Free TV channels set to lose sports rights when they won’t show them live
The government has reportedly decided that free to air stations will no longer be able to keep the rights to sporting events they do not broadcast live.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald’s chief political correspondent Phillip Coorey, the decision was taken by media minister Stephen Conroy several months ago, but was parked until after the election. Coorey reports:
“They are awaiting sign-off by the cabinet and will be enacted by regulation before December 31, when the current anti-siphoning list expires.”
At present the rights to a long list of sporting events cannot be sold to subscription television, even if the free to air channels do not show it, or show only highlights or delayed coverage.
The intention of the legislation is to protect the public from having to pay a subscription in order to watch big sporting events. However, in many cases it has meant that live coverage has simply been unavailable.
The new “use it or lose it” rules would allow the free-to-airs to run sport on their digital channels, which is not currently allowed by the anti-siphoning legislation which was drawn up before the dawn of multichannelling.
One of the reasons the Ten Network launched its relatively low rating channel One was in anticipation of such a rule change.
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As an AFL fan living in Sydney, i’m excited at the prospect of actually seeing live games. Not one game of the finals series this year has been shown live – possibly with the exception of the Swans prelim, and even then (from memory) there was a 30 minute delay.
And most games – if they were shown on Seven at all, started after 3 hours of Scrubs repeats.
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I REALLY hope this goes through. The experience of watching sport is completely ruined by tonnes of advertising during delayed games (Channel 9 Sunday NRL coverage I am looking at you).
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Wow that’s great news, lucky 10 has oneHD in place to do this…… but wait, they still managed to delay AFL finals by 90 minutes in Brisbane on a channel dedicated to live sport! I hope this drives the message home to the FTA networks, DELAYED TELECASTS SUCK!
If people overseas can see these games live (which they can and do) then surely the least the local stations can do it too….. all commercial channels now have multiple channels…. and I’m pretty confident there won’t be huge backlash from the “I Dream Of Jeannie” fraternity if they miss a couple of 40 year old episodes…..
It’s about time the TV watching public were treated with respect!
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Isn’t part of the reason for the delay to encourage people to get out of their armchairs and actually attend a game?
A foreign concept for a lot of Aussie sports fans, I know.
For ‘out of town’ games, then fair enough.
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“Isn’t part of the reason for the delay to encourage people to get out of their armchairs and actually attend a game? A foreign concept for a lot of Aussie sports fans, I know.”
That’s a bit harsh Blue! With a nickname like that I would have thought you were a true BLUE Aussie. Obviously not.
Have a bit of compassion for us AFL fans stuck in limbo – ie NRL territory. I had to hear about my beloved Bulldogs bowing out of the finlas via Facebook because FTA in NSW won’t televise the game live! Oh, unless the Swans are playing…
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The AFL has been on so late that I’ve watched the first half and then gone online to see the result. And the AFL reckon another franchise will work in Sydney – well, no it wont until they at least start respecting the fans/viewers. They should lay the law down with the networks. Seven is worse than Ten, but they’re both fairly hopeless.
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@Loz…
See my post where I said “For ‘out of town’ games, then fair enough”
In the UK they have no live games on at all at 3pm Saturday (the time when most lower leagues and traditional top-league soccer games kick-off), in order to protect the real match-attending fans, and the lower league clubs.
Personally, anything that encourages people to get to the games is fine by me – if it means avoiding Facebook for a couple of hours in order to watch it as live, well so be it.
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Blue.
My main issue with your comment was that it indicated Aussie sports fans are all watching from the couch, not the sideline. I wouldn’t dare question a Pom’s knowledge of, or indeed prowess, in the sporting arena…
As a long standing member of my football club I’m the first to encourage attendance at the game. But spare a thought for us AFL lovers living in NRL territory, who have to put up with Sydneysiders yelling “offside” instead of “ball” at the rare decent game we manage to get at the SCG.
PS – nice quip about Facebook. You are obviously far too busy out there kicking a ball to be caught online.
Hold on…
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What this unfortunately means is that the rights will go to FOXTEL – Kim Williams will be having a party
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Use it or lose it networks – seems fair enough to me.
And I have no idea why anyone would bother to argue over delayed coverage of an AFL match – delayed permanently would still not be long enough.
Silly, silly game.
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Loz. If they were yelling “offside” I suspect that you wandered into the SFS and not the SCG and were watching NRL and didn’t know any better. Oh, of course, anyone brought up in Sydney doesn’t know the rules of our indigenous game – I forgot.
And as for ‘rare decent game we manage to get at the SCG’, that is just laughable. Having been to over 200 AFL games at the SCG I can name many classics played there – and I can’t recall anyone yelling ‘offside’ though I suspect that back in the early ’80s there were some newbies who weren’t conversant.
But, I suppose you do have a balanced view though – with that chip on both shoulders.
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Live sport is a luxury most stations can’t afford. But I will take as live. Allowing the stations to play a commercial. And when we come back from the break the action resumes where we left. That way we lose maybe a couple of minutes a half and have less of wait between halves. But still miss no action.
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John. Who took the jam out of your doughnut? You’re not even reading my posts propoerly.
