Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade (with quite a few written words too).

Today, we talk to Foxtel’s streaming and advertising boss, Julian Ogrin; Seven’s slumping share price sees it at risk of being eclipsed by ARN Media; and we share more news of our retail media conference REmade.

‘We can be number one in digital advertising’ - Julian Ogrin on Kayo’s growth story

Tim Burrowes writes:

Julian Ogrin, the man tipped as the future boss of Foxtel Group, has been taking a higher profile of late. Over the last few days, he’s been the face (and voice) of the latest set of results from the company.

Ogrin is CEO of Foxtel’s streaming division including sports platform Kayo (“the home of Australian domestic sport”, as he puts it in today’s podcast), and entertainment platform Binge.

The rise of the two platforms - each of them passed more than 1.5m paying subscribers for the first time - is an unusual success story against a backdrop where most satellite and cable TV providers around the world have failed to react to the disruption of changing consumer habits.

Last week, News Corp publicly hung a “for sale” sign on Foxtel Group, of which it owns two-thirds. Telstra owns the other third. The company flagged “third party interest” in what looks like an attempt to flush out other potential bidders.

The urgency is because these numbers may be as good as they gets for Foxtel.

For Kayo, the fourth quarter is the one where local footy fans return for the season before beginning to churn away again. And looming in the next few months is the next NRL deal negotiation. Foxtel currently shares the rights with Nine, which will inevitably chase the full package this time, to spread across its subscription platform Stan too. The all-or-nothing battle will be an expensive one if Foxtel is to win it.

And Binge is almost certainly only months away from losing its HBO content to a local launch of Warner Discovery’s streaming service Max.

So now is the time to sell Foxtel - and for Ogrin - to sell the message of the company’s streaming growth.

In today’s conversation he alludes to a subtle repositioning of what Kayo (and Foxtel) stand for when it coms to sport. He talks about domestic sport five times. Having lost the English Premier League to Optus Sport in 2015, perhaps Formula One, last renewed in 2022, will be next to go.

The interview also covers the question of Kayo’s price. By global standards the $25-per-month entry level price, or full package for $35, is low. Ben Shepherd, who is often right about such things, predicted last week that we may see the price rise towards $50.

Ogrin hints: “We used to have three tiered products and we came back to two. Maybe we go back to three.”

Naturally, we asked Ogrin about the succession plans when the time comes to replace Delany. Naturally, he navigated around the question.

We also pushed him on the number of sign ups to aggregation service Hubbl. He used the word “proud” twice but declined to share numbers.

Ogrin also has Foxtel Media, the company’s advertising sales house, reporting in to him. Even in a down market, the division has reported growth. Ogrin claims Kayo is the only scalable advertising solution for streaming in the market. “We’re talking about seven hours of highly engaged viewing a week”.

“In the next 12 to 24 months we can be number one in digital advertising and we’re just going to go for it.”

Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio.

We’ll be back with another newsletter tomorrow.

If you’re interested in retail media, don’t forget that discounted earlybird tickets are on sale for another four days for the next edition of REmade on October 1. And our call for entries for the REmade Awards is live for just another fortnight.

Toodlepip…

Tim Burrowes

Publisher - Unmade

[email protected]

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