Media agency billings for April suggest that Nine has made up serious ground on Seven year-on-year. Nine's head of sales has suggested that TV in Australia is now a two horse race and has warned Ten that the comeback trail is long and hard.
While SMI data suggested that Seven still has its nose in front (at 42%), Nine sales and marketing director Peter Wiltshire said that the network has taken the lion's share of its growth from Ten.
Wiltshire claimed that Nine took around 38.5% of the market in April and gained five percentage points over the year. Ten had fallen by around five percentage taking just shy of 20% of media agency spend in April.
Wiltshire, who worked at Ten for over a decade, said the April figures may herald "a changing dynamic in the marketplace.”
“It is significant because there has never been a market where you have two strong networks and one weaker network.” Traditionally, he said, “there had always been a leader network, a middle and a last.”
But one media agency senior said that Nine should have made up ground, given the money it had spent.
Wiltshire admitted the company had invested heavily in content but it was the move away from traditional formats over several years that had made the difference.
While Ten defended it's position, pointing to recent new signings such as The Batchelor and the Winter Olympics as evidence that Hamish McLennan's stewardship was starting to take effect, Wiltshire said it was about scheduling all year round.
“The game is a year. It's about consistency. You can't rebuild a business by buying a mile, you have to buy inches.”
“If you go back five years we were delivering good 'vanilla' ratings,” said Wiltshire. However, the move away from “safe no risk” formats towards sponsor and overlapping big programmes had started to deliver consistently higher ratings. He called it the “layering effect”.
"Look at the way the model is built now. You start with the cricket. [That runs into] The Block, then The Voice, then when you're away and powering you add The Apprentice, then Big Brother... Each have half a dozen big revenue opportunities. That is solving problems for clients and building a strong base of revenue all year round."
Wiltshire, is well aware of how long it takes to make up single digit percentage points. Back in 2008 he publicly stated that Nine would claw its way to 35% share the following year. He had to climb down in 2009.
Today Wiltshire predicted that the trend for May and June SMI figures “will not be dissimilar” to April. He admitted that while a month or a quarter does not crown a new king. But set a new target for the network.
“We want to beat Seven and be number one.”
A spokesperson for Ten pointed out that McLennan, who replaced James Warburton at Ten in February, had been in the job less than three months, had already identified problems and solutions, and was beginning to make headway.
“Our revenue share in April reflects several factors, including intense competition in the television business and the lack of big, live events in our schedule,” said the company in a statement.
“Our share will improve over the next couple of months, as new and returning series start. At the same time, we have seen a very positive response from advertisers and agencies to recent announcements about The Bachelor and the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.”
Elsewhere, SBS enjoyed significant double digit growth for the month compared to April 2012. One media buyer suggested that was a "halo effect" from the relaunch of SBS 2, which is focusing on the younger market. The media buyer said that it was not all bad news for Ten, and its figures suggested it was "not selling at firesale rates" and that the market was "probably comfortable" with its figures.
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