Foxtel secures further $10m funding from Federal Government
Subscription TV operator Foxtel has received a $10m boost from the Federal Government.
The money is intended to support the broadcaster in showcasing women’s, niche and under-represented sports, and takes its total handout from the Government to $40m over six years.
Back in 2018, Foxtel was granted $30m as part of the same initiative.
Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts, Paul Fletcher, has not yet responded to questions from Mumbrella about whether the funding was up for grabs for other broadcasters, and if consideration was given to operators which are more freely available to viewers. Mumbrella also asked Fletcher’s office for a statement on how Foxtel has used the funds so far, and why this funding was a priority when so many media outlets are under pressure and in need of relief.
A statement from the his office, however, said despite COVID-19’s impact on sport, Fox Sports has broadcast more than 4,888 hours of content covered by the media grant over the past year – 1,167 of which was part of a live broadcast, and 3,050 of which was women’s sport. The Government said women’s sports’ coverage had increased by more than 100% since 2016.
Fletcher’s statement also pointed to Foxtel’s credentials in his statement.
“With six dedicated sports channels and a wide range of sports news, Fox Sports has a strong commitment to broadcasting sports and events that may not otherwise receive television coverage,” he said.
Foxtel welcomed the funding, with CEO Patrick Delany saying the Government’s support has never been more important.
Foxtel is the broadcaster with the best capacity for sport, Delany said
“This funding consolidates a long-term program of support for under-represented sport which has been a game-changer for women’s sport in Australia,” he said.
“In a world where sports media is a source of inspiration and excitement for people of every age group, continuing coverage of under-represented sports has a vital role to play in increasing participating at the grassroots level and creating new opportunities for Australia’s incredibly talented female and male athletes.”
Delany said since the program’s inception in 2018, many under-represented athletes, particularly women, have seen their careers flourish, which has also acted as an inspiration to viewers and would-be athletes.
Foxtel must report annually to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications on how it’s using the funding. Throughout the 2019 financial yer, Foxtel said it broadcast more than 5,850 hours of content covered by the finding – 78% more than originally planned. 65% of these hours were coverage of women’s sports. It said 43 sporting competitions had benefitted, and the coverage reached 4.2m Australians.
“With eight 24-hour Fox Sports channels, our Kayo Sports streaming service and Foxsports.com.au, we are uniquely placed to deliver on the policy objectives of the funding,” Delany added. “Only Foxtel has the production capability, channel capacity and OTT and digital platforms to provide thousands of hours of coverage of women’s and under-represented sports.”
UPDATE, 23 July: At 5:32pm on Wednesday, 23 July, a spokesperson from Fletcher’s office responded to Mumbrella’s questions. The questions, and the response, can be seen below.
- Was this funding up for grabs for other broadcasters/ operators? Or was Foxtel the only option?
- What made you prioritise this funding when so many media outlets are under pressure/ in need of relief?
- How do you think Foxtel has performed/ used the funding so far?
- With the COVID-19 pandemic rolling on, why did you decide to focus on live sport, when it could be forced to stop again?
- Not everyone has access to Foxtel, was any consideration given to more freely available broadcasters?
Response:
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Fox Sports is well placed to continue its role as a leading sports broadcaster.
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With eight dedicated sports channels, plus the Kayo Sports streaming service and foxsports.com.au, Fox Sports has a strong commitment to promoting sports and events that may not otherwise receive any media coverage.
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Fox Sports has been successfully delivering the under-represented sports program since it was announced in 2017.
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For the past three years Foxtel has successfully increased television coverage of a range of sports that were not previously broadcast or received only limited coverage:
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there has been an increase of more than 100 per cent since 2016 in the coverage of women’s sports – including AFLW, WNBL and W-League, with more than 3,050 hours broadcast over the last year.
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in 2020-21 fourteen different sport codes will benefit including; AFL, Football (Soccer), Rugby Union, Rugby League, cricket, basketball, hockey, softball and baseball.
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Funding is to be distributed to allow for broadcast coverage of 17 women’s sport competitions, 12 niche sport competitions and 9 emerging sport competitions.
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More sports rorts
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Meanwhile Netflix continues to pay 0.5% tax in Australia and create no local content.
Google it. It’s sad but true.
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Taking from the ABC our National Broadcaster that is free and giving the funds to Foxtel a Private Corporation Providing a Pay for subscription service is neither fair nor equitable.
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$1.0B spent each year (hardly free) from our taxes to fund the ABC to continue to push their left leaning bias and only $40M over 6 years for FOXTEL. Yeah that’s not fair, FOXTEL should receive much more funding.
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So if the government is paying Foxtel it should be free. After all it’s our money, the government actually doesn’t have money of its own.
