Paramount's annual Australia and New Zealand Upfront revealed the shows premiering next year as well as how advertisers can take advantage.
AdNews spoke with Rod Prosser, chief sales officer, and Daniel Monaghan, senior vice president of content and programming, about the mix of content hitting 10's screens in 2023, the raft of new partnerships the company has signed and the next step in their ambitions towards net zero.
Prosser said that Paramount has had a busy year in terms of the ad market, with plenty of demand around television in the final quarter.
“In the end, we'll see some nice growth in ad revenue across all of our platforms, including linear, so we're really pleased. There’s a lot of commentary around the market being sluggish, but it's not at all; it's certainly a typical back quarter for us.
“As we look towards next year, we will have discussions and negotiations with the major consortiums, so we'll get a better picture of the market ahead, but certainly from my point of view, and early conversations that we're having with advertisers, brands and consortium leads, is that the market should remain fairly stable.”
On the content front, Monaghan told AdNews that while their legacy brands will continue to deliver, the mix of new and returning shows for 10 – such as The Bachelors, now featuring three males instead of one, and the second season of Hunted – is an extra source of excitement.
“In a few weeks, we're launching Traitors and that is a really sticky, new brand for us. It's got great roots in gameplay like Survivor and I expect it will really resonate with audiences.
“We're also putting two new scripted shows on 10 next year. In 2022, we've used some of the brands that have previously been on Paramount+, but we’ve commissioned North Shore and Paper Dolls for 10 next year, which is great for 10 to get those premiere windows.”
For Paramount+, Monaghan said that the original programming arriving on the platform soon has them well covered and will continue to help the service grow at a rapid pace.
“Out of the US, we've got 1923 with Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren, which is the follow on from 1883 which was so successful for the service this year. We've also got season two of Yellowjackets from Showtime, which was a real sleeper hit for us, as well as Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies and season two of Halo coming down the pipeline.”
Monaghan said that homegrown shows like Last King of the Cross and Five Bedrooms is just as important as the international content to bring a local flavour to the platform.
“Paramount Global is invested in every local market having a local flavour, so we want to have that rich pipeline of US and UK content, but with local flavour. It's important for Australians to see themselves reflected on the service and we have that investment continuing in in droves next year.”
One of the major new partnerships announced was with Pluto TV, the number one free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) service in the US and Europe.
Monaghan told AdNews that the curated line-up of Pluto TV FAST channels launching on 10 Play in 2023, featuring many genres and popular shows for Australian consumers, provides advertisers with an additional premium environment to efficiently reach hard-to-find audiences.
“We've got MTV, Nickelodeon, Showtime, 10 and then all the Paramount stuff; to be able to draw on all of those brands and content, and then you add Pluto into the mix too, means we’ll be able to offer audiences next year quite an amazing offering of FAST channels.”
Prosser: “This is the proposition for us - we are so much bigger than we were even two years ago, both from a platform and content perspective, which really gives advertisers greater opportunity to reach their audiences which is exciting.”
Building on recently announced partnerships with Samba TV and KERV Interactive, it was also revealed the company had signed deals with Innovid and Twitter.
Paramount and Innovid, an independent advertising platform for delivery, personalisation and measurement of converged TV, will provide interactive, premium, connected television (CTV) ad products, while Paramount is teaming up with Twitter Australia to deliver a premium advertising product called The Checkout.
Prosser said that all of these partnerships have been centred around Paramount’s Ecommerce strategy, with innovation at the heart of that strategy.
“It's important for us to do some Australian firsts, which we've done with these partnerships, but really importantly, offer both advertisers and brands a way to connect with our consumers in a meaningful way.
“We don't want it to be overly disruptive, but we want it to be able to seamlessly be woven into the ads and indeed, the content. The opportunity for advertisers and brands here is really to connect with audiences at scale, but in a much more meaningful way.
“With the Innovid product, I liken it to advertising on demand - pick your own adventure as such - so you can really tailor your ad experience based on your needs and wants.”
“We know our audience is really leaning into social and Twitter is a platform that a lot of our viewers sit on. We also know our content resonates more than our competitor’s content on a particular platform.
“You've got a really engaged audience in our viewers and Twitter really allows us to bring that together in a meaningful way, where consumers are able to have an ad experience where they can actually go right through to an Ecommerce experience.
“We already have a global partnership with Twitter - we launched Twitter Amplify in May and we've already had such huge success around that – so we're thrilled to be able to bring another product to market and working with the Twitter team here in Australia and abroad has just been fantastic.”
Paramount announced they are the first Australian commercial broadcaster to join Sustainable Screens Australia, who will deploy a specialised carbon footprint calculator for screen production.
Sustainable Screens Australia will also create an online hub for best practice checklists and toolkits, industry specific training, a vendor/services database and social impact partnerships to support the local screen industry to adopt a standardised approach to sustainable production.
“This is really important to us as a good corporate citizen but more and more, it's becoming really critical to our advertising partners too," said Prosser.
“We have ambitions to move towards net zero and this is one of those steps propelling us forward in those ambitions, but there’s definitely more to come as well.”
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.