Upfront season is back and AFFINITY’s Sue Cant was amongst a handful of media agency names interviewed by AdNews for their response to the strong “curated” content schedule of Paramount’s 2023 Upfront.
Paramount Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) revealed a wealth of new and returning content to hit 10's screens at the end of this year and throughout next year. New content included property Location, Location, Location, cooking with Dessert Master, comedy with Taskmaster and cute with Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly.
Here’s what Sue had to say: "The announcement of the launch of Pluto TV here in Australia is an interesting one for marketers. If the opportunity is to boost local programming by lifting channels from the global ad-supported services and complement Paramount+, isn’t it ‘just another streaming service’ and do we really need it? There’s no doubt the audience is there for it, but it will be interesting to observe the fragmentation it might cause after the success of Paramount+ in 2022 and also 10play in the future – hopefully there’s room for them all, but I’m not so sure.
"The launch of an Australian-first partnership with Twitter of The Checkout, sees Paramount coming into the ecommerce ‘shopability’ fold. Audiences can now transact on the platform and purchase products and merchandise from shows like Masterchef. This gives another avenue for advertisers wanting to get product directly into their audience’s hands, but I’m keen to understand further the measurement around this and what the take up would be, given uptake has been relatively slow so far across competitive ecommerce options to date.
"A strong Upfront from Paramount, once again cementing they’re the heartland for Entertainment for the under 50s. Bringing back their winning formula programming such as Masterchef, I’m a Celebrity, Have You Been Paying Attention and Gogglebox as well as returning the Hunted fresh from its amazing launch season this year. Some great new additions with the Masterchef spin-off, ‘Dessert Masters’, The Challenge Australia (think Survivor, with Athletes and Olympians vs MAFS bride and make-up artists!), and lots of Aussie homegrown dramas. Being a crime/thriller fan, I’m especially keen to see the new ‘North Shore’ series. And being a Brit, looking forward to the Australian version of the UK hit, Taskmaster coming to the screens.
"I’m not completely convinced with the evolution of The Bachelor. In 2023 we’ll have The Bachelors – yes three Bachelors vying to find their ‘one’, three sets of drama, drama, drama! And the other spin on this?... all three will also start with an Engagement ring too, hoping to have their proposal accepted by their chosen lucky lady at the end. Hmmm, feels a little like it should be followed by a “Married-a-bachelor-after-several-sights-MAFS-esque” program to me – but then this is why I don’t work on programming production! Happy to be proven wrong on this one.
"For agencies and marketers looking for breadth of great content, production and entertainment in key primetime, across multi platforms for the under 50s, then it has to be the ‘mountainous’ Paramount!"
If you’d like further information on the latest from our media partners, or would like to discuss how AFFINITY can help deliver amazing outcomes through Media, please get in touch via sue.c@affinity.ad
