TV sales guys still talk like it’s all a dick-swinging contest. Too 1950s to be effective (or healthy).
“Late last week Mr Gyngell took a shot at market leader Seven — which on Friday announced it had signed former Nine newsreader Mark Ferguson — saying Nine was “flattered” Seven had to look for talent at Nine. As for former Nine newsreader and Sunday presenter Jim Waley, who last week launched a competing evening news bulletin on pay-TV channel Sky News, he said: “That genius Jim Waley had about 8000 people watching Sky.” (In response, Sky says its average audience numbers were up 19 per cent in the 6pm-8.30pm timeslot.) But it’s clear that despite Ten’s recent ratings success with reality cooking show MasterChef, which regularly attracts 1.8 million viewers, Nine sees its biggest chance of commercial success this year in picking off the existing youth-focused network with its second channel, followed by pay-TV. “Ten has come home like a bullet but that bullet stops in two weeks (when MasterChef is scheduled to finish),” Mr Gyngell said. “They’ll go back from being Superman to being Clark Kent.” Anthony Fitzgerald, who runs Foxtel’s sales arm MCN, said the free-to-airs would fight among themselves for revenue, but pay-TV would grow because it was setting new subscriber records. “The model is very simple: revenue follows eyeballs,” he said. “That will translate into ongoing revenue growth.” Seven media group sales and digital chief James Warburton bristled at any suggestion Seven’s advertising share would be under threat. Mr Warburton attacked Nine’s digital channel advertising strategy of automatically running commercials on it for any advertiser that paid 35 per cent or more of its advertising dollars to Nine’s main channel. “If I suggested to my bosses that I gave away (advertising on) my second channel, I would hope someone would tap me on the shoulder and thank me for my services — I just don’t get that.”
