The Seven Network’s coverage of the Winter Olympics in Beijing has helped the broadcaster secure its biggest start to a television ratings survey year since 2018.
Mediaweek spoke with Seven’s chief revenue officer, Kurt Burnette, about the network’s strong start to the year and its successful summer of cricket.
Speaking of the cricket, Burnette said while they would have preferred that Australia didn’t beat England in less than five days in several of the Test matches in the series, he was happy with the results from viewers and advertisers.
“I was really pleased with the way that started. There was a fair bit of uncertainty around the schedule of the cricket but it worked out brilliantly in the end, despite the fact we lost the Afghanistan game in November. We were still able to put together great ratings across summer, particularly with the Test series. To come out of the Summer winning after the momentum of winning the survey last year was very pleasing.”
So far in this years TV ratings survey, Seven has won 10 out of 11 days to record a 43.2% commercial broadcast share in total people, a 41.9% share in 16-39s and a 40.6% share in 25-54s.
Winter Olympics ratings impact
Off the back of the success of the Summer Olympics, Seven has had a rare opportunity due to the pandemic to air the Winter Olympics less than 12 months later, with the results providing the best start to the TV ratings for Seven since 2018:
• Seven Network and Channel 7: #1 every day. Biggest start to the survey year since 2018.
• Seven Network: #1 in total people. 44.9% commercial audience share, up 10.5 points on 2021.
• Seven Network: #1 in 25 to 54s. 42.9% commercial audience share, up 11.9 points on 2021.
• Seven Network: #1 in 16 to 39s. 44.4% commercial audience share, up 15.1 points on 2021.
• Channel 7: #1 in total people. 33.2% commercial audience share, up 9.9 points on 2021.
• Channel 7: #1 in 25 to 54s. 32.1% commercial audience share., up 11.1 points on 2021.
• Channel 7: #1 in total people. 32.7% commercial audience share, up 13.2 points on 2021.
• 7plus: #1 in live streaming, up 253% on 2021, 56.3% commercial audience share.
• 7plus: Up 87% on 2021, 42.4% BVOD commercial audience share.
• 7mate: #1 free-to-air multichannel.
• 7two: #2 free-to-air multichannel.
Burnette said that the Winter Games is about creating momentum for the rest of the year, and Seven has achieved that with strong ratings across the two-week event.
“This is my fourth Winter Olympics and each February that they come around what you want to do is have some good momentum coming out of Summer, which we have. You always want to kick off the year as strong as you possibly can and that’s what we’ve done with the Winter Olympics which has provided massive growth while also dominating all the key demographics every night. Our objective is to create the best possible marketing platform for our advertisers and ourselves. We have been really successful from an advertising point of view with a big audience uplift which means we can promote our next slate of shows coming through such as Dancing with the Stars, SAS, and The Voice as well as continuing our leadership in news content.”
Although when harnessing the momentum created by the Winter Olympics, Burnette said that it’s not just about linear TV. Seven’s coverage of Beijing has so far reached 11.8 million viewers as coverage on the up to 20 channels on 7plus has so far streamed 323 million minutes, up 276% on 2018 PyeongChang during the same period.
“The streaming minutes that we’ve had with the Winter Olympics have been extraordinary. What’s obviously changed a lot through here is the incremental reach that BVOD can bring. This means that we have very rich first-party data. So there’s a whole lot of things working here, and it’s working very well and we’re gonna be looking to take advantage of it to benefit our clients in the future.
“7plus and 7news.com.au are very important parts of our ecosystem. The regional extension is also important and we have already turned on the marketing and promotion of 7plus in the local regional news last week. We’re just starting to get to the tip of that integration, so that is really exciting.”
Prime acquisition a gamechanger
Speaking of the regional extension, when Seven bought Prime last year, it became the first media company in Australia to offer a national television reach. When asked about the impact of this, Burnette said that it was a gamechanger.
“It is a gamechanger because it will be the largest audience of total video in Australia, and the leading metro, regional and BVOD proposition in the market. We can bring it all together for those who want to buy in one place or we can continue to work with how they want to do it. We’ve only just started to see the real benefits of that, and it is just going to make it easier for our customers to get a better outcome. There are already amazing opportunities that have presented themselves. It’s a very strong and powerful proposition that has been two years in the making really.”
Prime and Seven have historically performed well in regional Australia and that trend has continued post-sale. Burnette said regional Australia has always been an important part of Seven’s strategy.
“Our audience skew is from young to middle and then into the older end so I think our content resonates with all of Australia from young to old. The numbers show that the content resonates especially in regional areas, and we have also had a lot of incumbency in the marketplaces with Prime being such a respected brand. It is about how we get into the community locally and that we are super strong in news locally, so that really helps our schedule.”
Can Seven maintain ratings leadership?
After a spirited battle in the TV ratings last year, Seven ended up finishing #1 in total audience, a trend that Burnette expects to continue.
“If you think about how we started the year, we won every single demographic and we were number one in news, number one in key demos, number one in multis, had the number one breakfast program, number one with 7plus and number one in regional. It’s a pretty good start to have.
“As we continue to push out through the year with the content we’ve got along with the Commonwealth Games which really resonate on a national basis, our plan is to continue the trajectory of our winning ways. We believe that we will win the year again this year and our customers, our clients, and our brands will be the beneficiaries of that. The smart money is coming to Seven.”
See also: Why buy Seven in 2022? Kurt Burnette and Natalie Harvey explain