So Foxtel it’s time to give all people back for what we have given you. When do our cards come.
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Easily confused with a far right govt smothering the voices that try to keep them honest, all while lining the pockets of a corporation that helps push their agenda
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So why can’t the govt use that money to fund underrepresented sports on the ABC which reaches 100% of the population, rather than giving it to Foxtel who reaches less than 30%?
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And in return Murdoch ensures the Liberal Party receives positive coverage.
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What would you expect when Scotty’s boss heads up Foxtel?
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As a taxpayer, at some point you just have to say stop wasting time and money inventing excuses and just get News to send an invoice each month.
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At last count the ABC and SBS received a total of $4BN in Tax Payer Funding. If Foxtel receive a $10M (0.4% of what the ABC and SBS receive) to promote Women’s Sport, in a business that employs thousands of Australians – from technicians installing cables in homes, to creatives producing content, to people working in media/marketing – then I think it’s pretty safe to say that’s a good thing.
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Let’s call this what it is. The biggest PR contract in Australia. This will ensure every LNP politician will gain positive coverage.
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So Foxtel is owned by –
News Corp: 65%
Telstra: 35%
This is terrible – giving tax payers money to two ASX listed companies…. If they want to do extra – get them to go back to their shareholders and raise the money and put a business case forward with ROI….
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We live in a banana republic.
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Everyone complains – but everyone votes for the Coalition.
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Because this – https://www.news.com.au/sport/football/worst-football-coverage-in-the-history-of-australia/news-story/9509e18b0b22f2f88776cfa7bc6376e1
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So over Foxtel its not funny. Their customer service is appalling…..cost structures are outdated and value for money is falling through the floor. but aside from that, they now get given $10M to basically run niche content …on a NICHE subscription channel that has less than 30% national penetration. Is this not the charter of already funded ABC and SBS? Nothing more than a palm grease to buy of favourable PR.
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What a disgrace
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Blatent corruption.
Free money for a pay tv subscription service. Didn’t the movement of Sky news onto the first page of listed channels align with the original 30m grant?
Questions.
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Really…??? So their business models is not profitable.???
And we are cutting back on the ABC.
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“…but everyone votes for the Coalition.” Yeah, nah.
The fact is that neither the Liberal nor National parties would ever get enough votes to win government in their own right without forming a coalition, and between them Labor and The Greens managed to gain 6,235,033 votes to the Coalition’s 5,906,884; the latter just managed to scrape over the line thanks to Clive Palmer’s $60 million bribe and One Nation votes. https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal/2019/results/party-totals
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The question of efficacy of this grant money should be in the volume of people exposed to the womens sports – the purpose isn’t just them being broadcast, it’s getting them more importantly in front of new audiences and audiences that otherwise wouldn’t be able to view them.
has the foxtel grant contributed to a material change in the exposure of these sports? and has this flowed onto other economic benefits (wages, sponsorship) … otherwise it’s just money that covers a few invoices, not an economic contributor.
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ABC should have received this grant. Foxtel, whilst having live stream sports, is a commercial narrow/broadcaster with COMMERCIAL & SHAREHOLDER INTERESTS AT HEART.
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When you pay the boss $10mill you only get press that’s positive.
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Outrageous. From a federal government who have taken porkbarreling to new heights; who have abandoned the concept of ministerial standards……..bring on the election.
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Agree, but at least we’re (taxpayers)not giving millions to Netflix. On this subject, it’d be interesting to know what news/Foxtel pay in taxes……not that much I’d bet.
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I don’t. Never have, never will. Without Palmer’s significant help, the LNP would not have scraped in last election.
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EDG, most people’s Hyperbole Sensor would be working overtime with your unfounded statement
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Don’t suppose there might be a link there?
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No No NO! so wrong. Give the money to SBS and the ABC
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Nowadays Australia does not even bother pretending to be a first world democracy, ditto US and UK, with similar ideological and PR strategies (Good comment Allan D.); kleptocracies like Turkey etc..
Do not view it as the government or state supporting a private media organisation, but the media organisation successfully integrating the government and state into their domain.
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This is an absolute disgrace. What a convenient strategy to use the spin of “women’s, niche and under-represented sports”. Sadly, the Government (and taxpayers money) seems easy to extort. Why on earth you would give a private corporation $40M over six years to prop it up when it’s firstly such an expensive and antiquated business and secondly and more importantly has not proven its business model at any stage of its existence.
This is purely a Government handout for a business that should no longer exist. Makes me sick.
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$10M per year doesn’t cover the cost of broadcasting these women’s sports – Foxtel have to sell advertising and subs and use this money to make to commercially viable.
If the ABC were given this money they could not afford to broadcast it and could not supplement that with revenue streams.
