Matildas dream run a boon for free-to-air TV, says Seven boss
By Calum Jaspan
The death of free-to-air television has been greatly exaggerated, according to Seven chief executive James Warburton and chief marketing and audience officer Melissa Hopkins, as record numbers of viewers flock to its coverage of the Matildas at the Women’s World Cup.
Last week’s do-or-die group stage game against Canada was viewed by an average audience of 2.46 million Australians, with a total audience reach of 4.71 million, making it Seven’s biggest broadcast of the year. The network is hoping to repeat the feat when the Matildas take on Denmark in the round of 16 on Monday night.
Seven only has matches to broadcast after making a deal with Optus Sport, the tournament’s official broadcast partner which reportedly paid FIFA $60 million for the honour. In what is beginning to look like one of the steals of the century, Seven picked up 15 of the 64 matches in a free-to-air licensing arrangement for less than $5 million, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
“We expected a number and every time we do it, the appetite for sports streaming in particular is quite extraordinary,” Warburton said.
Despite its popularity, criticism has persisted over the majority of games remaining behind Optus Sport’s paywall, though Warburton points out that decision “wasn’t up to us”.
Mary Fowler during last week’s win over Canada, the highest-rating women’s sport match in Australian history.Credit: Eddie Jim
The Women’s World Cup was left off the federal government’s anti-siphoning list, designed to protect major sports from going behind paywalls, giving Optus the opportunity to swoop for the rights.
Optus’s vice president for television, content and product development Clive Dickens said in 2021 Australian media had been “asleep at the wheel” with its previous approach to women’s soccer.
Unlike past competitions, Dickens said it was a competitive tender for this year’s tournament, and the telco was willing to pay more than the free-to-air broadcasters for rights to all matches. Optus would not comment on the reported price when approached by this masthead.
“We do a bloody good job promoting it,” says Warburton. “We integrate it through all of our lead in, the campaigns about Australia taking on the world, the way in which we promote across the platforms.”
“I think it’s been very successful for both us (and Optus), but of course, the Australian games from an anti-siphoning point of view are going to be really important to be available for free,” Warburton added.
Seven’s Melissa Hopkins and James Warburton
Warburton and Hopkins, until recently Optus’ chief marketer, are now keen to reframe the free-to-air television story, using a revamped ratings system to argue it’s still the best medium to reach Australians en masse, amid the rise of competition for eyeballs from the likes of Netflix, YouTube and TikTok.
“The first thing is you’ve got to change the narrative,” Warburton says, after the industry finally launched its new Virtual Oz (VOZ) measurement system in May.
“If you’re measuring things the same way for 21, 22 years, showing declines and that type of thing, then it’s clearly the first thing you got to get in place.”
VOZ publishes a report of the previous night’s scheduling each afternoon, taking metro and regional broadcast audiences, combined with BVOD to offer a “Total TV” figure.
Broadcast TV audiences have declined over the past decade, with overnight audiences proving to be an increasingly outdated way of measuring how audiences consume content daily. Warburton says both the UK and the US, where he has recently returned from, do not rely on such figures.
“Reach” – meaning anyone who viewed at least one minute of a broadcast – tells the full story, according to Hopkins, adding this metric continues to show Seven “champions mass cultural events”.
“A Farmer Wants a Wife reached 58 per cent more Australians than the total number of Foxtel subscribers,” she says, with the pay TV’s paying customers including Binge and Kayo totaling 4.5 million in its most recent results.
Hopkins says the show’s total reach was close to nine million across its run this year, while the show’s final episode aired to a ‘Total TV’ audience of 1.24 million.
Nine’s chief sales officer, Michael Stephenson says TV is going through a “reach renaissance”, with advertisers able to gauge the true reach their television campaigns for the first time. Nine is the owner of this masthead.
The continued delivery of daily figures has made TV the “most accountable” of its counterparts, Warburton said.
While the streaming giants like Netflix have implemented ad-tiers to combat slowing revenues, he added their lack of transparency puts them at odds with what advertisers want.
“We had the situation where the market was quite disappointed with the ad-tier from Netflix globally, and [it] had to refund clients because they couldn’t get enough impressions when they launched here in Australia. There is no data, there is nothing they will provide.”
Yet, the launch of VOZ isn’t a fix-all solution, BVOD figures still only add a fraction to total nightly audiences, with the total audience of A Farmer Wants A Wife’s finale, touted by Hopkins, only rising by 86,000, or 6.9 per cent. The BVOD figure jumped to 162,000 over the following seven days.
VOZ figures for the final week of July showed broadcast TV and BVOD reached 20.1 Australians, a significant portion of the population.
Last Monday’s Matildas’ game was a streaming record for 7Plus, not a major surprise considering the network still can’t air games for its crown jewel, the AFL, digitally until 2025.
Warburton stresses the importance of digital rights, doubling down on past comments that Seven would “walk away” from any negotiations that don’t include them going forward.
Nine comparatively has the NRL’s digital rights, with the final dead-rubber State of Origin game viewed by an audience of 471,000 on 9Now, while three of the 13 million Australians The Ashes reached were streaming only.
State of Origin has proven a successful digital product for Nine.Credit: Getty
Now Seven is looking to prise State of Origin games away from Nine, despite its loyalties “obviously being with the AFL”.
“That’s not until 2027, but Origin is three grand finals in a row plus under 19, plus women’s, so there’s actually nine or 10 games. That would be a good product for us.”
“It would be a very good product as we’ve shown with the Matildas and what we’ve been able to do with the World Cup.”
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