By Philip Wakefield

MediaWorks surprised media and ad agencies in Wellington this morning when it revealed TV3 and C4 would be targeting older demographics next year.

TV3 will seek to seize the 25-54 year-olds mantle from a struggling TV One while C4, which will be rebranded FOUR, is to become a big-gun entertainment channel with its sights fixed on 18-49 year-olds.

The broadcaster clearly sees that the opportunity is ripe for TV3 to usurp the older-skewing TVNZ channel as the country’s 25-54 flagship – and will use FOUR to pick off the 18-49 year-olds that have hitherto tuned into its sister channel and TV2.

There'll be high hopes that new South Pacific Pictures comedy/drama series The Almighty Johnsons – which concerns a fraternal group of Norse gods who find themselves in diminished circumstances in 21st century NZ –  will work the same kind of magic for TV3 as did Outrageous Fortune. Thus far the portents are good that it will: it shares many of the team with the Westie hit, including creators/writers Rachel Laing and James Griffin and producer Simon Bennett.

 

Given how TV3’s audience has aged with the channel, and how many of its series rate higher with 25-54 year-olds than 18-49ers, skewing older seems a sensible strategy.

It also belatedly recognises that baby boomer buying power is continuing well into middle-age and signals that the days of networks not targeting anyone over 40 are all but gone.

Men over 50 in particular have been neglected by TV One’s younger, female-skewed programming. So expect TV3 to capitalise on the car, bank and insurance advertising that no longer finds TV One cost-effective.

At the same time, the refocus will give FOUR scope to grow beyond the notoriously fickle 18-39 demo and earmark the more stable – and lucrative – 18-49 market (FOUR will court this audience from early 2011, while TV3’s new focus will evolve longer term).

The other factor in the MediaWorks revamp is the influence of Jason Paris as the new chief executive of TV3 and C4.

Previously TVNZ’s head of digital media and marketing, he would have been privy to much of the state broadcaster’s long-term planning – and is likely to have driven these changes with a clear idea of TVNZ’s blueprint for the future.

“This is a decision about where the biggest audience opportunity exists,” he says.

“FOUR will be a channel that appeals to anyone looking for great entertainment. Everything the channel does will be for the sake of entertainment. No news, sport or information, just pure escapism.

“Our research indicates there is a massive appeal for this broad, entertaining content, especially at a time when there are economic challenges that mean the easy escapism of television is even more compelling for people.

“We have done some careful analysis of how our combined two channels can attract the strongest audiences, and it has become clear that these two target audiences are where the biggest audience potential lies.

“It’s no surprise this is also where the largest revenue opportunities lie for us as a business. Advertisers want to be where the most appealing audiences are.

“We intend to deliver those audiences in strong numbers to our clients, across both channels.”

Several TV3 staples will be used to drive FOUR viewership, including The Simpsons, America’s Next Top Model and Top Chef, while among the acquisitions that will premiere on the channel are: The Good Guys (old cop-young cop comedy), Covert Affairs (action-adventure about a CIA trainee), Community (comedy about a scheming lawyer has to go back to school), and The Gates (drama about a new police chief whose beat includes vampires, werewolves and witches).

New to TV3 will be updates of ’60s crime dramas Hawaii Five-O and The Defenders; the ad media half-hour The Gruen Transfer, which has been on Comedy Central; and Kiwi commissions The Almighty Johnsons (from South Pacific Pictures), NZ’s Hottest Home Baker (from Eyeworks), and Bigger, Better, Faster, Stronger (from thedownlowconcept), in which James Coleman and Greg Page deconstruct and remodel household items – a la new media company CEOs and their TV channels.

James Coleman prepares to get Bigger, Better, Faster, Stronger in the new series from thedownlowconcept, the team behind TV3's 7 Days and the 48HOURS and Qantas Award winning short Only Son (watch it here: http://www.v48hours.co.nz/screening-room/2010/auckland/only-son/).

• See also Philip Wakefield's additional coverage of the implications of the new MediaWorks strategy over at his ScreenScribe blog: http://www.screenscribe.tv/hdtv/say-it-aint-so-homer-doh/