Mark Frain.
The AdNews end-of-year Perspectives, looking back at 2025 and forward to next year.
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By Mark Frain, CEO, Foxtel Media.
For linear advertising, the mood is bleak. Frankly, what I’m hearing is that the market is dreadful. The last quarter was poor and unless quarter three shows a massive turnaround, the industry risk defaulting to more cost-cutting, restructures, and defensive mergers.
We’ve been here before. But this time feels different. It isn’t just a soft patch; it’s a redefining structural moment. Unless the TV industry transforms, we risk becoming irrelevant.
Every major media business now has its own “transformation office.” But in our sector the problem is each media player is going it alone. There’s no shared direction, no true collaboration and no central group to drive collective progress across the industry.
The result? Everyone is reinventing the same wheel with disconnected initiatives such as new ad tech platforms, audience data partnerships, trading systems. Seven has Phoenix. Nine has Galaxy. Foxtel has Landmark. We’re spending millions trying to modernise in isolation, while global players like Meta and TikTok move faster and smarter to capture more market share.
2026 should be the year that the industry decides, once and for all, to pick the best tools and align behind them. One trading platform. One unified data spine. One consistent approach to measurement. We could create the scale and simplicity that buyers have been crying out for. We could finally compete on a level playing field.
In 2026, we have to think differently. We have to embrace what collective and collaborative transformation could do for the entire industry. Not incremental cost-cutting or cosmetic innovation, but genuine co-transformation. Change that’s shared, structural, and strategic.
Otherwise the industry risks being paralysed by inertia. Strategic calls are being made under pressure, often reactive and short-term. Boards are asking: “How do we extend the life of this business?” instead of “What should this business become?” As a result, knee-jerk decisions are being made. Everyone’s moving, but not necessarily forward.
Meanwhile, brands are voting with their wallets. There’s talk that one of the biggest FMCG advertisers in the country has halved its TV spend this year. Not trimmed, halved. That’s millions of dollars lost. If the industry doesn’t work together to change the way we sell, trade, and measure TV, the dollars won’t come back.
If 2025 is the ultimatum year, then 2026 must be the year of reinvention. The industry needs to see change and recognise that transformation can’t come from inside one boardroom.
We need industry alignment and regulatory support.
The government’s outdated “reach rule” might have made sense when protecting competition meant limiting ownership. But in 2025, it’s shown itself antiquated handbrake in a market being pummelled by global competitors who play by none of the same rules. It’s time to modernise the framework, allowing local broadcasters and streamers to pool resources, share infrastructure, and aggregate inventory.
And crucially, the industry needs to stop thinking of transformation as something “linear”. The old model of fixing linear TV first guarantees death by a thousand cuts. The smarter approach is to design for the future by creating an aggregated, data-driven, tech-enabled TV ecosystem, and bring the legacy parts along as they evolve.
Perhaps in 2026 we’ll see the beginning of a unified marketplace, with consolidated data partnerships. Fewer siloed sales teams with more aggregated sales capability across the sector. Expect some bold decisions as businesses race to define what comes next.
There’s still growth to be found. Some networks are performing well, and next year could deliver stronger quarters. But that shouldn’t be mistaken for resilience. It’s temporary oxygen, not long-term recovery. There will be wow moments, and there will be casualties. But consider the alternative: doing nothing guarantees a far worse outcome.
If the industry doesn’t act now to align, simplify, and transform together, it’s only a matter of who goes first. The rest will follow.
Most importantly 2026 can’t just be another year of talking about transformation. It has to be the transformation. It represents the last real window to build a future where Australian TV remains competitive and relevant. Every network has its own transformation office. What the industry needs now is an industry-wide approach, a shared vehicle for change, focused on building the infrastructure, data standards, and collaboration that make sense for the market we’re actually in. Because if we don’t make that leap together, the future won’t wait for us.
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