0/5

TEN boss stays put

TEN CEO Grant Blackley has won a vote of confidence from the Board after it was announced he would remain in the role until August 2013.

TEN CEO Grant Blackley has won a vote of confidence from the Board after it was announced he would remain in the role until August 2013.

The contract extension follows Executive Chairman Nick Falloon exgreeing to step down.

“The board believes Grant is an outstanding television executive and we are delighted that he will continue to lead the television business,” Faloon said in a statement on Friday.

Blackley is a firm believer in TEN’s new News strategy and multichannel ONE, but James Packer is said to be concerned by the moves. Yesterday TEN confirmed that Don’t Stop Believing had been pulled from the 2011 schedule, but denied it was a result of pressure from new shareholders.  By the end of the day it found brighter news for media, the renewal of Rush.

Lachlan Murdoch, who is in the process of buying half Packer’s 18 per cent stake in Ten, said he had confidence in Blackley: This is a positive announcement for the company and will provide continuity and stability, especially with the recent announcement that Nick Falloon will leave the Company in December.”

PBL Media boss David Gyngell this week appointed Jeff Browne as the new man to run the Nine Network.

Source: The Australian, smh.com.au

10 Responses

  1. This whole discussion proves that we have far too much media ownership concentration in Australia. It’s obvious Packer and Murdoch are attempting to leverage shareholding in Ten to undermine competition. If these media companies were acting in a proper competitive business environment we wouldn’t be having these discussions at all. Channels like One HD would be living and dying on their market performance, not external conflicts of interest.

    It’s a shame that our politicians continually act like overwhelmed adolescent boys in the presence of supermodels when around people like Packer and Murdoch.

  2. Ten having one, 11 and Ten is prob the best position to be in 2 yrs time, once ten picks up bigger sports as the yrs go by they will have a young station, a sports station and an all age one which is a great position to be in rather than 3 channels of the same type of stuff.
    Also from what i’ve read people expect the government to allow fta networks to have more channels in the future.

  3. This is interesting news in the latest Network TEN and Packer/Murdoch saga. If James Packer axes ONE HD than that would be the most stupid business decision ever and yes bigger than the debacle of onetel years ago. ONE HD has a better and bigger future than FOX Sports why? well because the future success on FOX relies upon the economic strength of this country, because like most products Foxtel is a product which is not necessary for the most part, so when the economy is doing badly Fox also does badly. As for people complaining about the lack of big time sport on ONE HD, remember how FOX Sports began with 1 channel and not the best sports on it either they had second rate sports , then late in the 90s early 2000s they acquired NRL and then AFL via FTA (10 and 9), later US golf tournaments. So it will take time for ONE HD to become profitable but one thing is for sure it will happen. and @Phoenix727 i agree with you their definelty are positive content on ONE HD that is for sure, and Packer will be able to achieve his young audience ambitions through 11.

  4. @Bob: I hope you’re right, there are plenty of good things on ONE but they could stand to get rid of some of it. (Golf, Drag Racing, Golf.)

    I can understand why Packer might be concerned about ONE but it was never going to attract the audience of a Go! or 7mate it was always going to be certain market that would be drawn by it, that doesn’t mean it should be dumped.

Leave a Reply