ay TV has continued to enjoy the biggest growth over the summer months among all the broadcasters, rising 25.6% between 6am to midnight, while in contrast the ABC fell 13.2%, Seven fell 3% and Nine and Ten each fell by over 4%.
Perhaps an interesting example of just how well pay TV is tracking in the country, is not just in its growing assortment of exclusive content, but also in the way some of its programs have begun to cross over from this largely niche medium to a wider audience.
Nickelodeon Australia, for example, provides both original and locally-produced content for its 5-15 year old audience and has extended its brands through DVDs, movies and merchandising. Not only does it have a highly-frequented interactive website, but last year it launched its own magazine in conjunction with ACP Magazines.
Independent Australian producer, Phillip Tanner, says that while pay TV is undoubtedly a contributor to the splintering television audience, the pay TV operators are waking up to the importance of local content, and creating opportunities for local producers.
“As more subscribers come on board pay TV is opening up more opportunities for producers. I think they are aware that in order to actually get more subscribers they need to create quality Australian content and not just run re-runs of overseas content.
“And cable can be niche specific, which allows it to create programs that would never been seen on free-to-air and this is a major advantage they have—assuming they can find the sponsorship.”
It is a format that has worked well in the US, where cable channels like HBO make programs too risky or cutting-edge for the free-to-air networks, according to Tanner.
Austar group director corporate development, legal affairs, Deanne Weir says apart from Love My Way, which has won awards and inspired interest among non-pay TV consumers, there is great potential to push other programming forward such as Australia’s Next Top Model and a number of its documentaries.
“As an industry we’re now very focused on encouraging channels to produce programs to premiere on subscription TV for our viewers as opposed to cinematic productions.
“I don’t think people understand just how much exclusive programs we have on STV. A network like Arena would have about 30-40% exclusive content, while the documentary channels would be much closer to 60-70%,” Weir says.
But Seven’s corporate development director, Simon Francis, maintains that pay TV is not taking the same sorts of risks or creating any real opportunity in areas such as Australian drama, despite the critical success of Love My Way.
“How anyone could claim that one program on one channel on pay television could indicate a willingness for pay television to take greater risks in programming is absurd,” he says. “Have you watched pay television lately? Take a look at the repeats of programs already shown on free television and the first-run episodes of programs that have failed in the United States and wouldn’t attract a viewer here in Australia.”
“Love My Way is a great program and it deserves its success, but pay television’s definition of successful audience delivery is on a completely different level to that of free television,” Francis says.
While it’s easy enough for FTA TV to dismiss the success of Love My Way as just a one-show wonder, the three commercial networks have themselves had little success in the local drama stakes, with a particularly bad 2005.
Nine’s heavily promoted series, The Alice, and Seven’s Last Man Standing and Headland, faded without firing a shot last year; while the long-running and highly-successful, Blue Heelers was also sent to the great TV guide in the sky. For Ten, it hasn’t had a big hit in the genre since The Secret Life of Us—all further evidence of the growing free-to-air drama drought.
Weir also argues that while channels like TV1 do air reruns which have already premiered on FTA, they tend to be favourites like Frasier and Seinfeld which audiences like to revisit.
In fact, Dualstar Entertainment—the Olsen twins owned company—headed by Diane M. Reichenberger, last year told B&T, that pay TV in the US has paved the way for a new generation of fans for the 1990s US comedy Full House where Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen started their careers on as child stars.
Tanner adds there’s no doubt that FTA TV is being forced to change.
“DVD, video-on-demand, mobile content and broadband internet are all influencing how people spend their time so the TV networks need to think about how to keep viewers that are spoilt for choice.
“It is much harder to get a person to sit down and not only watch an hour long drama but commit to doing it week in and week out.
“This is a big commitment for people, and was much easier to achieve when people weren’t faced with choice they are now.”
Meanwhile, the challenge this year for Multi Channel Network business and digital development director, Damian Keogh, will be to broaden interactive digital advertising which it launched last year.
Keogh says it will continue to offer the impulse response mechanism with a goal to running between 20 to 25 campaigns this year, with a new campaign already coming out for Sanitarium. Added to this are its plans to launch the dedicated advertiser location function by the middle of the year, which he says is already very popular in the UK.
“We’ll also be evaluating where we’ll be going with our online assets for our channels’ websites—see how we can leverage them in the sales process because a lot of the sites get a lot of traffic and have extensive data bases,” Keogh says.
“We’ve had a good audience growth over the last 12 months so the broader focus for the business is to continue to educate the market, agencies and clients about exactly the value of our medium and how we are now a necessary part of the TV advertising campaign.”
