Ten hires veteran programmer John Stephens
Channel Ten has hired veteran programmer John Stephens as director of scheduling and acquisitions describing him as a “critically important addition” as the network seeks to bounce back from some of its poorest ratings on record despite a brighter start to the year.
Stephens, who has more than 40 years’ experience in the industry, will work closely with Beverley McGarvey, chief programming officer at Ten, and CEO Hamish McLennan, the network has confirmed. McGarvey took over from David Mott in October 2012, and is understood to have scheduled maternity leave this year.
The appointment follows commentary from industry insiders who told Mumbrella Ten had made fundamental errors in its scheduling and wasted the opportunities of The T20 Big Bash League and The Winter Olympics in Sochi as shows like The Biggest Loser and Puberty Blues down on last year.
Stephens joins Ten from the Seven network where he worked with news boss Peter Meakin who started at Ten last month as executive director of news and current affairs.
How come it has taken this long for Hamish to work out his programmers have no idea? His “turnaround strategy” is simply wrong. Like Meakin, Stephens worked at Ten many years ago. Sit back and watch….the ship is heading for the rocks.
Leckie to replace McLennan and then TV land in Australia has almost gone full circle in just over 10 years.
Nine to Seven to Ten for the three amigos! Can they pull it off?
Network Ten need to stop competing and start leading, if they want to truly change their fortunes. Me too formats and shows are not the answer, and that’s what their recent hires have delivered. It’s time they break the mold, so let’s hope that John is ready for today’s pull approach to content, versus yesterdays push, or it will be more of the same.
Ten putting all these “safe hands” in place is similar to Newscorp doing the same by ditching Kim W and putting a retired print guy to lead the company through the digital headwinds.
Next we’ll see Ten appoint Marty Monster head of Saturday morning programming cos he worked so well for them 30 years ago.
Just goes to show…Ten has utterly no idea…going for safe bets, didn’t work in the past and didn’t work now…the solution is right under their nose and they can’t see it. They’re just fumbling around while audience tastes change and they go from one disaster to the next.
You can’t polish a turd
It is worth a try but you need more than one person to save a network. Perhaps Mr McLennan, a few more in management and some board members can go too or at least increase the number of board members with people who understand commercial TV. Too many egos I suppose.
Good luck John
Ten was the first commercial network to stop showing movies on Sunday nights 10 yrs ago (they started showing Law and Order instead, and the other networks followed). Now they have come full circle and are showing movies again on their main channel. They’ve also renamed their News to Ten EYEWITNESS News which was used back in the 90s. They seem to be going back in time!