Strike Impact: Network Ten

SYDNEY, January 23: Australian broadcaster Network
Ten has a stockpile of American drama episodes to air in the next few
months, according to the network head of programming, Beverley McGarvey, but
she is still looking to local productions and, in a new move, British reality
shows, to fill possible gaps in the schedule.

TEN has output deals in place with Twentieth Century Fox
Television Distribution, CBS Paramount International Television and NBC
Universal International Television Distribution, with rights to shows such as House, NCIS,
Law & Order: SVU, Numb3rs and Medium. “Obviously we would expect between 22 and 25 episodes of all of our
U.S. drama series,” McGarvey tells World Screen Newsflash. “This year we’re generally getting between 10 and
14 episodes—that does impact what we’re doing.”

McGarvey notes that the Australian networks’ survey
period—when the broadcasters assess their performance—kicks off
next month. With at least 12 episodes available of its U.S. drama imports,
“we’re in a very strong position for quarter 1 and quarter 2,” she says.

If the writers’ strike persists, the crunch time will be
July and August—”that’s when we’ll start to see some of the episodes run
out, but we have plenty of time to commission by that stage. And we will
re-work things slightly; we may hold things, we may pull things up early. When
we get to September, October, we would hope that the strike is resolved by then
and we could potentially have some U.S. episodes to go with.”

McGarvey also notes that TEN’s U.S. shows are, for the most part,
not serialized. “Things like Law & Order: SVU tend to repeat very well. We’re in a fortunate position in that some
of our competitors tend to have more serialized shows, and they don’t repeat as
well.”

She does, however, still want to be prepared with a variety
of alternatives. The network will continue looking to formats, recently
launching a new season of The Biggest Loser
as a strip and commissioning a local version of the FOX’s So You
Think You Can Dance. “We commissioned that
just around the time when we thought the strike may or may not happen.”

TEN is also commissioning locally originated content, such as
Good News Week. “It had been on air here in
the past and we just reinvented the format a little bit,” McGarvey says. “We
commissioned it about two weeks ago and it goes on air in about two weeks!”

McGarvey has also widened her acquisitions mandate to look
at British reality shows, “which we normally would do less of. The interesting
thing is, if some of those shows start to work, then that’s a market we can
shop in more regularly.”

Indeed, McGarvey is planning to spend some time in London
this April before heading to MIPTV, where she’ll be on the lookout for more
formats, particularly titles for early evening slots, as well as short-run factual
fare. “We’ll spend a bit more time [than usual] in London talking to our
British colleagues and investigating things more thoroughly.”

And McGarvey is still expecting to fly to Los Angeles this
May for the L.A. Screenings. “We’re quite hopeful that the strike may be
resolved and I know that a lot of the studios have already ordered pilot
scripts, so even if we can’t see full episodes, we might be able to see some
teasers. It’s important for us to talk to the studios regularly and that’s the
one time of the year when we do spend quite a bit of time with them. At this
point, we would be planning to go, if there’s something worth going to.”

—By Mansha Daswani