Channel 9 to boost local content to win back viewers

RENO Rumble. Farmer Wants a Wife. Australia’s Got Talent. It’s been a tough year for Nine with plenty of off-screen drama but not enough “content fire power”.

THINGS haven’t gone according to the script for Channel 9 this year.

On screen, their big early ratings hopes like Australia's Got Talent, Reno Rumble and The Briefcase crashed spectacularly with viewers and in the ratings.

Off-screen, 60 Minutes was caught up in the damaging and expensive botched child snatching attempt in Lebanon.

And it doesn’t look like there is going to be any last-minute plot twist to deliver a happy ending this year.

Nine’s chief executive Hugh Marks fronted up today to deliver Nine Entertainment Co’s full year results and was frank about the network’s performance.

Channel Nine had little to cheer about with Reno Rumble.

He didn’t sugar-coat as he reported a profit of $33.2 million, up from a writedown-affected loss of $597.6m last year, conceding ill-advised programming decisions meant a disastrous start to the ratings year.

It left the network reeling, and only when The Voice started did the ship start to right.

“The ratings and revenue performance of our core free-to-air business was disappointing in the first six months of calendar 2016, due to a combination of the challenging ad market and poor programming outcomes,” Marks said.

“Key shows for us that didn’t perform to expectations were things like Australia’s Got Talent ... that led into Farmer Wants a Wife, which also didn’t perform.

“We ended up with not much content fire power at the top of the year until The Voice came on.”

Let’s hear it for The Voice, one of the few strong rating performers for Channel Nine this year.

Nine will still unveil a smattering of new shows to wrap 2016, but the network will keep its powder largely dry until 2017, rolling out a swag of new product and boosting its local content offerings by 50 per cent.

Marks said the 2017 “all guns blazing” approach will include an Australian version of Ninja Warrior — currently the world’s biggest sporting entertainment franchise — another season of The Block, more Married At First Sight, more The Voice, a new stripped reality food format, and a new show from comedy radio duo and longtime Nine favourites Hamish Blake and Andy Lee.

It’s also understood the new season of Nine’s popular House Husbands, and anticipated mini- series House of Bond have also been pushed back to 2017.

Nine’s chief sales officer Michael Stephenson said the 2017 plan would give Nine “a solid schedule of Australian content at 7.30pm for the entire year, as well as more than 50 hours of drama at 8.30pm across the year.”

The investment in local content is possible as Nine exits its costly overseas product deal with US-based Warner Brothers — which had tied the network to buying overseas drama and sitcom content — even if it didn’t air all of it.

Overseas product has largely failed to strike a chord with Australian viewers across all commercial free-to-air networks in recent years.

“Nine was obliged to purchase a list of the US drama and comedies as they became available, for as long as new series were being released and irrespective how they performed in the Australian market,” the company said.

^0 Minutes reporter Tara Brown who was caught up in the botched child recovery story in Lebanon.

There will still be international content, but it will cost less than what Nine has paid in the past.

It was also revealed that the 60 Minutes Beirut debacle, which led to four Nine staff being imprisoned in Lebanon, cost Nine a significant chunk of $7 million in legal fees for the network.

Another portion of the legal costs was tied up in litigation with rival Channel Seven over Nine’s failed Hot Plate, which Seven claimed was a copy of its own My Kitchen Rules.

For now, Nine is seeing solid ratings with The Block, and will close out 2016 with another season of Married At First Sight, new crime series Hyde and Seek and new drama Doctor Doctor, as well as NRL footy finals and the summer of cricket.