Network Ten had a rather happy second half of 2015 with its ad revenue being the only one among the three commercial broadcast stations to increase.
The network is still behind Nine and Seven though. Seven won overall for the six months from July to December 2015.
Figures from auditing company KPMG, released by industry body FreeTV, show the same time last year Ten delivered an commercial percentage share of 20.4 per cent. This year, it increased its ad revenue up 2.8 per cent for a final figure of 23.2 per cent.
It was a close call for first and second place though. While both Seven and Nine registered depleted commercial shares, there was just 0.3 per cent separating them for the second half of last year.
Seven had a share of 38.5 per cent, and Nine had a share of 38.2 per cent.
However, Seven had a marginally bigger drop in ad revenue than Nine, going from 40.4 per cent in 2014 to 38.5 per cent this year just gone.
Nine dropped one per cent, from 39.2 per cent to 38.2 per cent.
The data that comes through every six months though has seen Seven maintain the lead for a number of years.
And while Kurt Burnett, chief revenue officer for Seven, said 2015 was going to be a difficult year competitively, he was happy with the results.
“This will be the 19 consecutive half of revenue leadership for Seven,” he said. “2015 was always going to be the most competitively challenging so to maintain that leadership is a testament to our content and our people.
“It was also pleasing to see the resilience of television, where, when combined with revenue from catch up services and one of the biggest revenue results on record, highlights the effectiveness and relevance of television to advertisers.”
Unsurprisingly, Ten is pretty damn chuffed with the figures, with CEO Paul Anderson attributing much of the success to the MCN/Ten/Foxtel merger. The merger saw Foxtel claim a 15 per cent share in Network Ten, with Foxtel’s sales arm, Multi Channel Network (MCN) restructure its sales team to fit in with Ten.
“The revenue growth in the December 2015 half highlights the success of our sales team and our advertising sales partnership with Multi Channel Network, which took effect from 1 September,” said Anderson.
“The partnership has been a success since day one and is generating strong results. Together, Ten and MCN are delivering brand-safe premium video across multiple platforms, in a world-class trading environment, with real and measurable data. That proposition is unparalleled in the television market.
“The primary Ten channel and Network Ten were the only commercial primary channel and commercial network to increase their prime time audiences in 2015. Our online catch-up and streaming service tenplay also posted very strong audience growth.”
