How Kim Portrate helped the television industry ride the last wave
Welcome to a midweek update from Unmade. Today: What Kim Portrate’s departure from ThinkTV says about the state of television.
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Time to (re)ThinkTV
Last night Mumbrella broke the news that Kim Portrate is departing as CEO of industry marketing body ThinkTV.
Someone leaving a job after nearly nine years would normally be relatively unremarkable. But in the case of ThinkTV, it signals far more. It says much about the local state of the commercial medium of television.
ThinkTV launched late. When the organisation finally started in July 2016, it was just two months off the 50th anniversary of the launch of television into the Australian market. Portrate, a big brand marketer with the likes of Tourism Australia and Helloworld, and before that an agency strategist, was a great choice to launch the organisation.
Every other major medium had long-established marketing bodies. For many years, the TV networks had arrogantly (and correctly) believed their medium was different. Marketers used television because they had to.
There was also the practical issue that the networks hated each other, Seven and Nine in particular.
Then came the moment when they finally acknowledged that digital disruption was a common enemy, and that jointly marketing the benefits of television would serve them all. The collegiate Russel Howcroft, then Network Ten’s executive general manager, became ThinkTV’s first chair. Seven and Nine’s sales bosses Kurt Burnette and Michael Stephenson joined the board too. The fourth stakeholder was Foxtel, represented by Anthony Fitzgerald, CEO of their sales arm Multi Channel Network, which these days is known as Foxtel Media.
In its early years, ThinkTV under Portrate was a big success. As the board said in last night’s statement: “She has been a powerful advocate for broadcast television, delivering groundbreaking research and campaigns that have ensured TV is the first on and last off the plan for many Australian advertisers.”
Even as TV dollars were rapidly declining in other markets around the world, the networks held back the tide in Australia thanks at least in part to ThinkTV. They were well placed to make the most of Covid when the lockdowns delivered a captive audience. But that proved to be the last high point.
Those four original stakeholders have now all moved on. While Howcroft still does Gruen on the ABC, his day job is radio in the breakfast chair at 3AW.
Things really began to publicly fall apart when Fitzgerald’s successor Mark Frain overturned the table. Foxtel resigned from ThinkTV in June 2023. The trigger was the refusal of Seven, Nine and Ten to add Foxtel as a fourth shareholder in ratings provider OzTAM.
Four months later, Frain blew things up entirely, announcing the launch of a new, digital-first rating system.
Meanwhile, the consensus of the three free to air networks had also fractured. With the combative James Warburton at the helm of Seven West Media, the sniping between Seven and Nine returned.
The outlook for ThinkTV weakened further when when one of its greatest champions in Kurt Burnette was made redundant by Seven in June last year.
And the final blow came when linear TV’s last big believer Michael Stephenson departed Nine for ARN Media back in December.
By then, ThinkTV had become ineffective anyway. It only worked if its three stakeholders were united. ThinkTV even stopped sharing audience data as its relationship with OzTam became political. It became a marketing body without a marketing budget.
It became clear that something was afoot during the analysts’ call on the SWM half-year results this week. Boss Jeff Howard hinted: “We’re looking at the industry bodies as well, we want to make sure we’re getting the best value out of the industry bodies that represent [us]. So, a lot to do on that front.”
Along with ThinkTV and OzTAM, the three networks also own their (very effective) lobbying arm Free TV Australia. It makes sense for the three to come closer together.
Last night’s statement to Mumbrella makes clear that the three stakeholders - Ten’s Rod Prosser, Seven’s Henry Tajer and Nine’s Matt James - intend to plod on with a new “structure and direction”. Defining the new mission is the hard thing.
The challenge is to find ways of telling the story of the medium without sounding defensive about the rise of streaming. That’s something ThinkTV never quite nailed.
And it will need to do so on a smaller budget without that becoming emblematic of the challenges of the medium it represents.
And the local problem for the ThinkTV stakeholders is that while broadcast linear is what makes them unique, they need to sell the benefits of ad-supported streaming too, and in that world they have plenty of competitors.
TV still has a place, and it needs a salesperson to sell it.
Unmade Index up again
The confidence boosting call from Seven West Media that it has hit bottom took the Unmade Index into another day of uplift yesterday.
The Unmade Index, which tracks Australia’s listed media and marketing companies, rose by 0.87. It followed a jump of 7.04% the previous day.
Nine rose by 1.7% yesterday while Seven rose another 2.9%. Audio company Southern Cross Austereo rose by 1.6%
Meanwhile Vinyl Group rose by 9.1% after announcing it was unifying its publishing brands - including Variety Australia, Rolling Stone Australia, Refinery29, The Brag Media, Concrete Playground and Mediaweek - into new division Vinyl Media.
Share in Pureprofile rose by 4% as value investor Danny Kontos continued to move up the register, taking his holding up to 13.8%.
Time to leave you to your Thursday. We’ll be back with more soon.
Have a great day.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade + Mumbrella
tim@unmade.media
