Hamish McLennan’s report card: Restored market confidence leaves Ten looking strong
Outgoing Network Ten CEO Hamish McLennan has managed to “build some confidence back” in the market according to media buyers, with one giving him a B+ for his performance at the broadcaster.
His departure was announced this morning and comes as pay-TV network Foxtel awaits approval to acquire a 15 per cent stake of the free-to-air network, which has already merged its sales operations into saleshouse MCN.
UM CEO Mat Baxter told Mumbrella: “The timing in that respect isn’t a huge surprise but I think he has been good.
“Hamish has managed to do the one thing the network had been struggling to do and that is build some confidence back into the network among the market.
TEN is clearly going to be plugged into News+Foxtel in an attempt to keep a foot on the TV sports rights bidding. McLennan had to go to make some fig leaf cover for the ACCC. The larger question is whether TEN can survive in a world where viewers have lots of quality choices at low cost.
And where reruns of MASH and Get Smart don’t cut it.
Channel 10 needs a massive shake up, so over their website saying a programme is scheduled and it doesn’t play, re-runs of Masterchef in daytime TV starting at inconsistent times that effect programmes either side so more than not I give up watching what I wanted to watch (bad enough having Masterchef on at night, don’t need it on twice). They don’t even respond to viewer comments on their Facebook page. I used to work in TV and fortunately for a network that does care about viewers and being seen to be professional in public. They need to get some decent schedulers on their team, I used to watch 10 a lot and now hardly ever = too frustrating.