Seven Network will engage a digital-first strategy in 2025 with its international TV shows including the much-anticipated legal drama Suits LA
Suits LA is a spin-off from Suits, the 2011 series which ran for nine seasons and launched Meghan Markle’s acting career, and it will exclusively premiere on 7plus early next year before it is broadcast on linear TV.
Suits LA was commissioned by American network NBC after the runaway success of the original series on US streaming platforms in 2023 when it set a new record of 57.7 billion minutes watched, according to Nielsen.
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The series will star Arrow actor Stephen Amell as Ted Black, a high-flying lawyer in Los Angeles. One of the show’s stars, Lex Scott Davis, has previously teased that cameos from the cast of the original series are “not impossible”.
The release strategy for Suits LA forms part of what Seven is calling a “bonfires and fireworks” approach to its streaming platform, a strategy it admits it has borrowed from Netflix. It is underpinned by 7plus’s library titles including The Rookie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Americans and Law & Order, the bonfire part, mixed in with spikes from buzzy premieres every month, the fireworks aspect.
The network has committed to releasing at least one new exclusive international title every month on 7plus in 2025.
These also include Grosse Pointe Garden Society, a murder mystery about a group of people in a garden club which has Desperate Housewives and Why Women Kill vibes, plus the upcoming medical procedural Doc and comedy St Denis Medical, starring Fargo’s Allison Tolman and Australian Josh Lawson.
Gereurd Roberts, group managing director of Seven Digital, told The Nightly that the network saw growth in new viewers when it pushed the full season of Mr Bates vs The Post Office to 7plus earlier this year.
“Those trials gave us the confidence in the strategy and that 7plus approach, particularly when it came to first-run exclusives which can actually drive new audiences,” he said. “And younger audiences will come to the platform to find great content.”
According to figures provided by Seven, 45 per cent of 7plus audiences watch programming that is only available on streaming and not on broadcast, and 74 per cent of those viewers are between 18 and 54 years old. Daily active users are up 20 per cent year-on-year.
Roberts added, “The business is absolutely about maximising the audience across every platform. The most amazing thing we’ve found with 7plus — and we’ve always been of this view and all the data supports it — is that the audiences that come to it are complementary to broadcast.
“They are not cannibalising broadcast, they’re additive, not instead of, and they are generally younger consumers who are coming in at different times for different reasons to watch different things.”
Angus Ross, group managing director of Seven Television, said he gets frustrated by the discourse that television audiences are down. “It’s just not true, our (broadcast) ratings have now plateaued and the digital numbers continue to grow,” he said.
Ross said the business was working to change the perception that 7plus was a catch-up service. “We have done a good enough job of marketing the library that sits there,” he said. “Obviously this 7plus-first approach is a real shift to alert people to that premium video content that we’ll be dropping each month.
With the addition of live sport on streaming next year, Ross said he expected 7plus will leapfrog Nine and ABC to become the dominant free-to-air streaming platform in 2025.
The 7plus strategy was part of its upfronts presentation, showcasing its 2025 programming which included a new unscripted commission called Once in a Lifetime, which will feature Dr. Chris Brown on a series of wildlife travels around the world with Australian personalities including Kate Ritchie, Amanda Keller and Mick Molloy.
There is also Stranded on Honeymoon Island, a reality series that blends survival and dating, a Jimmy Barnes documentary called Working Class Man, and a Jim Jefferies stand-up special.
Returning series include Farmer Wants a Wife, Australian Idol, My Kitchen Rules, The Voice, Dancing with the Stars, The 1% Club, Better Homes and Gardens, The Great Outdoors, The Hunters, Highway Patrol and The Chase Australia.