TEN appoints new Sales boss
CEO James Warburton is wasting no time getting down to business, appointing a newly created position of Chief Sales Officer in Mike Morrison.
- Published by David Knox
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TEN’s new CEO James Warburton is wasting no time getting down to business, yesterday appointing a newly created position of Chief Sales Officer in Mike Morrison.
Morrison’s career spans over 25 years working with major advertising agencies that include George Patterson, Clemenger and Y&R. He has comprehensive overseas experience working on assignment in Seoul, New York, London, Delhi, across the finance, automotive, alcohol and tourism industries and most notably was the former Chief Strategy Officer Y&R Brands.
More recently he has been National Strategy Officer of agency Sapient Nitro.
CEO James Warburton said: “Mike’s appointment signals a major change in the creative renewal of our sales approach. He has a brilliant reputation for pitching, an exceptional knowledge of brands, and is a creative thinker who is very client centric.
“Mike is a key appointment. He is a fierce competitor and we need that sort of attitude to enable Ten to compete more effectively in a challenging market.”
Morrison added, “I’m delighted with this new role, and to be joining James at TEN. It will be a great challenge but I’m sure it will also be very rewarding.
National Sales Manager, Kylie Rogers, will remain in her role, reporting to Morrison.
Earlier this week Warburton told the Daily Telegraph, “I want to steel some attitudes. TEN, in my eyes, has taken a bit of a back seat and let the agenda be run by others. I’d like much more of a fiercely competitive internal and external organisation. In terms of departures from the management team, I’ll be looking to make some announcements in the coming months.”
Morrison starts with TEN on Monday.
11 Responses
The year of musical chairs will extend a little further into 2012!
@Barrie – agreed. A lot of deadwood still at Ten in management.
Here’s another thought, perhaps he’s going to use the WIN approach to running a television network!
What about genre heads? Ten’s drama could do with some excitement – endless series from John Edwards are starting to feel a bit samey. Let’s face it Rush was action over plot and by season 4 we’d seen it all before, and Offspring 3 will be more than enough of unbelievably ditzy but exceptionally beautiful doctor with unbelievable love life complications.
All well and good but until you fix up (replace) the programming dept and actually get people to watch your shows, advertisers are not going to want to pay much for air-time.
Y&R Brands?
Did anyone else immediately think of Young and the Restless?
Don’t forget who pays for all the programming – sales. If TEN is haemorrhaging money (which has been rumoured for a while) then they have no way to pay for any new or exciting programming.
If they tighten up their belts over there and start selling their airtime properly for a year, then the year after they’ll be able to tackle big programming decisions with a bit of cash in their programs. There’s no quick fix for this.
I think this says a lot about Warburton. Of all the things he should be doing to get Ten back on track, he’s focussing on the sales department and, from my reading on other sites, using fear tactics as he blusters on about firing execs who are not hard enough. Forget content, forget Network image. Sell, sell, sell. Get the revenue up. This is all he knows. He knows nothing about the actual nuts and bolts of television itself. My prediction – Ten has bought themselves a dud and we’ll be recognising that fact strongly on this site this time next year.
you can have who you want working for you chanel 10 but axing good aussie shows like Rush for more american shows is not going to bring back your viewers
the phrase “flogging a dead horse” comes to mind
It’s one thing having a good salesman – but what use is it if he has Nothing to sell!