The Australian Open is captivating viewers as it gears up towards an exciting finish at the weekend.
The high-stakes drama that the tennis delivers to start the year is something Nine hopes to continue throughout 2023, with a new season of Married at First Sight (MAFS) starting next week to kick off a content-heavy schedule.
AdNews spoke to Michael Stephenson, Nine’s chief sales officer, about how 9Now is driving viewership for the Australian Open, what to expect from the tenth season of MAFS and the optimism the broadcaster sees around the current ad market.
Stephenson said that Nine has a long-term strategy around ensuring the quickest possible start at the beginning of every year.
“We've got the benefit of having the 'power couple' - the combination of the Australian Open in January, the dominant sporting format of the summer, leading right into the biggest entertainment format of the year, which is Married at First Sight.
“The Australian Open is really delivering in those demographics that advertisers care about and are obsessed by. Right now, we’ve got about a 47% share of 25-to 54-year-olds and we’ve got a 50% share of 16-to 39-year-olds, so it is dominant.
“That creates this platform for us to promote into our schedule which begins next week with MAFS. We've got enormously high expectations again for it - it'll be another cross-platform juggernaut, with the power and the strength of the linear audience in combination with the live streaming and on demand audience, just like we've seen in the Australian Open."
Stephenson said the year has gotten off to a “flying start”, with the Australian Open continuing to prove its strength and value as a format, especially with the growth of viewers on 9Now.
“As we all know, the future of television is total television. This changing consumer behaviour means that on 9Now, we're seeing record number of minutes consumed, record number of streams, record number of daily active users and record reach.
“It's this combination of the live streaming and on-demand audience with the linear, free to air TV audience that makes the AO such a marketing powerhouse for brands.
“Total television is the new game and that's how you need to judge the success, or otherwise, of different shows or schedules. On that basis, we’re the dominant leader and dominant cross-platform.”
Stephenson said Nine had spent a lot of time in the last 12 months improving both the consumer and the ad experience for 9Now.
“We announced at our Upfronts that we would be streaming in Ultra HD 1080p at 50 frames per second, which we're now doing. We've also introduced the ‘start over’ button, so if you’re tuning in tonight for the semifinals and you get there 10 minutes late, you can obviously start over.
“We're ensuring that the consumer experience is world class, equal to that of any of the subscription funded streaming products, which it now is. Alongside that comes the improvements to ad experience – 9Now viewers won’t see multiple ads in a row and what we’re obsessing about and monitoring really closely is the number of ads that you would see in one particular session.”
Stephenson said that improvements for the consumer will flow to improvements to the ad experience, all of which ultimately delivers better outcomes for the brands investing advertising dollars into the streaming platform.
For the upcoming tenth season of MAFS – which will coincidentally feature 10 couples, alongside returning relationship experts John Aiken and Mel Schilling and sexologist Alessandra Rampolla – Stephenson said that viewers can expect bigger and better from “the ultimate human experiment”.
“We've got a whole range of singles from diverse backgrounds and ages, who are all ultimately looking for the same thing, which is love and a life partner. You'll see people's real life human stories unfold in front of your eyes, but you'll also see all of the controversy and drama that we've come to love with Married at First Sight over the last several seasons.
“Expect to also see the classic program beats that we love - the dinner parties, commitment ceremonies, homestays and all of those things, because we love to be a part of other people's worlds and that's why Married at First Sight is so successful.
“What you will also see throughout the series is increasing consumption on 9Now, and that theme that we've been talking about will become even more obvious in Married at First Sight as a format.”
While it would be easy to try and draw comparisons between the new season of MAFS and other eagerly anticipated premieres in 2023, Stephenson says that Nine respects all the content choices that consumers have across the board and trusts that their own offerings will help deliver repeat viewers.
“At Nine, we've got the best content team in the business, but we don't take anything for granted. We've got respect for all the other formats and all the other networks, and of course, all the other choices that consumers have.
“For people to come and invite us into their lounge room and consume our content is a privilege and something we don't take lightly. It's why we obsess over making sure our shows are engaging and telling interesting Australian stories, because that's what brings consumers back to our content and we believe we're the best at doing that."
Nine has stated publicly that they believe the second half of the fiscal year would be somewhat more difficult than the first, but Stephenson says there are also very positive signs for a cautious optimism that Nine will continue to grow their share in all of the available markets they operate within.
“I still believe that [difficulty] to be true. You've got a lot of things happening in and around us - continuous supply chain issues, a number of interest rate rises, inflationary pressure on household budgets - that eventually flow through to ad markets, and we saw that in the last couple of months of the December half.
“That being said, as we stand here today and look forward, I think the market is probably slightly better than we had expected. Ad markets continue to prove to be to be resilient, and the great benefit that we've got at Nine is that we're in most sectors, so we get a view of what's happening in the linear, free to air television market and the regional TV market, but also what's happening in the digital video market and streaming, radio and publishing. Each of those markets has a very different cadence and dynamic.
“We are diversified in our revenue and therefore less leveraged to individual revenue lines. What we’re seeing in some categories or some clients is that they’re taking opportunity of these market conditions.
“What has been obvious forever is that Share of Voice equals share of wallet. The more advertisers spend and the greater Share of Voice they have in their category, the greater the revenue return for their business. The flow from that lasts for many months and years ahead, so the smart advertisers will be investing right the way through the cycle.”
Part of this optimism also comes from an “incredibly strong” television schedule that has both Stephenson and Nine confident for the year ahead.
“From the Australian Open into MAFS, we then go into Lego Masters, The Block in the middle of the year and Love Island in the schedule too. We’ve got two enormous franchises that I think are going to blow everybody away this year, which is The Summit and Gordon Ramsay returning to Nine with Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars.
“We’ve got Warnie, which is obviously generating a lot of publicity and will be amazing, Travel Guides, State of Origin, the NRL, the rugby, more tennis, Nine News, 60 Minutes, A Current Affair, Today - we've just got such a lot of content coming down the pipeline that I'm really quite excited about what all of that looks like.
“Put that right alongside our radio business where you see our audiences going from strength to strength; the emergence of podcasting and live streaming happening in radio right alongside television; and the continued investment that we have in publishing and news across all the different platforms, and we're really well set up to have another really good year.”
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