SMI: Ten revenue share falls back to earth after Sochi boost
The latest revenue figures from Standard Media Index (SMI) show Network Ten’s revenue has fallen from its February highs, amid declining audience shares for major franchises such as The Biggest Loser, So You Think You Can Dance and Secret and Lies.
According to the March figures Ten had a revenue share of just 21.24 per cent, down from 25.1 per cent this time last year with revenue of just $37.4m compared with $42.5m, a 13.2 per cent fall. Last month on the back of the Sochi Winter Olympics the network was trumpeting a 24.2 per cent revenue share.
The drop in revenue had been predicted by the market and by Ten, with the network’s chief sales officer saying: “The March revenue share number was in line with our expectations and reflected our ratings results. We are committed to improve our ratings performance by fixing our general entertainment program schedule.”
Meanwhile commercial rivals Nine and Seven both posted strong results with Nine up 13.4 per cent for March, while Seven was up 4.5 per cent, in the metro markets. Nine had a 37.7 per cent share of agency bookings last month while Seven was a 41.39 per cent share.
21.24% with both 7 and 9 close enough to doubling. The revenue spike in February came at a significant cost outlay as last week it became pretty obvious the network paid “overs” for the Olympics and big bash rights plus production. There was supposed to be a flow on effect with the promotional platform yet march ratings have been horrible. The loss of Kylie puts the sales team further back and people of her quality are not in the yellow pages. Something has to give at Pyrmont soon and start at the top and work down and you have a fighting chance.
So if I add TV revenue $306.6m, newspapers $115m, magazines $25m, digital $119m, radio $46m, outdoor $3.7m and cinema $3.3m to get $618.6m, that is the total advertising spend for March 2014 in Australia?
What chance have Ten got when they have such low expectations (refer CSO quote). They continue to try and turn negatives into positives but the market are not buying it literally.
If the CSO believes her own spin then the joint is destined to continue on the downward spiral that it has been on for a number of years. A downward spiral that appears to be gaining considerable momentum at present.
Letting highly respected and experienced TV people leave the building (which is full of magazine people) is an interesting strategy to say the least.
The network have a very competitive 5pm News which has been in that slot for yonks. For people lucky enough to be home at 5pm it is the 1st source of news in an hour format, and does the job admirably. Regularly their number 1 rating show despite not being officially in prime time which is 6-midnight. So why tell me10 spin doctors do you persist with a breakfast and morning offering that has not raised a heartbeat since it started this time around after the unmitigated disaster last time round. 30,000 odd viewers nationally against sunrise and today at middle 300,000 why not stop burning up 100 $ bills on a product that will not go anywhere. Retreat admit defeat and spend the $ where it counts, in prime time. Remember when 10 lost the AFL rights the market was assured the $ saved would be spent developing quality Australian programming? Is it coincidental or significant that 10’s absolute fall from grace the timing was around the loss of AFL. Still had hundreds of millions to spend but have pissed it down the drain. That’s why the share price is what it is – would you buy with the current management in charge?. I have sadly after Warburton went their, but he was a star compared to the current lot of agency people running a TV network.
Back to the old low shares at Ten. I expect that April may be a new low for Ten – poor ratings and struggling market.
I expect Ten is not high on the list of must buys !!
Terrible decision to buy the Winter Olympics and bugger the launch for 2014 of most shows.
So, as I read the data Nine is number 1 16-39’s, 18-49’s, 25-54’s & GB’s….but is number 2 in revenue share….is that success or failure? Me thinks fail!
I agree that the comments coming from Lou- CSO on the anticipated terrible share of the pie,do nothing but draw further attention to what is a massive black hole that just keeps getting worse.By reputation their spin doctor corporate,is supposed to be good,so why perpetuate the problem by saying we knew it was going to be shithouse and readers and shareholders it was!!!!. Sometimes you are better to say nothing in my opinion.
Just to follow up, when I worked in media and audited sales results were in the public domain, and you knew you were not going to set the market alight, you said nothing publicly because you knew your opposition would do the dirty work and bag you thru their spin doctors planting stories that were mouth watering to a journo twiddling their thumbs waiting for a yarn.
So here is poor old TEN languishing at a 20 something revenue share…..with around an 8 to 10 audience share? All the above are spraying TEN and their CSO……but has anyone thought about premium above audience share here? If premium above ACTUAL audience share was a competition TEN would win hands down. Seven second and Nine a very poor third. Why don’t any of the journals do their job and report what is really going on and not an east headline – namely sledging TEN. I’m with Big Guy above……Nine is the fail here and TEN, all things considered, they are delivering a share well above their programmers performance. Well done to their sales team!