Saving Ten

What are you suggesting exactly?

Test run something in the two weeks over Christmas where The Project will go off for the year?

Or maybe if they maintain The Project, cut it down over Summer to half hour and air it at 6pm with new and creative programming at 6:30pm?

I think the weakest parts of the schedule ar 6am til 8:30am everyday, Saturdays and Sundays midday to 5pm and between 7:30pm and midnight every day.

As an example, Ten is the only main commercial channel to air Religion after 6am in the morning any day of the week. Sunday morning especially is a wasteland, but perhaps CBS should air CBS This Morning (and its other breakfast/morning shows 7 days a week like Seven and Nine - 7am and 8:30am) maybe use CBS This Morning as a morning show tester (perhaps with Ten News inserts) between every day and move the other shows up by 90 minutes. Its tinkering and testing to see if there is an interest.

There is no point in investing a lot of money in new programming if no one is watching anyway

Here’s an idea that’s been floating around my head. Ten Sports Breakfast.

Saturdays and Sundays from 7-11, take the breakfast TV formula and apply it to Sport. Have a good mix of overnight highlights from Australia and overseas, discussion, banter and interviews with players (these might have to be a bit later in the morning).

Run a competition to get a few star presenters to do some live crosses from some local sports comps, clubs will be thrilled to get the extra publicity.

And try and get it presented live from a public location whilst major events are happening (Federation square for the AFL grand final followed by Olympic Park for the NRL).

Lock down Mark Howard as one of the hosts and it could be a winning combination.

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Love the idea. Probably restricted under fair use as to the amount of highlights they can use from other networks though (especially as they don’t have any rights themselves).

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Agreed on the sports highlights issue, but you could show the same kind of footage like on the news and do a panel based discussion on it. Even Israel Folau’s controversial comments could be discussed and any other on-field or off-field controversial issues.

4 hours on Saturdays and Sundays might be too long unless they can get the rights to some of the sports that Wide World of Sports covered over the years such as Skiing or indoor cricket, ten pin bowling etc. 2 hours from 7am til 9am could be a starting point and move to Studio 10 at 9am - with a view to extending if Ten can obtain some sorts rights of some description - even if it is less popular sports. Add national news to your program and you may have a recipe for success

I know we aren’t in thew US, but I found this article interesting

It’s not my cup of tea, but it could be a good alternative.

ESPN recently launched “Get Up!” which is similar to what you are proposing

Or perhaps CBS Sports has an alternative on All Access…

I’m not sure that’s too much of a problem. Nine runs two AFL shows a week despite the fact they haven’t had broadcast rights for over 10 years.

It’s important for Ten to keep the TEN Sport brand (which is still associated with high quality) strong during these lean years.

Also they’re only up against Fox Sports News in this market, and everyone can see how the budgets have tightened there.

The morning after, everyone wants to see highlights. You can paper over it in some ways with interviews at the ground etc like Sky Sports News UK or showing pre-game post game warm-downs but it’s a big ask to do that over four hours straight.

Fox Sports News has the rights to plenty of sports so it doesn’t much matter if the studio presentation isn’t up to much there.

Reminds me of the short-lived Sportswatch on Seven.

I like the idea of a sports breakfast show. Thursday Night Live on ONE was another good one that the breakfast version could be based on.

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It doesn’t have to be 100% sports orientated, but maybe more aimed at a male demographic.

Sunrise and Today seem more focused on the mums of Australia.

With the right hosts and maybe a winter market split it could be a good idea - I’d worry though how well it would transition into Studio 10?

I suppose you could break it up with some Ten News?

5:30-6:00 - Ten News First
6:00-7:30 - Sports-based television breakfast show
7:30-8:30 - Ten News This Morning
8:30-11am - Studio 10

I really like the idea of a sports panel show. I’d still like to see a morning Project.

Ideally it’d be targeted at the Saturday/Sunday morning getting ready for sport crowd, the kind who read the back pages first and want to know the talking points ahead of a few hours stuck on the sidelines.

So that would be male dads (and mums), and kids. But it’d certainly be more Triple M than Hit105.

Plus the advantage of erring on discussion means you’ve got some great early hot takes to throw on social media throughout the day.

Too much. Just do it 6-8am then Studio Ten 8-11am. Then morning news or The Talk again. Sports - I wouldn’t watch but its a big point of difference.

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  • Alternatively Replace The Talk with Ten Early News and extend Morning Express or Morning Project (whichever you want it called) to 90 minutes starting at 6:30am. The Talk could be relocated to a more viewer friendly time of 2pm on Channel One pairing up with The Doctors

If you were doing a 2 hours a day, sports based show, without having sporting rights to anything much, it would be hard to fill out 2 hours of sports related news without recycling some of it. I guess it might work if you were able to pull some of the sports resources (stories) from regional partner WIN Television, but other than that maybe restrict it to 1 hour.

A possible concept for a new Channel Ten show would be Moving House. A show where people are moving house and get help to de-clutter and move house. Could be produced by the team that produce The Living Room (be like a sister show) and could air at 4pm on Saturdays. Possibly similar to the 2014 The Living Room Clutter Buster Special.

I understand that there is a similar style program on A&E so concept rights may be an issue - but I cannot find an actual format of what happens in this series - other than owners relinquish control to others in the execution of their move.

Also needed is a hard hitting current affairs show (think Four Corners meets 48 Hours) something different to the magazine style 60 Minutes and ACA, perhaps for 8:30pm Wednesdays

A preview of what to expect on CBS All Access later this year:

So why would the Australian market be interested in this?

The bigger question is how it will play along side tenplay, or if they will merge.