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TEN reports $168m loss

TEN reports a loss for the third year running but looks to an improved audience since May.

ten 1811TEN has reported a net loss of $168.3 million for the 12 months to August 31.

This was its third consecutive full-year loss but a 41% improvement on the previous year’s $285 million loss due to one-off costs such as the Sochi Winter Olympics and the Commonwealth Games.

Television earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) showed a loss of $79.3 million.

Revenue fell 4.2% to $601.7 million, while costs increased by more than $100 million.

It indicated advertising market conditions remained short but said the metropolitan free-to-air television advertising market is expected to show marginal growth during 2014-15.

Whilst claiming to be the “only television network to have achieved audience growth among total people and 25 to 54s,” this year, it has seen improved audiences since May.

“The impact of the strategic plan was initially evident with the success of the KFC T20 Big Bash League and the Olympic Winter Games, both of which generated good ratings and revenue for TEN during late 2013 and early 2014,” CEO Hamish McLennan said.

“From May on, TEN has seen ratings growth due to the success of programs such as MasterChef Australia, Offspring, The Bachelor Australia and The Living Room.

“The strategic planning and scheduling of Family Feud at 6pm has delivered strong ratings and improved audience flow into The Project, which has also grown audience in both half hours.

MasterChef Australia was up 31% on 2013, The Bachelor Australia grew on last year and became a pop culture phenomenon, and The Project recently posted its biggest ever audience,” he said.

“Some of TEN’s new shows have also produced timeslot growth, including Party Tricks and Gold Coast Cops.

“TEN has announced several new shows for 2015, including the ITV hit I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!, Shark Tank and the return of V8 Supercars to TEN.

“Sponsorship renewals for our key properties in 2014-15 are encouraging.”

11 Responses

  1. Will go broke or be taken over/merged with Foxtel. Australia is too small a market to sustain all these commercial offerings with the onslaught of legal and illegal competition it now faces.

  2. Still cannot believe the CEO has been awarded 20 million shares in the last year by the Board for good performance !!!

    What is going on with that Boardroom ?

  3. Everytime Ten gained momentum in 2014 it was stalled by a major lack of content to follow up the successes. Masterchef did exceptionally well but was replaced by repeat after repeat. Sochi concluded and tumbleweed rolled through town. Event tv is great as long as you have something to build off the momentum generated.

    Ten need to reinvest in news. They were the masters of an hour long bulletin and late news but let that all slip away. Bring back a straight Late News and rotate the newsreading duties between Sandra Sully and Hugh Riminton.

  4. Shoudy Chen: Ten had a lot of good momentum thanks to Masterchef, Offspring and the Comm Games, but they failed to take advantage of it by not launching viable content off the back of it. They did the same in Feb when they used the momentum of the BBL and Sochi to launch TBL and SYTYCDA as their main tentpoles.

  5. @Pertinax: Ten never pitched themselves to 16-34s. They targeted 16-39 and then broadened to include 18-49 in the late 2000s. They did abandon that demographic in 2011 (at least their main channel did), as they used Eleven to take their young audience (thus cannibalising their own viewership) and unsuccessfully trying to broaden their main channel with an increased news output in the early evenings.

    Murdoch and Warburton’s strategy failed because of the botched implementation of that strategy, not the strategy itself.

  6. Sillygostly – The article states that even though Ten posted a loss it reflects the previous year before successful programming changes were made, thus mitigating losses, even turning some shows into big gains (masterchef, the bachelor ect)
    Pretty clear they’ve turned things around

  7. @sillygostly
    The days when a main channel could survive on 16-34s alone are long gone. I worked because they watched the ads in cheap US sitcoms and dramas. Ten didn’t abandon 16-34s they left for Eleven, Go!, ABC2, timeshifting and the internet. Ten did even worse when Murdoch took over and had Warburton target 16-34s again.

    The BBL, a good season of Masterchef and Family Feud have been their successes but still not enough.

    Sochi wasn’t a success it cost a fortune and the ratings it got for a short while didn’t boost Ten’s share and in fact disrupted their launching a lineup for ratings. They let Seven have the next @l^mp!cs.

  8. Further proof that they have no idea what they’re doing.

    And hasn’t it been about three years since Ten oh so wisely decided to ditch their 16-39 audience in favour of Seven and Nine’s market share (the 25-54 demo)? Ten had their niche and they alienated them. They got what they deserve.

    It is unfortunate because I still miss the old youth-oriented Ten. It was the only network that my family and I would watch and now we no longer watch any Australian television at all (bar the odd programme on ABC/SBS) because Ten wanted to be a bastardised clone of Seven and Nine.

    And I don’t consider Eleven to be a substitute for what Ten used to be as much of its schedule is comprised of reruns of programmes that most youth wouldn’t be interested in anyway (e.g. 70s-90s sitcoms/dramas), and they haven’t invested in enough fresh content to make their primetime schedule worth tuning into…

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