10 News+ is being thumped by its rivals. Can it be saved?

Sydney Morning Herald

3 days ago

It's tempting to assume the death of 10 News+ is imminent: in its first week on air, Network Ten's bold prime-time news and current affairs offering, which debuted on June 30, averaged just 211,000 viewers nationally. Four weeks later, its audience had dwindled to 149,000 – while the 6pm bulletins on Seven and Nine each attracted a viewership around nine times this size.
'They need to double their ratings, at the very least, to be sustainable,' says Pearman Media analyst Steve Allen, noting the challenge is compounded by the network's financial constraints. 'Ten don't have the luxury of choice; they don't have a cupboard full of programs they can pick from if this fails – which gives them an even stronger incentive to make it work.'
Ten news boss Martin White admits the one-hour program, which airs at 6pm between Sunday to Friday, has a long way to go.
'I have no illusions about the task we're facing, given we're in one of the most hotly contested time slots in TV,' he says. 'But we're not in as dire a position as some have suggested.'
Indeed, the program's co-anchors, Amelia Brace and Denham Hitchcock, take comfort from other Ten series that got off to an equally dismal start. Chief among them is Have You Been Paying Attention?, which debuted with 301,000 viewers in 2013 before sinking to 168,000 the following year. Had it aired on Seven or Nine (the owner of this masthead), it almost certainly would have been axed in its infancy – but Ten stuck with it. Now, HYBPA? is one of the network's biggest hits, regularly exceeding 1 million viewers.
Likewise, The Cheap Seats fell to 255,000 viewers a few weeks after its 2021 launch; since then, it has roughly doubled its audience. And The Project – which notched up almost 16 years before being cancelled in June due to high production costs – was first reported to be on the chopping block a mere 10 days after it premiered in 2009.
'Ten has a unique position in the marketplace in that it can take more risks and give things more time to grow,' Brace says. 'Historically, they've been rewarded for that, which certainly gives us confidence.'
Adds Hitchcock: 'We were sitting opposite [Ten network president] Beverley McGarvey at the Logies the other night. She told us, face-to-face, that she loves the show and that this is a long-term project.'
This doesn't mean the 10 News+ format won't evolve: recently, Ten commissioned market research to gauge viewers' opinions about everything from its 'tone, pace and delivery' to the length of its reports.
'10 News+ is actually quite a hard sell; it's tricky to explain to the public.'
Network Ten insider
'We're not making huge, wholesale changes, although those decisions ultimately rest with the network,' says Dan Sutton, the program's executive producer. 'What you might see are some little tweaks as we go along. It's a smart move by any network to do market research on a new show, and we're listening to that feedback so we can deliver a show that people love to tune in to.'
Allen sees Ten's investment in research as proof the network is not giving up on 10 News+, although he remains sceptical about its long-term prospects.
'Ten are very strong at 5 o'clock [with their state-based 10 News First bulletins],' he says, 'but I'm not convinced that another hour of news and current affairs at six o'clock is going to work.'
To some inside Ten, Allen's observation about 'another hour of news and current affairs' sums up their challenge.
' 10 News+ is actually quite a hard sell,' says one journalist who is not authorised to speak publicly. 'Here at Ten, we know it's not just a replica of the straight news bulletins on Seven and Nine, but it's not a completely new, out-of-the box idea either – and that's tricky to explain to the public in a way that's both clear and appealing.'
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So what is 10 News+, exactly? Although it gives viewers the news of the day, it's not a traditional bulletin. Often, it features longer-form stories in the style of Seven's Spotlight or Nine's 60 Minutes. While its direct rivals might devote 45 seconds to a report about declining childhood literacy rates, 10 News+ will invite experts to spend five minutes debating the topic.
'My hope is that when people watch the show, they will be informed about something they might not have known beforehand,' Sutton says. 'I want them to hear an opinion or an idea that they hadn't considered.'
White agrees, offering three recent stories as examples.
'We had the Melbourne mum taking TAB to court because she's a known problem gambler; a lot of other networks were interested but she came to us,' he says. 'We interviewed Hannah Thomas, the Greens candidate who could lose an eye after a clash with police during a protest. And we've done a lot of very nuanced and contextual reporting around the situation in Gaza.'
Ben Willee, executive director of media and data at Spinach Advertising, says Ten's task is not an easy one.
'It's hard to launch any new show in 2025 because there is so much competition,' he says. 'But it's even more difficult if your ratings are not as strong as the other networks, because you have fewer viewers to promote your new programs to.'
But Willee does not accept that a one-hour news and current affairs show, airing six nights a week, is destined to fail in what some believe is an already-saturated market.
'There's a reason the networks invest so much in news, and that's because it rates,' he says. 'There's still a very strong appetite for it, so if 10 News+ isn't working, it could be that there's a problem with the format or a problem with the promotion.
'Ten still have a few levers they can pull: they might go very hard on promotion, which I don't feel they've done yet. They might tweak the format or they may do something really surprising that brings in a whole new crop of viewers.'
Last week, 10 News+ attracted an average audience of 159,000 – its highest figure in three weeks. Although it was thumped by the 6pm bulletins on Seven and Nine, which averaged more than 1.37 million viewers each, it may suggest early signs of recovery.
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Ten's 5pm bulletin continues to draw its biggest audience since 2022, and has grown by 14 per cent compared to last year, giving the network a stronger lead-in to its fledgling program. (Ten's lunchtime, afternoon and late bulletins – all of which serve as cross-promotional platforms – have enjoyed even greater increases.)
On social media, 10 News+ content has racked up 1.2 million views on TikTok, 1.9 million on YouTube and 2.2 million on Instagram. The program is also available on Spotify, in audio and video formats, where it can be streamed ad-free by paid subscribers.
'It's not just a ratings game any more,' says White, referring to the traditional TV metric of live broadcast audiences. 'We've got to be a bit less binary in terms of how we judge success because it's a multi-platform game now – and it does take time to build brand awareness.'
A journalist from a rival network, speaking on the condition of anonymity, insists it's too early to write off 10 News+.