From the disappointing full-year financial results Nine posted yesterday, The Australian is this morning reporting execs at the network admit they had misread the market.
Ten’s sudden upwards trend thanks to reality shows like The Bachelor and Masterchef had Nine CEO David Gyngell saying that was where they were tripped up.
“We thought the market was much worse than our commercial revenue share. We definitely did not rate as well as we expected and Ten’s MasterChef rated better than anyone expected,” he reportedly said.
MasterChef had been a boon for the Ten Network, consistently posting large numbers, with the three hour finale seeing more than two million tuning in.
The Bachelor, currently running now, is also seeing relatively steady numbers, pulling in the 800,000s mark for its debut.
The results released yesterday had Gyngell admitting they fell “short of expectations”, as the network posted a 2.9 per cent decline in net profit after tax.
“In what has been a difficult Free-To-Air advertising market, our June quarter share performance was short of our expectations. However, we are pleased with our improving ratings performance trend over the first couple of months of FY16,” said Gyngell.
However, it appears Nine is holding onto hope its NRL deal will be a boom. The deal saw Nine network fork out $925 million for the rights to broadcast the NRL, an offer that was so good the NRL had to sign on the dotted line then and there.
“Our recently announced NRL rights agreement is transformational for Nine,” continued Gyngell, talking about the financial results. “Together with our expectation of improved affiliate terms, the expiry of loss making international programming commitments, and our industry leading debt free balance sheet, we are in a very strong position.
“We are optimistic about the prospects for Nine as we continue the ongoing integration of our television and digital businesses, focussed on monetising the distribution of our premium video content in an evolving world.”