Also – do we want to help support the legitimising of women’s sports leagues or not? Relegating them to second rate coverage on the ABC is not showing them respect or giving them a chance to become a viable commercial entity in the longer term.
A whole lot of you are claiming to be lefties but you are stuck between your desire to support minority groups and your hatred of a right leaning broadcaster. What’s more important? Hating News Corp or supporting women’s sport to become a self-sustaining viable business?
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Thanks Nick, I took your advice and fired up the old google machine. Apologies in advance for the long post.
Netflix does have a bit of work to do in supporting Australian productions, but they do stream a reasonable selection of local content, a lot of which is now also available to foreign audiences. This does help the creative industry, as it offers an extra distribution option for Australian content, that can often struggle to find an audience beyond this home of ours girt by sea.
https://www.finder.com.au/netflix-australian-content
However I must challenge your statement that they create no local content, as Tidelands was co-produced by Netflix. I have the privilege and burden of working in the industry, and there’s gossip aplenty of other productions gaining traction. One that is hopefully starting production here in CoVictoria-19 soon is Clickbait, set in the U.S.A. Though for that to happen with courage let us all combine our effort to wear masks, socially distance, wash our hands, and look after one another.
https://mediaweek.com.au/netflix-hoodlum-tidelands-production-cast/
https://www.gq.com.au/entertainment/film-tv/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-australian-original-drama-series-clickbait/news-story/d3fb1eabed99a22c18a67066450d08a1
I did find out that 1.7% of the Netflix catalogue is Australian content, however out of context that can seem like a small number, or a large number. If we’re to make the assumption that Netflix is in every country, and its content reflects the international demographics, and every localised version of Netflix offers the full catalogue of their global acquisitions, then we’re punching well above our weight in true Aussie fashion, as we are 0.33% of the world’s total population. But that isn’t quite the case, as of course it’s offering is localised in every region. Stan is doing a much better job, with over 10%. Coincidentally for both streamers, most of this content is from the ABC. There’s still no legislation enforcing Netflix, or other SVOD, to have a greater offering or mandated local content quota, but it’s regularly being debated. Europe leads the way in enforcing local production quotas, and we could learn some things from them, if we so choose.
https://apo.org.au/node/264821#:~:text=Australian%20content%20in%20SVOD%20catalogs%3A%20availability%20and%20discoverability%20%2D%202019%20edition,-29%20Oct%202019&text=Stan%20has%20the%20highest%20proportion,the%20Netflix%20catalog%20are%20Australian.
https://www.adnews.com.au/news/analysis-the-streaming-media-platforms-with-the-most-australian-content
It is very tricky for anyone to finance and produce narrative content in Australia, there are many factors at play, but one of the key hindrances specifically to companies like Netflix producing content in Australia has been that many government offsets and production incentives are not available to online streamers. But they are still looking to put down roots in Australia, which I think at least at face value shows their commitment to producing content here.
https://www.if.com.au/election-scuppers-government-plan-to-extend-offsets-to-streamers/
https://theconversation.com/netflix-is-opening-its-first-australian-hq-what-does-this-mean-for-the-local-screen-industry-118903
It is true that Netflix is only paying 0.5% effective tax in Australia, I have not been able to find any information to the contrary.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/netflix-facebook-google-ibm-atlassian-tech-tax-australia-2019-10#:~:text=It's%20been%20revealed%20that%20Netflix,charged%20by%20its%20Dutch%20subsidiary.
But the googling got away from me I must say Nick, as you unleashed my inquisitive nature this morning beneath our radiant Southern Cross. It appears that Netflix could learn a thing or two about getting that 0.5% even lower from Foxtel. As one of the articles posits, News Corp, which as you know owns Foxtel, “still paying zero tax”. I wish I had their accountants, but my delicate sensibility gives me anxiety when I think about claiming a parking ticket in the city as a business expense, as opposed to a trip to have some of my favourite Black Ramen. Part of the problem seems to be how corporate tax works, but I’m no economist, I hear trickle down economics works, maybe I need to clean my gutters to get it flowing.
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/foxtel-cable-television-pty-limited-2019/
https://www.channelnews.com.au/foxtel-lists-among-ato-tax-avoiders/
https://www.afr.com/rear-window/is-news-corp-still-paying-zero-tax-20190509-p51lqe
After all this googling I feel like I have a new perspective on this latest funding that Scotty has handed over to Foxtel, and I hit the cancel subscription button on my account. Thank you Nick for helping me make that decision, and reminding me to google it.
The only thing lost in all this is the fact that women’s sport deserves more funding, much much much much more. I would like to suggest a great podcast episode about women’s soccer specifically, and the case for reparations, hopefully we can find a better way of supporting women’s sport in the future.
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/reparations-part-1/
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