I’m not from Sydney, I come from AFL haertland. I even did my high school major project on EJ Whitten for God sake!! Mr Football himself.
I’m not even sure why we’re arguing, we’re clearly in agreement that AFL is the best game in the world and it should be shown on FTA TV.
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Yeah that is totally fair enough and they have the most money to pay for the coverage anyway!
Well done channel 10 for thinking ahead of the game.
It is unfair that we should have to pay for cable when we don’t even need it.
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While they’re at it lets hope they also look into that other underhanded trick where “live” coverage will slip further and further into tape delay as the game progresses so the broadcaster can screen more commercials. Channel 7’s rugby coverage – I’m looking at you…
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1…The stations need to pay the over paid football stars wages. Hence the commercials. So “as if live/tape delay” is the way they will have to go. Or more of the in programme sponsorship messages like the NFL in the USA. No one really wants 2 minutes of sponsors messages within programme do they??
2… AFL is not a big sport in Sydney or Brisbane despite recent premierships. The brownlow medal almost hit 1 million viewers but only 19,000 and 12,000 in Sydney and Brisbane. So do you revert to live only in the states outside of home play so that you don’t adversely effect crowds for AFL?? No such problems with NRL as less than the 29,000 that watched the Brownlow turned up for the Elimination final on Saturday!! You may as well up the revenue from the stations and play on local grounds if the turn up crowds keep diminishing for the NRL!!
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Channel 7 and 9 there broadcast of afl and league has been appalling over the years just treating the sporting fan with contempt.I hope both the AFL and NRL TAKE THIS INTO ACCOUNT WHEN THE BROADCAST RIGHTS ARE UP.are we going to be continually not taken into consideration .We demand to see the games and sport LIVE and if you cannot or will not show it live then you loose it….
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@chuckster re the 2nd AFL franchise in Syd – my thoughts exactly. How are they supposed to rally support for another team when they don’t even show the games live?
As for the Brownlow count, the reason the numbers were so low in Sydney was that it was only shown on One. Channel 10 instead decided to run with a show about planes crashing.
And comparing UK soccer broadcasting to Aussie AFL broadcasting really can’t be done. Most people don’t live near an AFL ground – and if they do, and they’re outside of Melbourne, you’re going to only have a game to go see every other weekend.
As a Crows supporter living in Sydney, I’ve only seen two crows matches broadcast in the past 2 years – and one of those was when I was in SA anyway!
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In NZ all the sport is on SKY TV. So 57% of households have SKY. The Rugby is bigger than any single sport here in Aust. And all the All Black Matches and most of Cricket and even some of the NRL are only available via subscription. If Fox Tel gets the sport content everyone will have to pay regardless. You will still see ads even then. The advertising industry will demand opportunity to advertise product to sports fans. Foxtel will need to get revenue outside and above subscription to pay for the rights to NRL, AFL and Cricket. And those of you who don’t like sport and don’t really care will. Because your entertainment packages on foxtel will have to go up to subsidise the cost of sport rights.
Keep the sport free to air and as delayed as needs be so that someone else pays for me to see my odd shaped balls for free.
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I certainly hope that this is an action that is followed through on, but they (the networks) still need to retain the right to make commercial decisions for interstate matches (for the NRL/AFL coverage.)
Resisting the urge to follow some previous bloggers lures into the ‘NRL vs AFL is better’ argument, the FTA networks still have advertising revenue and their clients to consider when it comes to being forced to cover all contracted sport live. I respect that there are AFL followers in NSW/QLD who get frustrated at the lack of coverage and vice versa in Vic and other states for NRL, but look at the viewing numbers. A hypothetical – If you were an advertiser, would you want to be charged top dollar for a 30-sec slot in the Brownlow count, shown live into Sydney homes on a Monday night? Not unless you were comfortable burning money, as this show would be seen by the vast majority of Sydneysiders as the television equivalent of root canal. As a network, would you want to be forced to show a 4 hour coverage, knowing that it would be ratings suicide for that night? Again it answers itself.
Whilst it would be lovely if every show was shown exactly when we wanted it, viewer ratings and the subsequent advertising flow-on will most always determine programming schedules on FTA. An idea moving forward is removing the gray area that exists where networks ‘delay’ coverage by 30 mins/1 hour. Not enough to encourage the game attendance that the leagues also want, but enough to piss off the viewing public with ad breaks and the big chance that the live score will revealed via another means.
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@Paula
There are other teams than the Crows you know – in the UK the blackouts are not to protect the Premier League football attendances (healthy enough!) but to encourage people to go and attend local sides games – most people will have an EPL side, and a local team to go and watch.
More and more I think sports teams realise that TV viewers want to watch games that have a full house of live spectators, compare watching on TV (or attending) a Sunday afternoon blockbuster at a packed Leichhardt or the MCG with a 3/4 empty ANZ or Football Park.
Live spectators are like paying extras to the main show – you need to keep them happy (and noisy) if you want the TV coverage to be good.
There’s plenty of AFL around if you know where to look – just head down your local oval (even in Sydney) where the team will appreciate the $5 you chuck their way in the raffle, then get back home and watch your overpaid superstars on TV.
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