Executives working in broadcast TV are multitaskers these days. Gone are the days of looking after just a couple of shows.
Filling the role of head of unscripted at Network 10 is Sarah Thornton. This month she has the new season of Shark Tank going to air. Thornton is also the network EP on MasterChef and spinoffs like Dessert Masters. Also in the portfolio is Taskmaster, The Dog House Australia, Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly, and The Project. “And the recently dropped, and rather controversial, Aussie Shore,” she told Mediaweek.
This is the first season of Shark Tank that Thornton is working on.
Mediaweek asked Thornton if there was much of a learning curve for her on the series.
“It was really lovely partnering with Curio Pictures, and I know Jo Porter was really involved, and I loved getting to know her creatively. I think she’s been brilliant, and then her team there have been great as well, Jemma Carlton and Ben Ulm.
“I have the advantage of having seen a season with Curio already that I didn’t work on. I could watch that, and kind of immerse myself in that, and think about how we might slightly change things. There’s always an advantage coming in once there’s a bit of groundwork already done. For the new season, we tweaked things, but there was a good foundation from the previous season.”
When we spoke with Thornton, she explained the season had finished filming, and it was no deep into post-production on the remaining episodes as the season launched this month on 10.
“Some of the changes we made include bringing in two new sharks. We’ve got Nick Bell and Maxine Horne. Nick will be known to some people, because he was in Celebrity Apprentice.
“Nick is brilliant, he’s super charismatic, very unafraid, and the real deal. Genuinely really wealthy, and prepared to put his money where his mouth is. Maxine is unbelievable. I don’t think there are many women like her on Australian television.
“She’s in her 60s, and she is also the real deal. Her net worth is off the charts. She was, at one point, Australia’s highest-paid female CEO. She’s wise, she’s canny, and she’s not afraid to stand out.
“They balance out our already existing sharks, Davie, Jane, and Robert really beautifully.
“Coming in as a new shark, there are a lot of learning, but having Jane, Davey, and Robert there, who already knew how to move through the show, and pull them along with them, was brilliant. The five of them have amazing chemistry, and when you think about the show, what is the kind of appeal of it, it is the sharks, and I think that this year, we’ve hit on the secret sauce.”
Sarah Thornton
Thorton said as far as contestants go, there’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneur.
“Because you can do so much yourself, e-commerce has kind of transformed who is able to take a product to market, and how they do it, and so there were some really interesting and amazing products, that already had very strong track record.
“People are now able to come to the sharks and say, look, we’re already on Amazon, these are our sales, and I think that that made for very interesting gameplay. When the shark’s attention is caught, and if you catch all five, there can be, you know, genuine blood in the water.
“On the flip side, we also have products with no e-commerce. There was a dog brand called Marrows, a dog treat brand. The woman who did that was doing incredible sales, with no e-commerce, and again, you can see the shark’s eyes light up, because it’s like, well, if there’s no e-commerce, we know exactly how to grow this business.
“What was really interesting for me was to learn how brilliant Australian entrepreneurs are. How passionate they are about their products, and how impressive we are as a nation of inventors and entrepreneurs. There’s a real spirit of invention here, and the show captures it.”
There’s quite a rigorous process that is undertaken before a product gets a spot on the show.
“Because the sharks are putting their own money into these businesses, they have to really believe in them. We do a lot of vetting and checking before people get to be on the show.
“The application numbers were huge for this season.We then have a three-tier vetting system. That includes business checks to make sure that the claims are accurate. Curio Pictures has done a lot of work on their process for finding, selecting, and vetting for businesses that come through, I think the sharks are really impressed with the quality.”
Shark Tank launch episode ratings
Reporting on the overnight performance of the new season of Shark Tank. 10 noted:
Shark Tank Australia – Launch episode saw 934,000 total national viewers reached.
The episode was #2 in its timeslot, but #1 in its timeslot in under 50s, 25 to 54s and 16 to 39s.
It had competitive commercial shares with 31.8% in 16 to 39s.
The episode lifted 10’s timeslot 27% week-on-week and lifted 10’s timeslot 44% year-on-year.
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