesn’t have any ethnic viewers.That’s a balls-up to be really proud of.
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Great article Tim. Interesting read.
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Good article (as ever). And even the conspiracy theory seems machiavellian enough to have a ring of truth about it! The Y&R Old Boys club should be up for some fun and games in the coming months. May actually be the best drama available to the network in terms of politics/characterisation/death or glory stuff…they should televise it to help ratings.
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Very well put Tim, the rot started quite a while ago…..and won’t be fixed until Lachlan steps back from behind-the-scene control.
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Viewers arent loyal ( except to news ) listeners are loyal ( ie radio personalities). Content is KING and there are a number of factors as to TEN’s performance ( ie Target, programs, programming internet,leadereship, business plans, time etc).
R
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Mmm that Lachlan, such a Midas touch. Onetel, the failed relaunch of a radio challenge to Triple M and now the boys are in at Ten and there’s jobs for the wives too. I agree with Richard and others – until the networks stop treating their viewing audience like crap, their viewing audiences will go elsewhere for their entertainment choices. I remember being part of a report in The Australian years ago, looking at how Ten had successfully created gold out of third place – but it seems pretty clear there is a much larger agenda at play that is going to push the station off the podium once and for all.
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I’m LOVING Elementary!
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The only free-to-air Aussie TV I watch is via ABC’s excellent iView. The longer it takes for the commercial networks to create a similar service, the more out of touch they appear.
Channel 7 has a streaming service on the PS3 as well but it’s clunky as all get out.
The on-demand audience is huge, I believe, and would happily watch the ads if they were in a HD stream on a viable platform.
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Just curious. If Elementary is so good (and I am not yet judging either way personally) why don’t 10 put it on their dismal excuse for “Catch Up” TV? Don’t the other stations ever look at iView or the SBS offerings to see how it should be done?
No wonder downloads of shows such as this are rife?
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Look at how GPY&R shrunk in the last decade, now you have 2 people from a shrinking ad agency running a shrinking TV station, how low does channel 10 want to go?
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Hey here is a possible money spinner, why not turn the whole thing into a telemovie. or has it already been done?
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Great article Tim
Having worked, at different times, with James, Hamish, mike Morrison and baz I have a great understanding of their styles. James and baz can at least manage people and situations.
May god have mercy on those left at 10
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It’s taken a while but there HAVE been programmes on Ten, that have done worse than that epsiode of Glee. This is basd on OzTAM data (a) back to the start of 2001 (b) Weeks 7-48 only excluding Olympics (c) Ten metro only (d) programme must have been shown in all 5 capital cities (e) for 1800-2230 (f) if the programme went past 2230 the majority must have been shown before 2230 (g) excludes repeats/encores.
Leading the list was ‘Class Of’ (6 times less than Glee and once at 120k on Oct 10 last year!), followed by ‘Emily Owens M.D.’ (4 times), ‘Go Girls’ (3 times). ‘Ten Evening News’ also had 3 bulletin below Glee, while ‘The Shire’ was lower twice. There were a further seven programmes that fell below 270k once. Clearly none of these programmes had the international acclaim that ‘Glee’ has though.
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Imagine going into McDonald’s and seeing a special for Hungry Jacks. It would never happen, yet channel 10 (like the other commercial stations) shows ads for Foxtel specials, unbelievable, where else in the world would you watch a TV station advertising the competition! Are they mad? And they wonder why they are losing viewers! Hello, anybody home!
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Groundhog Day:
Remember – A few years ago Ten won the young demos 13- 24’s, 16-24’s, 16 -39’s and 18-49’s under Falloon, Blackley and Mott.
Remember the share price was $1.50 not $0.30 cents.
Remember the revenue share was 30% not 21%,
Remember ONE has Sport not a load of repeats,
Remember Eleven was launched and a great success,
Remember they took risks and invested in Australian Programming like the 7PM Project, MasterChef, Offspring, RUSH, Talkin Bout Your Generation, Society Murders, Rove Live, Thank God You’re Here….
Remember the company was worth about $2 billion not $500m.
Remember …Groundhog Day
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I think Ten has the talent and tone right with shows like The 7pm Project and the Late News. Hopefully they can find a way to scale that out.
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Where was Tens promo for return of The Good Wife. A consistent stable winner. The constant moving of shows one tries to follow means networks care little for their viewers. With iview and downloads the networks have to wise up to viewers or lose it all. I predict Ten will be first casualty. Bring on viewer downloads to watch when you want and whole series not episodes interrupted by mini moguls out of touch. Tv as dictated by networks mean a dead dinosaur. Nine and its debt will follow Ten on the funeral march.
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I agree that the implication by Ben and Kevin that people have not forgiven Ten for sandwiching the renovators btw the finale of Masterchef is wrong. For me Ten lost me when the cancelled GMA. That was what drew me to the station and Bert was king at that time. Now there is no drawcard on Ten. They lost the Simpsons audience, introduced new shows that no one took to.
