Holleran hopeful of TEN improvements

Speaking at todays Southern Cross Austereo FY12 results, Rhys Holleran spent some time discussing Network Ten, and the impact on his company's regional television assets – Southern Cross Ten.

Southern Cross Austereo reported an 8.2% decline in television advertising revenue, off the back of the programming delivered to it from Network Ten.

Holleran said;

"Principally our result was driven out of lower ratings, we are supportive of our partners at Ten and are hopeful of an improvement in the year ahead. In a flat advertising market, if your ratings are off 10 per cent you don't have to be clever at maths to work out what that means in terms of your revenue outlooks" 

Network Ten is having a dreadful time presently with it's closing share price yesterday of 38.5 cents it's lowest price in history, although this was impacted by the capital raising two months ago.

Long-term Ten programming boss David Mott was axed last week following a disastrous run of ratings failures which he was held responsible for (see here). Network Ten has suffered weak ratings recently with only 6.5% of metropolitan free to air viewers watching last Saturday, and 6.6% on Sunday evening. These are some of the lowest figures on commercial television history.

For Southern Cross Austereo, and Rhys Holleran, whilst publicly they are supportive of their program supplier in Ten, you can be sure that behind the scenes conversations are far more direct.