Welcome to a Tuesday update from Unmade. In the interests of topicality we’re reworking our publishing rhythm this week. We’ve brought forward to today our usual Thursday audio-led interview to focus on the Paramount Upfronts which kicked off in Sydney yesterday. And our member-only post which usually happens on a Tuesday, will be later in the week. Further down, we’ve also got better news on the Unmade Index which finally broke its eight day losing streak.
If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:
* A complimentary ticket to all of Unmade’s events, including HumAIn (2025), REmade (1 October), Unlock (31 October), and Compass (November);
* Member-only content and our paywalled archives;
* Your own copy of Media Unmade.
How Paramount is making one plus one add up to more
Paramount yesterday become the first of Australia’s TV companies to show its hand during 2025 Upfronts season.
One of the challenges of covering Upfronts presentations is that they tend to be a grab bag of announcements, without there necessarily being a unifying theme.
That was certainly the case with Paramount, with announcements covering free to air commissions for Network 10, local commissions for streaming service Paramount+, the company’s global content pipeline, converged trading technology upgrades with Paramount Connect, and a rebrand that will see 10 Play disappear so it will be Ten across both linear and streaming.
And that in itself was the unifying theme. Albeit by accident rather than plan, the global ownership structure of the company leaves Paramount as the best placed media company to argue that the sum of its parts adds up to more than the whole.
While Paramount Plus isn’t the biggest subscription streaming platform with an advertising tier, it gets to be the only one that is part of a local Upfront.
While a distant third behind Seven and Nine in broadcast TV, Ten gets a pipeline of global formats and content from its parent company.
While 10 Play isn’t as big as Seven’s FAST (free ad supported TV) channels, advertisers and agencies can buy across both Paramount+ and 10 Play.
To lean in to the acronyms, Paramount is the only company locally that can offer advertisers audiences across SVOD, BVOD, FAST and FTA. The sum of the parts has the potential to equal more than the whole
Under Hugh Marks, Nine’s portfolio felt like a company where its assets across TV, streaming, publishing and radio added up to more than the whole. More recently one plus one has equalled two at best.
Seven West Media’s TV and publishing assets feel similarly disconnected, even more so since being split into seperate divisions ready for some sort of M&A activity.
ARN Media’s (so far failed) takeover plan for SCA was about being stronger in the single medium of audio.
Southern Cross Austereo’s valuation will go up as soon as it finally offloads its fading regional TV licences (presumably mostly to Paramount) and becomes a pure play audio company.
So what to make of Paramount’s announcements?
There’s a further investment in live reality TV alongside I’m A Celebrity. Big Brother returns to its original home where it ran for its first eight seasons, before three seasons on Nine where it relaunched well out of the 2012 Olympics before fading, and five seasons on Seven which took much of the life out of the format by moving to a cheaper pre-recorded format.
Big Brother will be live on Ten and streamed 24 hours a day live which is almost exactly the sort of content FAST was invented for.
There were no other major format surprises. Have You Been Paying Attention, MasterChef, Taskmaster, Survivor, and Thank God You’re Here all return. The Project stays on air.
Talking ‘Bout Your Generation (or Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Gen as it will be this time) has been revived minus Shaun Micallef as host. Sam Pang will get his own show.
During the podcast conversation with sales boss Rod Prosser and programming lead Daniel Monaghan, I didn’t detect much of an appetite to go after a big (and expensive) sporting code. The kite flown at the weekend by NRL boss Peter V’landys feels more like an attempt to scare Nine into thinking it could face an auction.
There was also some paranormal activity from Paramount.
An Australian version of sitcom Ghosts, which started life in the BBC in the UK will be cast shortly (I have my suspicions we won’t see it on screen until 2026). I’m intrigued how the caveman character of Robin from the original will translate into a local character without controversy around First Nations people. Monaghan tackles that in the interview.
And a spooky six part scripted drama Playing Gracie Darling will land on Paramount+
As well as talking about the content announcements, the interview addressed the question of how the TV industry can stop sounding defensive about its fading linear numbers and start getting aggressive about streaming.
Prosser acknowledges: “We don't see ourselves as a free-to-air business anymore. We see ourselves … as a premium video business. Obviously, the free-to-air asset is incredibly important.
It's important to recognize a couple of things. The first thing is that the free-to-air linear still drives the biggest reach.
“The second fact is linear audiences are declining. I think none of us can have our heads in the sand about that.
“We were artificially propped up through Covid. I think everyone recognises that.
“And that decline that we knew was coming has come. And I think we'll see stabilisation in those audiences now.”
“The reality is television is still a mass-reaching vehicle. And I think there's no reason to be defensive around that. We own it.
“But I do think the linear audiences have found their place.”
* Declaration of interest: My travel and accommodation for the event was covered by Paramount
Unmade Index finally breaks losing streak
The Unmade Index finally broke an eight day streak of declines to record a move upwards yesterday, growing by 1.36% to 443.3 points.
The best performer was Domain, majority owned by Nine, which rose by 4.3%. That in turn helped lift Nine by 2.1%.
Rival TV network Seven rose by 2.9%.
Among the larger stocks, Southern Cross Austereo had the worst of it, slipping by 3.8%. SCA’s market capitalisation of $122m is the lowest it has ever been. The smaller audio stock of Sports Entertainment Group, owner of SEN radio, lost 7.6%.
Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio.
We’ll be back with another newsletter tomorrow.
We also have a clarification. In Saturday’s Best of the Week, I reported that VOZ streaming would launch on November 25, as a means for advertisers to frequency cap their campaigns across differing media plartforms. I mentioned that this had previously been announced as December 29. In fact, that date is the full launch of VOZ as a trading currency and remains the same.
Have a great day.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade
[email protected]
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe
