Nine finally looks to the future
The thing about “doomed” traditional media companies is that they have a habit of reinventing themselves in the nick of time.
But it’s still somewhat to my surprise that I left today’s 2013 presentation from Nine feeling that it has gone from what seemed the least forward-looking of the three major TV companies to the most.
And that’s an impression driven almost entirely by what the organisation had to say about everything other than what will be on primetime next year.
For starters, it feels like some within the network understood early that branded entertainment was going to be key. Powered by Nine quietly repositioned from what I always perceived as another integrated sales team – cross selling across Nine, ACP and nineMSN – to a sophisticated vehicle for delivering branded entertainment. The impact of that was clear in case studies at last week’s Festival of Branded Entertainment.
Nine has plenty of potential – main 9 network, digital stations, the mi9 business, the nine live events extension, ticketek and all the data that possesses, their investments in other data heavy businesses. they are in an enviable spot.
Zeebox will work across any broadcast content, it’s just that Ten has the equity stake and sales rights
I think that with the Zeebox being so good Nine may have a bit of trouble luring fans away from the Zeebox app
As far as I’m concerned its all just hot air until some of these local networks grow up and start actually programming engaging and diverse content. And there is not one shred of proof that convinces me that a lazy culture of programming complacency has passed.
We have one app that could unite them all and they could still have their own offerings – pluk’s been successfully running in the NZ market since January this year. However, it seems the Networks would rather spend money canceling each other out.