But now to regional Victoria and the latest crisis engulfing Australia’s TV industry:
HAMISH MACDONALD: In just a few hours time Network 10’s free to air television signal in the Victorian town of Mildura will be switched off for good, and it’s prompting fears other regional TV stations might follow.
– Sunday Project, Network 10, 30 June, 2024
That shutdown of 10’s digital signal will affect 70,000 people and it’s one that’s driven by simple economics because broadcasting it has been a money loser since day one:
SARAH HARRIS: … facing falling advertising revenue, rising costs and running at a loss, Mildura Digital Television is ceasing operation, they’ll hand their licence back to the government and the 10 signal will go black.
– Sunday Project, Network 10, 30 June, 2024
So, what will it mean?
Ten’s The Project, predictably perhaps, was sounding the alarm:
WOMAN: Very sad.
WOMAN: I think it’s actually really terrible.
WOMAN: Really disappointing.
MAN: It’s just another disadvantage for our area.
– Sunday Project, Network 10, 30 June, 2024
But it’s not all doom and gloom.
While viewers in Mildura won’t be able to get Network 10 via their aerials they will still be able to receive the signal via a smart TV and the 10 Play app.
For some, of course, that may mean a new TV and 10’s The Project was suggesting:
SARAH HARRIS: … next in the firing line, regional WA, the NT and all of Tassie.
– Sunday Project, Network 10, 30 June, 2024
Which would affect more than one million people.
With WIN’s CEO Andrew Lancaster concluding that, without government help, regional broadcasters might no longer be able to:
“… provide a voice to regional Australia through local news, local advertising opportunities and supporting local community groups and charities.”
– Australian Financial Review, 3 July, 2024
But that problem for the regions is just part of a much bigger crisis facing the TV industry, as recent headlines have made clear:
Axe swings at Seven West Media with 150 jobs to go
– Sydney Morning Herald, 24 June, 2024
Nine Entertainment to cut 200 jobs as Meta content deal ends
– Australian Financial Review, 28 June, 2024
‘Massacre’: Australian television’s ‘darkest day’ points to an industry in total chaos
– news.com.au, 26 June, 2024
And once again, there are suggestions that one of the three commercial networks, Channel 10, may not survive.
With Queensland University of Technology’s Anna Potter, a professor in digital media, warning:
“… I think the question of whether the Australian market can sustainably continue to support three broadcasters is more relevant than ever.”
– news.com.au, 26 June, 2024
So is it really that bad?
Yes, says media analyst Peter Cox, who told Media Watch:
… I think they’re in a death spiral.
– Phone interview, Peter Cox, Cox Media, 3 July, 2024
While media commentator Tim Burrowes was calling it the most brutal week since Fairfax and News Corp cut more than 3,000 jobs between them in 2012, saying the TV industry is now experiencing:
… its own print moment …
– Unmade, 29 June, 2024
So, what is happening and why?
First, TV ad revenue is plummeting, down 11 per cent from the previous year across the free-to-air channels.
As respected TV analyst Steve Allen told Media Watch:
STEVE ALLEN: There’s been very few times in television’s history in Australia where the revenue’s dropped in double digits.
– Phone interview, Steve Allen, Pearman Media, 3 July, 2024
In a sluggish economy, companies are cutting back. But revenue is also going elsewhere.
Television used to be the go-to for advertisers, now it is number two behind online with the industry’s share of ad revenue collapsing from $7.7 billion in 2007 to $3.8 billion in 2021, with online now accounting for more than half of all ad spend.
But free to air TV is also losing audiences.
While Seven and Nine battle it out to be number one in the ratings, they’re fighting over a smaller prize, with 13 per cent of metro viewers deserting last year.
And paying to stream movies and shows like these instead:
VOICEOVER: Dearest gentle reader…
– Bridgerton Season 3 trailer, Netflix, 11 April, 2024
WOMAN: … the enemy has usurped my throne …
– House of the Dragon Season 2 trailer, Max, 15 May, 2024
And why wouldn’t they be?
Homemade drama on the commercial networks has been declining for two decades with the number of hours going from around 500 in the year 2000, to just 116 hours last year. The slide accelerating since drama quotas were cut back in 2020.
And the bulk of that drama coming in just two shows:
Fifty-nine per cent of the 116 hours … were Neighbours and Home and Away, which, over the last 20 years, have lost as many as half of their Australian viewers.
– Australian Television Drama’s Uncertain Future, QUT Digital Research Media Centre, May 2024
And with commercial networks all but abandoning drama, fresh Australian stories are ending up behind a paywall.
Like Paramount Plus’s new series Fake, featuring Asher Keddie and David Wenham:
WOMAN: Oh, he’s gorgeous.
CHILD: Do you have a boyfriend?
WOMAN: I think so.
– Fake Season 1 trailer, Paramount+, 6 June, 2024
Away from adult drama, the situation for kids TV on the commercial networks is even worse.
According to QUT, it has:
… declined from 33 hours in 2020 to zero.
– Australian Television Drama’s Uncertain Future, QUT Digital Research Media Centre, May, 2024
Which in turn, equals fewer eyeballs, as the ABC’s Behind the News was reporting in May:
JOE BARONIO: Do you watch free-to-air TV?
BOY: Not anymore no.
BOY: Yes I do.
BOY: Sometimes but, mainly not.
BOY: Same here, sometimes, mainly not.
GIRL: Nup.
– Behind the News, ABC, 1 May, 2024
In 2011, teenagers spent on average 75 minutes a day watching commercial television. Now it is 13 minutes.
So if advertisers want to reach young people, why on earth would they go to Seven, Nine or 10?
Abandoning children, movies and drama, sees the networks relying on old favourites for its ageing audience:
Now they’re really left with news, sport and lots of game shows because game shows are very low cost.
– Phone interview, Peter Cox, Cox Media, 3 July, 2024
And now technological change is even threatening their iron grip on sport.
Last week despite a months-long campaign by the free-to-air networks:
VOICEOVER: They want you to pay to stream your favourite sports.
MAN: There goes our tax cuts.
– Free TV Australia, 8 July, 2024
Parliament declined to amend the anti-siphoning laws to ensure that all Australians have access to sport on free to air TV.
With the Nine papers warning that ‘millions of Australians who view live sport via an internet connection could be blocked from viewing events such as the NRL and AFL grand finals for free’.
We’ll see if that comes to pass.
So, what do the networks have to say about the state they’re in?
Before jetting off to Greece, Nine Entertainment boss Mike Sneesby emailed staff to say the company was not immune to the ‘economic headwinds impacting many businesses globally’.
He said 200 jobs had to go because of that weak advertising market and loss of funding from Facebook owner Meta.
The response was blunt:
‘Fuck Mike Sneesby’: Nine staff incensed at mass job cuts
– Crikey, 28 June, 2024
So what now for Australia’s three commercial networks?
QUT’s Anna Potter is not optimistic, telling Media Watch the networks have failed to adapt to the on-demand market and that not even the government can save them in the long run:
There is arguably not enough advertiser money being spent in ‘television’ broadly to support the sector …
Australians would likely be better served with two or even just one commercial broadcaster that could afford to spend more on programming.
– Email, Professor Anna Potter, QUT School of Communications, 4 July, 2024
While Steve Allen says the networks need to work together if they want to survive:
Every couple of years they start fighting each other and that’s when other platforms come in and eat their lunch. They need to be united in marketing the benefits of television.
– Phone interview, Steve Allen, Pearman Media, 3 July, 2024
With Allen arguing that TV is still the most powerful way for brands to get mass exposure.
And the commercial networks will be hoping he’s right, because their future depends on it.