Audience fragmentation and the internet are not a threat say free to air network execs
Kurt Burnette Seven, Louise Barrett, Ten and Peter Wiltshire, Nine, and moderator John Sintras, Starcom MediaVest Group. Image: Jack Fisher
High quality content will ensure a bright future for free to air TV, say the executives in charge of more than $3 billion in advertising at the big three commercial networks.
Moderator John Sintras, chairman, Starcom MediaVest Group questioned Kurt Burnette, chief revenue officer, Seven West Media, Louise Barrett, chief sales officer at Ten and Peter Wiltshire, group sales and marketing director at Nine, on second screen viewing, catch up TV and fragmenting audiences.
Nine’s Wiltshire told the room at the Mumbrella360 conference the challenges presented by fragmentation of audience across different devices were actually an opportunity for the TV networks.
“High quality content will ensure a bright future for free to air TV, say the executives in charge of more than $3 billion in advertising at the big three commercial networks.”
If this is the case Free to air TV is in a world of pain. Lets see what high quality content is on Free to Air TV right now:
Good Wife – Channel Ten, delayed by months.
Game of Thrones – PayTV once they figured out it was good and had an audience.
Fargo – SBS, delayed by months.
The Americans – Channel Ten, delayed.
House of Cards – PayTV
Mad Men – Pay TV
Orphan Black – SBS, delayed by months.
Veep – PayTV
Silicon Valley – PayTV
I could go on…
Lucky for the free to air broadcasters they have their anti-siphoning list because without their protected sport they would be out of business if they were relying on high quality content.
I think the fragmentation and social media distractions do impact eyes on viewers for all TV media.
“Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls– family, health, friends, integrity– are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.” ― Gary Keller
having a shared, combined second screen app would make it easier for consumers/audiences to watch things, as well as easier for media buyers to buy and measure one thing rather than 3.
why the pushback on doing this, other than all wanting to control the digital space..? isnt the greater consumer experience a more pressing reason?
Dear hmmm, the push back is about cost for the Networks and they still haven’t figured out how to monetise these additional screens.
Once they can get an earn from the technology cost….more will happen.
Dear I Wonder, You have nailed it perfectly. That all sounds like three executives with their head in the sand This next quote from Barret highlights these execs have no-idea-“The Google’s or whoever of the world are curating content, not actually producing premium quality content yet, they are talking about it, but you know a lot of their stuff is kittens dressed in dresses, kids doing funny things when it’s really about delivering premium quality content and delivering it across any device on any platform.”…really. What about Netflix? What they deliver is a product far superior to yours.
Go back and learn from your other dinosaur friends- newspapers, and learn from their mistakes. Otherwise in two years time you will have minimal significance.
It is certainly a lot harder and more expensive to develop quality , or hit, TV shows (not always the same thing) than it is to create quality text-based content. So in that respect , the broadcasters are somewhat more protected, and less vulnerable than newspapers to the ravages of internet-driven fragmentation and competition. But they’re not totally immune either. New players with deep pockets to buy/ commission and distribute hit shows (Netflix, Amazon etc) will threaten
I love that little book “Who Moved My Cheese”. Maybe a little less BS and a little more R&D.