Ten chief executive Paul Anderson and his management team now report to Mr Nunez. The American executive said Ten doesn't have "to deal with board issues" and conversations between the teams are focused on two simple, but fundamental, concepts.

Different genres

"The creation of content in the variety of different genres that exist and the execution and monetisation of that content. I don't mean to oversimplify the process, there's a lot more that goes into that, but ultimately that's what this business is about," Mr Nunez said.

"Even since just four months ago since the CBS deal, we have had some significant moves in terms of commissioning Australian programming. Even though bringing Lisa over happened prior to the formal closing of the acquisition, having an incredible talent like Lisa Wilkinson coming over to join Ten, again was another indication of our investment in this market."

Mr Anderson said the first big change under CBS' ownership had been providing financial stability to allow the network to commission the largest number of new domestic shows it has ever done in one year.

Long-time partners: Armando Nunez, right, says CBS' existing relationship with Ten has made for a smooth transition. Louie Douvis

"Our businesses are actually very similar. What we had done, over the period that this had evolved, was commission a whole bunch of domestic shows, which is what works in this market. That's probably been the single biggest change, but that hasn't been purely just because CBS is involved," Mr Anderson said.

Without an output agreement with 21st Century Fox – Ten retains its output deal with CBS – the broadcaster has put that money into more domestic content, Mr Anderson said.


"Including pilot week this year, we've got 13 new domestic shows, which is probably the most domestic shows we've ever commissioned in one year," he said.

Eight new domestic shows were announced at Ten's upfronts and five more will form part of the network's "pilot week" – where various new shows will run on air during one week before Ten decides what it will push ahead with. Pilot week allows networks to test a show before committing to a full season of production.

"It's not like we're going to acquire this and it's going to be a bunch of Americans telling a bunch of Australians how to do things. It's really a two way street." Louie Douvis

Ten has, for many years, struggled being Australia's No.3 free-to-air broadcaster in a shrinking market and had relied on financial backing from its trio of loan guarantors Lachlan Murdoch, Bruce Gordon and James Packer, who withdrew their support.

Big challenges

CBS finalised its acquisition of Ten in November for a cash value of around $213 million.

"One of the benefits of Ten now being part of CBS, I think Ten previously was just too small of a company to be a public company and all the burdens associated with running an Australian public company, and the board structure and everything else, I think that has streamlined the management process," Mr Nunez said.

The challenges facing Ten are not small. As the smallest commercial metropolitan broadcaster every revenue share point makes a real difference to the company's bottom line and its new parent is unlikely to want to prop it up. It will have to stand on its own two feet. In the mid 2000s, Ten, despite Nine and Seven having the greatest share of revenue, was one of the most profitable television businesses in the country, thanks to a low-cost model and an understanding of its young audience.


But CBS' deep pockets and industry know-how give Ten support like it has never had before. CBS, for its part, understands the challenges and will keep Ten's domestic content focus.

"It's not like we're going to acquire this and it's going to be a bunch of Americans telling a bunch of Australians how to do things. It's really a two-way street," Mr Nunez said.

"From a market perspective, a little bit perhaps internally as well, there was this kind of expectation that from one day to the next after CBS acquired Ten that the ratings were going to double overnight and all of a sudden there was going to be a new programming team and a new news team and so on and so forth. Obviously there are no plans to do that, we have all the confidence in the world in Paul and his management team, they're a terrific team."

Mr Nunez and Mr Anderson both argue CBS' All Access subscription streaming service will play an important role in Australia, even though many of the rights for existing content have already been sold, and the service will expand globally.

Evolution of content

"You're not going to flip a switch and just have all the content that the corporation creates on one platform from one day to the next. There's going to be evolution of content availabilities, there's going to be evolution in terms of the type of content we're going to create, we are creating original content for our All Access platform in the US, some of that content has already been monetised, like the Star Trek franchise through Netflix," Mr Nunez said.

"But, we have a very ambitious slate of development of All Access programming, and I think the corporation creates enough content across a number of different genres to fill multiple pipelines."

CBS will be strategic about what content it decides to put behind a paywall, what it will keep free and what platforms it will go on, be it All Access, catch-up service Tenplay or Ten's linear channels. CBS also has an existing contract for its Showtime content with local streaming service Stan, which is 50-50 owned by Nine and Fairfax Media, publisher of the Financial Review.


"Stan have been great partners of ours, they continue to be great partners of ours," Mr Nunez said. "That contractual relationship goes on for a number of years. We'll see where we stand at the end of that arrangement and make a strategic decision about whether we continue to monetise. It's all about the monetisation and utilisation of our content, so do we monetise and utilise the content continuing through a third-party platform or through our own, and at this point, we haven't even launched our service, so it's premature at this point to say what's going to happen to that arrangement."

Asked whether CBS would consider buying into Stan, via cash or content for equity, Mr Nunez didn't rule anything out.

"We're getting our hands around what we bought with Ten right now. Again, the guys at Stan are great partners of ours, we think they've done a great job of building up that service, but I'm not sure I could opine about whether we could pick up a piece or invest in that platform at this point."

CBS' acquisition of Ten was a drawn-out process thanks to legal attempts by underbidder Mr Gordon, backed by his partner Mr Murdoch. Sources said CBS, including chairman and chief executive Leslie Moonves, had wanted to play a part in Ten's upfronts, where it showed off its new programming to advertisers, but the court did not rule on the acquisition until the day after.

"You grow a bit impatient, but you have to be respectful of the process and trust that the process is going to work out well in the end. We had very good advice and counsel, and in the end it all worked out very very well. Would we have liked to have seen it happen faster and be expedited? Sure, but again we were incredibly respectful of the process."

Ten and WIN, which is owned by Mr Gordon, are affiliate partners and the relationship between the two broadcasters remains strong, despite Mr Gordon and Mr Murdoch losing out to CBS – WIN has many of its advertiser sales staff in Ten offices across Australia.

"I think WIN is a big beneficiary out of CBS' acquisition of Ten. We're looking to grow Ten, we're looking to evolve Ten, we're looking to see Ten be successful in every way possible, which means it's a good thing for WIN," Mr Nunez said.

Cricket broadcast rights


Meanwhile, News Corp, of which Mr Murdoch is co-chair, may yet work with Ten on cricket broadcast rights, via its subscription broadcaster Foxtel.

Mr Nunez has known Mr Gordon for more than 30 years, having worked with the WIN owner as a young executive at Viacom. In the early 90s, Mr Gordon was president of Paramount International Television when it was acquired by Viacom, and Mr Nunez, as executive vice-president of Viacom International Television was tasked, along with Mr Gordon, of integrating the two businesses.

Mr Nunez confirmed CBS had spoken with the Murdoch-Gordon consortium before making a bid, as well as working closely with US hedge funds Anchorage Capital Group and Oaktree Capital Management.

"There was a meeting that took place with our chairman, with Leslie, and when we were looking at the variety of different options that we had we made the decision and said 'look, it really makes sense, both from a financial point of view, from a strategic point of view and from a growth point of view, to move forward and make the attempt to acquire the asset," he said.

"The pace of change is fast and to get faster every quarter that goes by it seems. But we feel so fortunate to be able to have acquired an asset like this, it's a unique opportunity. How many times does an opportunity like this really come up?"