A reinvigorated Ten Network is aiming to boost its share of Australia's hotly contested TV market and change its long-standing status as the number three player, CEO Paul Anderson says.
Two weeks on from the finalisation of US media giant CBS's takeover of the embattled broadcaster, the Ten boss says the deep-pocketed new owner won't have any short-term effect on how things are done but the company's long-term goal is to improve from its third-place position behind Seven and Nine.
"Our ambition is clearly to increase our market share and the way you do that is by increasing your audience share," Mr Anderson told AAP.
He said Ten has over the past two years invested in content that has improved ratings and stabilised revenue share.
The challenge will be getting the balance right between the amount of money the network puts into content and how much it gives back in return, he said.
"That is a challenge for all the free-to-air players in this market: to produce cost-effective content that audiences want to watch," Mr Anderson said.
"It is an easy thing to say but a much harder thing to do."
Morningstar senior equity analyst Brian Han on Tuesday said Nine will not be able to sustain its "stellar" 39 per cent share of market revenue, amid Seven's committed ratings leadership and the return of a rejuvenated Ten.
He predicted Seven and Nine will each attract 37.5 per cent of market revenue, while Ten will settle at 25 per cent under the ownership of CBS.
Ten slipped into administration after the billionaire shareholders Lachlan Murdoch and Bruce Gordon, along with fellow shareholder James Packer, refused to back a new finance package following the expiry of a $200 million debt facility.
But Mr Anderson said the CBS deal has since restored confidence in the network with a healthy balance sheet now supporting Ten to move forward and grow its business.
Ten will focus on its "unique" audience of younger viewers - following the success of shows such as The Bachelorette and The Project- and will test-run eight new shows set to hit TV screens next year, Mr Anderson said.
"I think we have been very up front to say that we are different to the other two commercial networks here," he said.
"It is a space that we sense we can own to a certain extent."
Ten will also piggyback off CBS's streaming service All Access - which gives subscribers on-demand access to more than 9,000 episodes of current and past shows including NCIS, 2 Broke Girls and Madam Secretary - when it launches in Australia.
Mr Anderson said the details of how All Access will mesh with Ten's current digital assets, including the TenPlay catchup service, are still to be determined but he believes the service will help combat competition from streaming services such as Netflix and Stan.
