Ten to revamp One as bloke-focused entertainment channel
Sons of Anarchy
Ten is to reposition its digital sports channel One as a general entertainment channel skewing towards men in the advertiser friendly 25-54 demographic.
The announcement came as Ten revealed a disastrous set of financial figures with TV profits down 13% in the six months running to the end of February compared to the year before. However, the numbers did not provide a major surprise to the market as they were flagged up when Ten’s board fired former CEO Grant Blackley in February.
In the announcement, interim CEO Lachlan Murdoch said: “The half year results are not acceptable and immediate action is already underway to address them. Disappointingly for Ten’s 1300 employees and 22,500 shareholders, these results do not demonstrate Ten’s underlying strengths and potential.
“Ten is at a crucial juncture in its history. Free-to-air television is an excellent business with strong growth prospects. However, Ten has been under-delivering and this must change.”
The repositioning of One also does not come as a major surprise, as Ten had already been working in some general programming. Last last year the channel had been hovering around the 1% audience share mark but will now be aiming for 2.5%+.
The challenge for Ten’s programmers will be to avoid hurting the successful progress of sister digital channel Eleven or indeed the flagging main channel Ten while bringing the fight to Nine, which also targets the 25-54 demo, and to the the bloke-focused 7Mate.
Ice Road Truckers
The types of male-skewed drama shown on One will be the likes of Sons Of Anarchy, while an example of the man friendly movie line up would be Last King Of Scotland. There will also be factual shows such as Ice Road Truckers. The channel will still feature some sport.
Ten said: “The company is confident this will result in additional revenue and an earnings improvement.”
The company also announced changes for its main channel: “A new program, The Bolt Report, hosted by journalist Andrew Bolt, will be launched on 8 May 2011, to air onSundays at 10am, before Ten’s agenda-setting Meet the Press, which is moving to 10.30am.”
David Mott, Ten’s chief programming officer, said in the statement: “The bold, broad appeal of Ten along with the already proven performance of the distinctly youthful Eleven and now with the broader content offering for the male-skewed One positions us to capitalise on viewer and advertiser engagement. We have the market covered.”
Meanwhile, Ten’s outdoor business Eye is in much better health than its TV relative, with the outdoor business delivering Ten a 41% increase in profits.
Ten also revealed: “For the first time, the sales teams are also offering clients a joint offering, where appropriate, across Television and Out-of-Home.”
So is this shift going to see them can their live sport in favour of TV programming featuring things blowing up?
Does this mean the amazing national netball league won’t be on 24/7 anymore?
I hope they keep American Football. I really got hooked. Hut Hut Hut!
I hate this decision with a passion. I’d rather go to a specialised channel that deals in a particular theme (i.e. history, sport, sci fi etc) than sit through endless re-runs of Cheers and other associated “man-focussed” content.
What a farce.
What happened to ‘Thursday Night Live’ ? I really enjoyed that show. Bring it back.
is this where they’re going to stick bolt?
So Howie, you were the one watching.
An obvious switch. I just hope they keep some semblance of good programming instead Simpsons marathons
Great move men.
I just bought a new tv and had it all connected to I could watch live F1 on One…it better still be there!
Didn’t Channel 7 try this path with ‘Mate’?
I, as a sports obessed person, will miss the sporting emphasis (even the netball @ Gus, which is actually world class) but what can I say? No point whinging about it when it clearly didn’t work well enough to justify it.
Fox Sports will be happy (as am I because I have that too)
I’m hoping it will play out like a “New Coke” vs “Classic Coke” scenario
Right, so now we have 7mate and One for the guys. How many more channels do men need?
The One experiment was great in concept, but horrible in execution. At one stage I thought the name reflected the number of sports shown, but then NASCAR came along to fill the 12 hours of the day not allocated to netball. Australia is crying out for a FTA sports channel, but one that caters for a variety of interests from mainstream to niche, not just whatever could be picked up for cheap.
I would argue that the rest are female skewed? Not too many men I know like Desperate Housewives, Home And Away, Neighbours, Parenthood et al.
Those ratfink bastards! Bloody Murdoch worried about his market share with Fox Sports, so he has to go and buy up Ten and kill off the competition.
As a direct and repeat client perhaps it would help their profit if their account reps answered the phone or returned their calls/emails so its not so hard for me to spend my ad budget oh well forces me to look around I guess???
Winge over, dont mess with the f1 broadcast
Wow some real netball haters here.
I for one genually hope they keep broadcasting the ANZ Championship (much better than watching cars race around a track again….and again…..and again……)
…and the process of completely killing off any useful high definition broadcasting in Australia is now complete…
i’m anything but a conspiracy theorist – but it seems a little overly trusting (particularly given this man’s bloodline) that every media report on this story only mentions ‘business decisions’ for this decision.
According to the government’s anti-siphoning research, sport is the primary driver for people to sign up to pay TV. So the owner of pay TV in Australia buys a controlling stake in Ten, scuttles the free to air sports channel for ‘business decisions’, and that doesn’t seem a tad suspicious to anyone else?
The financial results feel like a smokescreen to kill off one sports so people have to turn to foxtel for sport. Surely the profit fall is more due to crappy results of channel ten.
@ Mark G
Is TV watching a solitary occupation?? then.
I would argue that criteria for viewing decisions are intellect/personality based and absolutely nothing to do with gender.
I can only assume some viewers of all sexes like to watch totally predictable (well crafted) pap. Perhaps it is like comfort food to them.
There was never enough content to fill advertising-funded 24hrs. The only time they could have live sport is early mornings-afternoons. Soccer and NFL is basically Sunday and Monday. The rest of the week is NBA, MLB (NHL not shown). The rest of their schedule is filled with nothing. There was nothing to draw viewers.
As long as it is just the US sports which are to be cancelled everything is okay.
I think Lachlan Murdoch needs to have the crap beaten out of him! Already he’s forced George Negus to compete with Today Tonight and ACA (it’s not too late George, leave Ten now!) and now he wants to turn One HD into a 7Mate clone.
Lachlan Murdoch, I don’t give a stuff if you are related to that guy from News Corp, I think it’s time someone put you out of your misery. Leave One HD alone…NOW! I mean it!!