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Good article, but frankly Ten is just a victim of Backward thinking TV people.
I could happily sit in front of my laptop and find all the programming I want.
I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking of nothing worse than crowding around the idiot box at a time of some programming executives choosing.
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@james You are actually very special in your viewing habit. Most people actually like being told what to watch. Seems sad, but actually true.
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@James. No you are not alone. Just in the vocal minority.
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Have to agree – axing Bert Newton from the tele was silly. Bert is the king of TV and he kept us all entertained.
We used to have our agency WIP on a Friday morning and we’d all be sitting in this very high tech boardroombefore we started and flick the big screen into Bert and GMA. We’d be chortling over Bert’s little double entendres and the barely perceptible raise of his eyebrows..
Bert is great. Bring him back.
On a completely separate note, GMA like shows where they just plug things non-stop can be quite amusing
http://youtu.be/jvTJxMPzJlo?t=1m1s
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@JG Vocal?? I Love Mumbrella, but I don’t call Alan Jones to vent my spleen. Sadly I am of the minority, but of the Silent variant. In truth I used to call Sandy on Australia Talks and hang up as the phone was answered. As my 2 yr old says when faced with the “Pretty Lady” at the Newsagent.. “I’m Shy..”
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TEN’s doing about as well as it did when it opened back in August 64 – I know, I was there. They were the 0/10 network then, where unfortunately Melbourne and Brisbane copped the 0 channel, which almost no one could see as most TVs didn’t have 0 on their dials! So they had to go to the enormous expense of running around converting people’s televisions, free. Uncle Reg Ansett paid for that in Melbourne, not sure who the owners were in Brisbane.
They had very few paid commercials for this very reason, most they were ads for various Ansett enterprises. It would have cost the owners a motza, as their buildings were purpose built too, unlike the leftover factories the other channels lived in. 0 in Melbourne included two enormous studios, only one of which was ever fitted out (to my knowledge). The other housed ‘stuff’, the Traffic Department and parts of the Publicity Dept.
While they didn’t make a cent for years, it was all huge fun, as television was in those days. Not any more, I suspect. No job security whatsoever, it seems.
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Like Jenomme I was also at TEN during thoes early years and I must agree it was fun because they made it fun . Working for true proffessionals like Ian Kenyon was a pleasure and the results of our hard work was always rewarded.
The training we all recieved produced some of the best proffessionals in our industry and many are still at the top today.
The problem as I see it is this. Ten no longer produces real Television.
It relys on product produced from outside production companies. The companies only care about the financial gain at the end of the 13 week contract. Content of the program does not come into it as long as they can convince some desperate programer that they have a winning formula.
Look at shows like Laura Bingle. The renovators, The drag show on the bus
( I can’t even remember the name), The Shire. Pure rubish that should not have even got to David Motts desk.
They missed a great opportunity with the Breakfast show, if they had kept the doctor and the girl then got rid of the Kiwi they would have had a winner within 12 months.
The secret of running a good company is to create an work area where everyone works with one aim and that is to create something all are proud of unfortunatley that has been missing from TEN for far to many years
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Ten kinda stuffed up with One. It was a bad idea to start with. Its gonna take them a long time to build up viewers on that channel (the reluctance of viewers to change channels never ceases to maze me).
It is a bit odd that the only people who work for TV stations are the kind of people who never have time to watch TV. Kind of like having a retailer run by people who never worked in a shop (like Coles – Myer !).
Ten had a short streak of success in the 1990s, buying cheap US programs (mostly Fox) and getting enough audience to make a nice profit. They never really had enough money to run “loss leaders” like sport.
When the US networks were so outraged by the cost of “Seinfeld” that they vowed to stop subsidising TV program exports, the cost to revenue ratio went completely pear shaped.
So now “winning” is much more important than just making money, there is more need to create a “halo” effect.
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Even if News could buy Ten, why would they ? They have spent the last 15 years rubbishing FTA and declaring it dead, to turn around now would look indecisive.
If they did, people might be tempted into looking more closely into the _real_ financial position of cable…
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I think TEN have a number of great shows .. The Good Wife is fab, The Living Room has surprised with a relaxed easy feel, love Graham Norton but dislike it’s move to Sunday night, Elementary is better than I expected and Masterchef Professionals has been good .. 7pm Project can also be entertaining.
I think scheduling has been a huge let down – I think they forget what it’s like to be a viewer … and the sound of their promo’s is too try hard and nasal!!
Reality show idea .. had the reigns over to a viewer for a week .. couldn’t do much worse .. LOL
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Oh Lord the term ‘Internetistic’ has arrived.
@Craig : I’ll put that in the box and lock it away shall I? No offence mate but….
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