Network Ten CEO Paul Anderson says the move to bring sales in-house is all about making the broadcaster "accountable" for the monetisation of both revenue and cost.
Yesterday, the network revealed it would be ending its long-standing relationship with MCN, as Ten owners CBS looked to remove itself from the "unusual situation".
"It's a different environment now with the new ownership structure and CBS would like us to be fully accountable for the revenue and the costs, which meant we had to change the current arrangement," Anderson tells AdNews.
"The landscape is changing pretty quickly on how we are monetising that content, so being in control of that makes sense on a whole range of levels."
The network also announced the establishment of a new advertising sales department, headed by Rod Prosser, currently executive GM, revenue and client partnerships, in the new role of chief sales officer.
Prosser says the future of Ten's sales is still unclear, but it will be looking to recruit talent from across the industry.
Unable to disclose the size of the team, he says the network is looking to establish an "agnostic and bilingual" sales team, suggesting the must be able to work across both linear and digital sales, with work already underway to set up a team that can work fluidly across the entire Ten portfolio.
"The important thing for us now is making sure that we have the right structure and that is built for the future and you don't get an opportunity like this many times as a business," Prosser says.
"To do that it means that we have to go and seek people from all different fields and all different companies a, whether it's tech, digital or linear."
Ten has not ruled out working with MCN to secure previous Ten sales team members from the agency as it transitions across to the new ad sales team.
Looking ahead to the 1 January deadline, Anderson says the team has a "really clear disengagement plan" in place to ensure a smooth transition out of MCN to the in-house model.
He says the new plan for Ten will be focused heavily on continuing to develop strong local content while tapping into the systems and strategies that CBS have used in the US to effectively monetise that content.
"The CBS strategy in the US is producing great content and monetising that against as many platforms as it can, and they've been very successful in diversifying their reliance on just linear television advertising revenues," Anderson says.
"We have had a focus on content first, with monetisation a pretty close second but you need to get that content piece right first and then we will look into filtering in the CBS approach out here."
Earlier this year, CBS and Nielsen revealed that they are working on a collaboration that will deliver dynamic ad Insertion in live linear national broadcast television, helping to actualise and progress addressable advertising, something Ten could look to utilise in the local market.
The solution uses frame-accurate video recognition technology for precise ad detection and content insertion in live TV.
Anderson says the strategy is not just about competing with the likes of Nine, adding that Ten, as of yet, will not be going up against the print or Domain assets but it's about going up against "Silicon Valley" players in the market as well.
"We will continue to do what we are doing in terms of making good content, keeping us in competition with the other networks but that's not where the competition ends," he says.
"The focus in terms of how we compete, whether it's with Nine and Fairfax or Netflix and Stan is equally as important, so by leveraging the access to the CBS digital, technology and programming teams we will be even stronger in the market."
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