This is true, but you’d argue that Ten are lucky to be fourth at the moment too.
That aside, just because someone has to be third doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to be second. One of the long-standing issues we’ve had with three commercial networks is that the battle for first is a two-horse race with a long way back to third, there just doesn’t seem to be any interest in trying to close the gap to the leaders (and not just now, but going back some time).
Ten spent a large part of the 90s and early 00s getting good results by being different in this period - their news was early to avoid 7 & 9 and they ran programming that would pull in viewers while their competitors were showing news. I’m not advocating a return of The Simpsons to 6pm, but perhaps some slightly out-of-the-box thinking might find something that could work in the modern era.
We’ve seen that the dollars may not be the answer here though - they went heavy in the last round of major sports rights and ended up with nothing. There are lots of potential reasons why, but the reality is that there is little interest in dealing with Ten (money or not). Their foray into Football through the A-League + national matches can’t exactly be chalked up as a success, but its not as big a failure than what some may make it out to be (hello Robbie Slater) and sadly it probably won’t help on the resume when Ten go to bid for new sports.
Nice humble brag, but all you’re really doing is chasing and then playing the socmed algorithm - what happens when Meta decides not to serve your content to your followers consistently anymore? Television simply cannot be this reactive.
Suggestions? Australians see completely fixed on news at 6. They’ve tried fating, comedy, game, repeats, animation, soap, current affairs, local news, hard news, us imports - nothing has stuck
Have to agree with your sentiment, I have said for years (not on here) that as a country when it comes to television we have lost the art of having definable stable characters that resonate and made more content watchable, but part of the reason is the lack of investment by networks because hundreds of millions a year are now funnelled into reality formats with much of that money going overseas and also cutbacks over the years which have left Swiss cheese schedules. Heck, Rove (mentioned above) was a strong definable character himself back in the 2000s.
The network schedules these days are like 40% of a schedule from 20-30 years ago. The schedules now are so bloated with content stretched and stretched while viewer attention spans are the shortest they have ever been and competition for eyeballs has never been so relentless.
Good question, I don’t know (there is a good reason why i dont program television stations)
I don’t think it necessarily needs to be big , elaborate or expensive, rather it’s able trying to offer a decent alternative to the news - although that’s hard in the days of multichannels
The basic premise of The Project is okay but the execution is piss poor, the casting is wrong, the formatting is wrong, I hate sports but I never see them talking about the thing Australians love, too much politics and too many sick kids etc.
I also would ditch the audience and make it more intimate. It’s a news panel show, not a comedy show. The weird mix they’ve tried to work out for over 10 years still isn’t right
The Simpsons was there for 20 years. I think that stuck.
Even on other forums discussing the recent articles about Ten’s woes, 6 o’clock Simpsons is always in the discussion. People miss it and they want it back more than ever.
All of this chatter about the Simpsons on FTA reminded me of these tongue-in-cheek mocks by @mubd in 2017, which fooled a lot of people (myself included )…
I think the contract ended and Disney kept them for Disney+, however, I think some repeats returned around mid last year, presumably as Disney was losing money from keeping everything to themselves.
The user obviously knows it’s on 10, given the thread - a simple typo.
And the question is really about why they have the FTA rights, which seemingly don’t include BVOD as it’s not available to stream or catch up on 10 play.
Am guessing they just don’t want to pay, that or they’re just not available to purchase for some reason.
Whilst Peter Ford was talking to Ross and Russel on 3AW Breakfast this morning, Russel Howcroft, who would be in the know and well connected, said that he thinks Ten will survive as a very low-cost model where the only news they do is The Project. He estimated keeping the newsroom running costs Ten $20 million.
W.r.t. The Simpsons - and forgetting all this “ooh it’s 2024 not 2004” nonsense: two questions.
A) are the rights still up for sale? I know Disney are selling shows again but The Simpsons is obviously a special case. They might want to keep it for Disney+.
B) could channel 10 afford the rights? It is an expensive show. I don’t know what they were paying back in the day, but I do know Channel 4 in the UK allegedly paid something mad like $2 million per episode.
As for 6pm. Has The Project ever been tried there? Hour of news → The Project → something at 6.30 or 7 would seem a stronger lineup than News → DOND → The Project or 90 min news → The Project.
On 22 January 2012, the show added a half-hour edition on Sundays which airs at 6 pm. The hourly editions aired on weeknights will also shift to 6 pm as of the following day, 23 January 2012, and remain at an hour in length. It will be the second move for the show in three months.
I still don’t understand what Hamish Macdonald is doing there. He’s a brilliant journalist with real foreign correspondent bona fides… yet he hosts The Sunday Project. I don’t know, maybe he’s happy there… but it just seems a waste of his considerable talents.
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