Grant Blackley says radio not TV is key to SCA revival and takes shot at Ten for lack of bravery
The new boss of Southern Cross Austereo Grant Blackley has backed radio over TV as the medium that can turn around the company’s fortunes and taken a shot at his successor at Network Ten for failing to make “bold” programming choices.
Southern Cross Austereo CEO Grant Blackley at the National Radio Conference
In a wide ranging interview on-stage at the National Radio Conference Blackley said the performance of the company’s main metropolitan affiliate Network Ten had hampered it in the last few years, and voiced concerns over Network Seven’s plans to live stream its programs into regional areas.
But he said his main job was to get SCA, which controls the Hit and TripleM radio networks and regional TV networks throughout Australia, to start “playing in the big pool” with advertisers again.
You can take the guy out of TV BUT you can’t take the TV out of the guy.
What with all the pools? Has he just been on a holiday?
one of the problems with 10 is there is no “must watch” live content. nothing that if i miss it i’m out of the loop during the water cooler conversation the next day at work. that means, from an advertsing perspective i can just PVR everything and zap though the adverts…
But Ben during live content like X Factor viewers are encouraged to tweet and hit Facebook during the breaks – so who is watching the ads?
i understand your point Geoff. i don’t have the answers but if a show pulls 1 million (as the block has multiple times) surely not every person is tweeting, facebooking or what have you during the adverts.
I thought some (not all mind you) of Ten’s recent troubles were a result of Mr Blackley over paying for questionable rights to programming such as the Delhi Commonwealth Games, long term deals for second tier sport for the ill fated One HD sports strategy, overpaying for aging reality franchises etc. The financial hand cuffs his regime placed around Ten constrained it for years post his departure to actually try and be bold.