Foxtel Group chief executive Patrick Delany recently explained to Mediaweek the important part Foxtel Media plays in the business model.
This week Mediaweek met the Foxtel Media chief executive Mark Frain to hear more about that growth and future plans.
“FY24 was our best year on record in terms of advertising, just under $50 million worth of growth year-on-year. That came in what was, let’s be honest, a very challenging market.
“We were delighted with that result with growth coming from the new digital assets of Kayo and Binge, which we’ve worked tirelessly on for the last three or four years. To see them delivering high double-digit growth was outstanding. That was the end of a three-year strategy for Foxtel Media to have 50% or more of our revenue being from digital and we’re on track for that going into the start of FY25.”
‘Digital growth looking strong again’
When asked about his current ad market outlook, Frain said: “It feels like we’ve been in this cycle for a long time with the advertising bouncing along the bottom in terms of growth.”
Frain usually tells it like it is. Talking more about the current climate, he added: “The ad market coming into this new financial year is still a bit stuffed, still a bit fragile. July was probably not as strong as we would like, but we’ve seen the quarter build from that moment and digital growth is looking strong again into this new year.”
He said Foxtel Media’s momentum from FY24 has certainly continued.
Mark Frain at Foxtel Media 2024 Upfront
Kantar panel progress
It’s been just under 12 months since Foxtel Media detailed its plans to leverage its set top boxes in a new measurement platform in partnership with Kantar Media. Former Foxtel Media exec Murray Love returned to the company to build it. More recently former OzTAM boss Doug Peiffer came on board too as a special advisor.
Foxtel Media will unveil more detail about the measurement system at next month’s Upfront event. But Frain did tell Mediaweek: “We’ve been working tirelessly, primarily on the sport side, to make sure that valuable content is measured accurately and consistently. We did a lot of work with our agency partners over the months leading into the 2024 football seasons.
“It’s been a record-breaking season for both codes. It’s critically important for us to have the big-ticket items of live sport accurately measured.
And because we don’t interrupt live sport, a lot of the brand integration work we do with clients also in the magazine shows, whether that be AFL 360 or NRL 360, AFL Tonight and others. What we’ve seen through the Kantar data is the audiences are more engaged in those shows.
“Advertisers and agencies are really seeing the benefit of that data when it comes justifying their investment decisions in live sport and the associated magazine shows.
“If you’re continually proving to clients how much you’re delivering for them in terms of return on investment, they’re likely to carry on spending with you. And then increase that spend as your audience continues to grow.”
Viewing experience
With Foxtel Media revenue climbing, the platform continues to place importance on the viewing experience. Apart from the Binge ad tier, Frain noted not to much has changed regarding ad loads.
“We’re still averaging four to five minutes of ads an hour.”
Viewers might notice slight changes, yet there seems to be much content that carries few interruptions. “There’s quite a few things that are still pretty sacrosanct,” grinned Frain.
“We are very conscious of respecting paying subscribers. There’s only so far you can push it – the viewing experience is massively important.”
Frain did admit: “We have a very healthy debate internally on the ad loads that we run and where we run them. And that is the right debate to have when we’ve got millions of customers that are paying for their content experience.”
See also: Foxtel Upfront 2024 – Kantar Media partnership to deliver comprehensive ratings data
Foxtel Media hot property: Fox Footy’s Michael McNeill with hosts Sarah Jones, Jason Dunstall, David King and Leigh Montagna
Binge ad tier attracting different customers
There seems to be general acceptance from many viewers that in some cases watching ads is a fair trade off for access to the content for a certain price.
“Based on the right value equation, many viewers are certainly not put off by advertising. But I say again, only if it’s done with a like-minded respect for their viewing experience.
“If you abuse that, you could get into some challenges. But we certainly haven’t done that. We feel the level of the advertising on the Binge base tier is at a low enough level.
“We’re certainly not seeing high levels of negativity towards advertising. There’s always a preconception that if you introduce ads anywhere it has an adverse effect. There’s a growing new generation of streaming customers that have kind of been brought up on advertising experience in different platforms, whether that be YouTube, whether that be TikTok or some of the other brands.
Get ready for Super Saturday
It’s a bit early perhaps to talk too much about AFL Super Saturday coming to Kayo Sports and Foxtel customers next year. Especially when the current season still has four weeks to go.
But…“It will be enormously exciting next year. We see on the AFL side a different level of exclusivity than we’ve ever had before, especially around Super Saturday,” said Frain.
“I don’t want to give too much away, but you’ll see a significant evolution of the Super Saturday product, particularly on AFL, but likely on NRL as well.”
More details likely to be unveiled at the Foxtel Media Upfront in October.
See also: As AFL and NRL head towards finals, Foxtel Media reveals 2024 audience growth