The pandemic has been “devastating” for business but Seven’s chief revenue officer Kurt Burnette is optimistic about the year ahead with new programming and the return of the AFL.
Ahead of the footy season’s restart tonight, Seven used a virtual event to outline how it was readjusting its broadcasting for the revised season and what opportunities it opens for advertisers.
The network also highlighted the successful launch of reality show Big Brother on Monday night which gave it more than a million national viewers.
The resumption of AFL and new programming, including Big Brother and Plate of Origin later this year, will be a boost for Seven which has been under increased financial pressure during the pandemic.
“There's no question that COVID has been devastating, it has been from a personal and business perspective,” Burnette says.
“It's given us all time to think differently and spend a bit of time on how we want to look coming out of this COVID environment. And at Seven, we’re no different.
“We spent a lot of months looking at how we look, how we're structured coming out of this and that started on Monday night at 7.01 to be exact when our brand refresh started, which looked amazing and then launched into Big Brother.”
The media company entered the pandemic already under financial pressure, reporting a net debt of $569.5 million compared to a market capitalisation at just under $400 million for its half year results in February.
Faced with falling advertising revenue throughout pandemic lockdowns, in line with trends across traditional media, Seven has cut staff and has raised $115 million from the sale of Pacific and its Osborne Park headquarters in WA.
While the network has lost the Tokyo Olympics for the year, it has high hopes for the AFL restart.
Burnette expects this season to break records, calling tonight’s game the “most anticipated match” of the century.
Seven will introduce new advertising opportunities which have sprung out of measures to keep the game COVID-safe. These include longer ad breaks after goals and the use of virtual signage for sponsors in empty stadiums as fans remain banned from the grounds.
The AFL has also worked with Toyota and Zoom, both here and in the US, to integrate fans from home onto TV screens. From tonight, the Toyota Fanzone with bring nine Collingwood and nine Richmond fans into the game.
“Lift and engagement are two of the biggest benefits for all advertisers when the AFL comes back tomorrow night,” says Natalie Harvey, Seven network sales director.
“When it comes to reach, we know that our schedule will increase by around 9%-10% every single week and we’re going to see that going into October because the footy finals are moving back an extra month, which is awesome especially at that time of the year.
“The other piece to the reach story is that we've got nearly 300,000 people who last year would take themselves to a stadium to watch the footy, they're avid fans and they're going to be looking for somewhere to watch the footy. So we know that they are going to be there too.”
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